So, we're off to Kep.  Bus travel here is very cheap, the trip will take 5 hours and cost just $8.  Once we've been on the bus for 5 minutes we understand why. The road is pretty much a dust bowl with a new lane under construction for maybe 25 miles.  The hugely deep footings are being filled with rubble, families sit, despondent outside their stores, cut off from the road by a 6 foot deep chasm, their goods coated in an inch thick layer of dust.  The bus appears to have no suspension, and a group of women get on and sit behind us with Durian (stink fruit) which as they eat, fills the bus with a ghastly stench.

As we leave Phnom Penh behind, rural Cambodia starts to look quite beautiful, field dotted with "Khmer tractors" or bullock carts, bullock ploughs and just plain bullocks.

Kep, when we arrive is wonderfully sleepy compared to the city.  It's famous here for having a particulare type of seaweed which feeds the Blue crab.  The crabs are here in extraordinary numbers and the seaweed makes the crab meat incredibly sweet.  A whole line of crab shacks work here with huge stocks of live crab which they cook to your order.  This is all helped by Keps' proximity to Kampot which is just a few miles away.  Kampot is famous for it's pepper farms.  The favourite here is blue crab stir fried with strings of fresh green pepper corns.  It's an almost religious experience!  The crab is indeed amazingly tasty, the pepper corns soft, fragrant and burst in the mouth with a wonderfully flowery flavour.

Our hotel has a fantastic pool where we spend a day just chilling with a bottle of bubbly to celebrate my birthday before heading to the sailing club for dinner.  The sailing club is a beautiful venue with a restaurant deck built out over the ocean and an un hindered view of magnificent sunsets.  We enjoy a cocktail or two with a "swiss banker" Bernard, who's an entertaining and informative companion, before a lovely dinner of shrimp and satays.

Kep also has a very beautiful national park consisting of one of the few areas of rain forest you can enjoy without the risk of landmines.  Nevertheless, we stick firmly to the footpath! and get rewarded with some amazing views as we wind up through the hills.  Looking across the tops of the rain forest to the ocean the odd temple roof glistens in the sun.  In the distance we can make out  the salt flats where folk work in ridiculously difficult conditions.  The salt is blindingly white, the heat reflecting off of the salt makse it amazingly hot, and the work is heavy, shovelling salt into shallows so the water can continue to evaporate. A family of monkeys swing down through the trees to have a screech at us before leaping away into the rain forest canopy, carefree, you can't help thinking that while they may not have the internal combustion engine but monkeys seem to have it about right.

Just off the coast here lies Rabbit island and we hire boat for $25 which we split with a couple of Danish guys.  The longtail boat is the usual dice with death by drowning to get into.  Half an hour later we need to jump off into the surf of the island.  There a a couple of wonderfully secluded beaches along with the fairly lively main stretch.  We enjoy a light lunch under some bamboo restaurants and bars which are shaded by some beautiful trees with a gentle breeze.  We then Lay in the afternoon sun and drift off to sleep with little other than the sound of surf lapping the beach is a great experience. After clambering back into our beached longtail we're ferried back to the mainland, into a tuk tuk and back to the crab shacks for another plate of amazing blue crab and kampot pepper at the Holy Crab restaurant.

The plan next is to return to phnom penh for a night before another bus to Battambang.  After our last experience we've chosen small "VIP" (it says here) bus.  Basically it's a minivan, complete with huge cracks across the windscreen and we're crammed in with 12 others and all our baggage for a pretty hair-raising trip back to the city. We spend half the trip on the wrong side of the road barrelling through dust which reduces visibility to about a 100 meters, the driver is utterly alien to the brake pedal relying instead on continuous pressure on the horn for safety.

Getting to Phnom Penh is the easy bit, getting through the city traffic is a whole other deal.  You have to see it to believe it to be honest.  The concept of "giving way" is entirely unknown, basically, any inch left between vehicles is filled by mopeds travelling in  any direction on either side of the road.  It pretty much ensutres a constant state of gridlock.

When we finally get to the bus station we're enveloped in a crowd of tuk tuk mafia.  These guys can get quite antagonistic as they try to grab your luggage and pile it into their vehicle to virtually hold you ransome for a fare.  We let them cart our luggage about and then tell them our hotel has sent a tuk tuk thank you.  Actually we've just used the grab app.  It gets a little "testy" as we pile our stuff into the vehicle, the drivers here aren't happy with Grab, it shows you your route, so no opportunity for the driver to get "lost" and rack up a bill or take you to their cousins hotel instead, it also shows your fare, so no starting in at $9 for what should be a $1.5 ride.  They could respond by getting honest but choose instead to intimidate and bluster.  Sad really they seem ok once you talk to them for a while but can come across as very arsy.

In Phnom Penh we've bagged a night in the Penh house and jungle addition where we stayed last time we were here.  It's a fantastic place and the roof top pool is stunning and relaxing after what turned out to be a 6 hour trip back (advertised as 3!).  We are greeted with huge welcome back smiles and one of the girls bursts in to singing happy birthday to me, very sweet. In the evening we head back to the Freebird bar for comfort food, some cool blues music and unfeasibly good wine and stupid prices.

An early start sees us on a "Big bus" to Battambang for another 7 hours.  We're waved off by the staff at the Penh house who were delighted we thought to come back and stay with them.  We've had a beautiful room overlooking the temple district  with a monk "quarters house" next door from where the wonderful chanting has eased us to sleep, and we get some sunrise pictures as the dawn sets the guilded rooftops alight. We tuk tuk through the ridiculous early morning traffic, in stupid heat as the city starts to envelop itself in dust and deisel for the day. 

The bus station is manic! barely organised chaos as people with every imaginable type of burden or cargo try to make their way through the ticketing process and then to the correct bus from a rank of a dozen or so all of which are ticking over, getting the aircon working, drawing breath for the marathon to come.

The trip today is loooooong!  The ticket booth issues us with a small bottle of water each and a wet wipe and we bundle into the bus having stowed our gear below decks.  The driver today will cover at least a 7 hour trip with two 15 minute breaks.  Often they do the return journey as well starting 30 minutes after arrival.  To do these drives the drivers are often reliant on a cocktail of uppers and caffine.  The trip today is by no means the longest, we could go all the way to bangkok!!  It's sometimes advisable to sit where you can see the driver in his rearview to check he's not nodding, you are sometimes rewarded by someone clearly "Speeding" eyes like saucers, there but not there, not the most comfortable of trips!

Our guy today looks pretty good and in control and to be honest all is OK until the first stop, we we pull into a roadside food court for a pee break and to get something to eat.  There's a snack here which is a great favourite.  I find it as I approach an ice cream chest freezer.  It advertises Magnums, and other walls ice cream delicacies but all it contains is an egg tray containing two dozen duck eggs, the top of each egg shell has been removed and just inside you can see the crown of a fully formed chick.  The chicks have been killed by the removal of the top of the egg.  The eggs are threaded 3 at a time onto bamboo splinters and popped onto a barbeque.  I'm sorry but I neglected to request suggested cooking times for you so that you may enjoy this delicacy come the summer or in the back deck area of your Spanish Villa!!

The eggs are slid off of the sticks into a plastic bag and many of our fellow passengers avail themselves of a bag or two which they tie to the cup holders of the seat in front of them.  I cannot convey the horror of the smell! neither can I ever forget the sucking and smacking noises etc. as soft duck chick bones and feathers are extracted from between teeth and fingers are used to extract the last bits of unborn duck from the bottom of the eggs. We wonder if a bag of "white folk puke" will constitute pudding.

A trip that was to last 7 hours is doubled for us in that 1 rest stop!  I ask a Khmere about this delicacy later and we're told that with some salt and a squeeze of lime it's absolutely delicious feathers and all.

We get to Battambang around 5pm and were dropped into a melee of tuk tuk drivers.  Kim has arranged for our guest house to send a tuktuk for us and the driver elbows his way through the crowd, we're the only white faces on a 50 seater coach so he has no trouble finding us.

Truth told, we've booked the Stone Home guest house entirely by accident.  We habitually go through a booking process with sites like agoda etc. to ensure we see all of the costs before confirming.  You can normally go all the way through to the "book" button and still not get charged until you add your payment details.  Unfortunately at some point I have saved our payment details so, when Kim hits "book" we get a "Thanks your stay is confirmed and paid for" message......do'h!

We needn't have worried, as the tuk tuk pulls into the property we can see a huge pool stretching away from us and just 10 bungalows, all timber and tile with lovely verandas and brand new (It opened in October 2018)  The owner comes out to greet us.

"Hello, you've had a long journey, this is your bungalow, the aircon is on so it's lovely and cool, don't worry about the check in formalities, just go in wash up and change if you wish, we can deal with everything else later" in impeccable English, we love him.

What's more he has a 4X4 in which he will run us into town and back each day and evening to save us bumping around in tuk tuks all we need to do is SMS him.  Namfy is a god send, the epitomy of hospitality.  He runs us into town, reccomends a few bars and restaurants and picks us up again when we're ready to come back.

It's clear that only a couple of the bungalows are occupied and after the first night we have the entire place to ourselves.  That first night when we come back some Khmers have a barbeque going and they have a guitar! we sidle over, they share their wine with us and we play a few tunes, and sit and chat to the early hours.

We're up early. We have a full day, tuk tuk to the "Bamboo train", Lunch, pool break then to the delighfully named Bat and Killing cave! what could be nicer.

The railway in Cambodia has never recovered from the great step back to an agrarian economy imposed by Pol Pott and his Khmer Rouge.  Just recently rail travel has re-started, mostly narrow gauge, its' in its' infancy and the current govertment decrees that individual travel by rail is free of charge.  The trip that has just taken us 7 hours by road would take around 12 by rail such is the state of the rail and given that it's a single track!

Locally rail travel is carried out on timber and bamboo open deck carts.  In truth, mostly it's for tourist consumption although farm produce and building equipment is ferried around.  We're dropped at a "station" comprising a few farm buildings where a number of people slowly swing in hammocks in the early morning heat while our "train" is assembled.

Two steel bogies, barbell shaped axles with wheels attached are dropped on the track.  A bamboo deck big enough for around half a dozen cross legged passengers is slotted on the bogies, a lawn mower engine is slotted onto the back with a rubber band threaded through a hole in the deck to the wheels and off we go.  We are sharing our train with a young lady from Russia, so luckley there are only 3 of us.

Braking is provided by a bamboo stick inserted through the band.  We're probably all of 10 inches off the track which is raised on very uncomfortable looking slate and flint sidings as we barrel along through the Cambodian country side and farm lands at great speed, it's very noisy, bumpy, but exhilerating stuff.

Cambodian rail and of course other bamboo carts use the same track, if you meet something coming in the opposite direction, the vehicle with the least cargo has to unload, take off the engine, the cart and remove the bogies, the other vehicle is manhandled past then our "train" is reassembled and off we go again. 

Of course, the inevitable happens and our engine breaks down.  We are being "driven" by a lady who appears to be around 110 years old.  She has the build of a piece of string with two knots in it and despite 35 degree heat, wears multiple layers, scarf, gloves, hat and partial face mask.  When the engine won't start she spends 2 minutes bellowing into a mobile phone, throws it onto the train deck, grabs a bit of the timber deck and starts dragging us up the track, passengers and all.

Eventually a cart appears travelling in the opposite direction, we take our train to bits and let them pass and one of the crew from the other cart helps our old lady to jump start our train. I'll not look at the 06:35 to Leamington Spa in the same light again.

We drop off in town for some lunch at the Jaan Bai (Rice bowl) restaurant staffed by young people who by and large have come from deprived back grounds.  You can't be in Cambodia long before you notice the number of children begging and orphanages here.  Jaan Bai gives quite an insight into what is going on. Rarely are the children Orphans, rather they are sold into what amounts to slavery and used as beggars by institutions founded to take advantage of them.  Basically the more orphanages, the more "orphans" are sold to inhabit them. Christ, it's a wonderful world isn't it?

After a short pool break we're off to the mountain that holds the Bat and Killing caves.  It stands prouder than a "honeymooners dick" in the flat central plain of Battambang province.  Tuk tuks are converging on it through the dust from every direction.  A  small traders village has grown up around the base of the mountain, and, hobbling after a half hour bumpathon, cramped and knotted up in the back seat of our tuk tuk we're guided to a flat bed 4X4 and bundled into the back for an almost vertical climb up the dust track to the Killing Cave.

What a sad place. Clambering out of the back of the truck we're greeted by stone statues depicting hell and the tortures of purgatory, people are being spitted, boiled, burned, sawed in half by demons.  It's maybe a means to come to terms with the brutality that occurred here.  A small boy attaches himself to us and its clear he's our "guide" like it or not.

We're taken to the cave and shown in through the stalagtites and stalagmites to the cave floor.  High above, daylight is arching in glowing bands through the old, now tree lined opening festooned with creepers trailing into space, as if nature is hurrying, trying to cover what happened here. Khmer Rouge prisoners were marched to this lip and forced to jump into the cave to their deaths on the rocks below.  There's a slightly smaller opening lowern down where children and babies were thrown.......... no gas..... no bullets.....no expence.  I wonder what our government was doing while this was going on, whining about benefits no doubt, well, here's a solution. 

Out of the cave we bung our kid guide some dollars and take a very deep breath of fresh air, we leave below two shrines piled with the skulls and bones of just a few of the thousands of victims here, presumably marched to their deaths in the blinding heat.  May god have mercy, or otherwise as appropriate, to the victims and perpetrators of this place.

Trucked to the very top we're greeted by a swarm of saphron robed monks, a temple and a mind boggling view of the flat lands that spread out in all directions from the peak.  From here we also access the 3000 step plus descent to the foot of the mountain where, knees buckling, sweat soaked and gasping for air we emerge from jungle cover a half hour later, cross the dirt track and flop into a plastic seat in a corrugated iron lean to, with an ice cold coke.

It's around 5:30 and we've been told to be "in position" by 6pm.  A carnival atmosphere is starting to build as chairs are bought out to line the road by enterprising roadside establishments who sell drinks and snacks.  I've no idea why but truth told, I'm ready to be underwhelmed as we look up to another very large cave mouth, next to which a huge buddha is being carved into the limestone mountain side.  The workmen have gone, leaving some ropes and a debis net which flaps, in an early evening breeze, covering the lower part of the face of the emerging budha with a gauze, making him look for all the world, like an exotic egyptian dancer.  Quiet and a sence of expectation is descending as we find a vantage point in a second storey verandah with an ice cold beer, the sky is turning red, orange then purple as the sun reflects off of the dust clouds.

At first it feels as if your eyes are playing tricks, your mind can't quite grasp the scale of what your eyes are seeing, it looks like a swirl of smoke at the cave mouth as if some one has started a brush fire, as the first bats circle the cave entrance then, as if signalled, they rise and start off over head toward the surrounding country side.  

There are around 2.5 million bats in this cave.  They darken the sky in an unbroken cloud which passes over head for more than half an hour.  It's a mesmerising, hypnotic, completely mind boggling and ultimately awe inspiring display of the majesty of nature. In the distance we can see other great clouds of bats wheeling across the landscape like wind driven squalls, blotting out the last light of the sun. One of the great natural spectacles of the world and we get to see it!

Back in our tuk tuk we are both rendered virtually speechless by what we have just witnessed, which is a good thing as in a night tuk tuk no one can hear you scream.  It's like another vision of hell.  Trucks, buses, tuk tuks, 4x4s, bikes, bullock carts crowds of peopls all emerge from a thick dust cloud.  Next to no vehicles employ any lights, there is no street lighting, the noise, fumes and dust are incredible, the road surface? like driving across a ploughed field.

Back at the guesthouse the pool is in it's own pool of light, deep, blue, cool, inviting, chinese lanterns have been going up for the chinese new year due in a few days time, it looks like a fantasy oasis.  In around 3 minutes flat we're in the pool, gamboling about like kids, we have the whole thing to ourselves, it's magnificent!

20 minutes later we're sitting on our verandah trying to digest what we have experienced today along with the contents of a doggy bag from lunch. Corn fritters, some chicken satay and a wonderful, spicey, limey, raw green papaya salad.  Plus, we have a bottle of icy cold chardonay and we know how to use it.  It's around 9pm and 25 degrees. At home it's just starting to snow on a Tuesday, we've long ago lost track of the days so we need to check on a smartphone calendar.  Another quick swim, sculling up and down the beautiful pool, a snifter of Jim Beam to keep the mossies off, and it's, goodnight John Boy XXX.

For the last couple of days we have the whole resort to ourselves.  We're woken gently by budhist chimes and gamelan music, sounding like gentle wind chimes, from a temple just up the road, along with the local cockerels. 

Today a wedding procession passes, all drums, trumpets and chanting monks followed by a swarm of guests on mopeds, the bride and groom sit resplendent in a guilded, golden cart drawn by moto.  We enjoy the huge pool in splendid isolation, grabbing a breath before the bus trip to Siem Reap then, onto Stung Treng and the Lao overland border, which is remote enough that we understand we may need to pay a "tea money" bribe.  The guys who man the border post are so far from home they want a little "something" to give them comfort during the lonely watches.  A lot of largely uncomfortable but nonetheless fascinating road miles coming up.  Here we go!!

Early start, we're in the station wagon and bumping over the unmade tracks that pass for roads in Battambang.  Great clouds of red and orange dust billow across and choke the early morning sunlight.  Monks in their saphron robes are patrolling the streets with their collection bowls, a handful of rice or a sweet fresh banana in exchange for a prayer or a blessing. 

Namfy (our host) drops us on the sidewalk outside the bus office and we say our goodbyes, we've had a brilliant stay at the Home Stone guest house. We chat with fellow passengers as we wait for the mini van. Once we're all bundled on board we set out on the road to Siem Reap.  In fairness it's better made in general than most of the others we've travelled here in cambodia and it's a pretty enjoyable trip, even the roads stops are clean-ish and have proper toilets instead of the usual hole in the ground, they have coffee and recognisable food that isn't unborn baby birds and grilled spiders.  We could grow to like this travel lark!

We've decided on this trip to monitor progress on sat-nav rather than bluff it when we get to a bus station and end up in a fight with the tuk tuk mafia.  Good job too as it's clear Siem has grown appreciably since we were last here.  The huge draw that is the Angkor complex is brining tourists from across the globe, their enthusiasm undimmed by a recent 30% price hike for entry.  As we watch our progress we're delighted to see we're a mere 10 minute walk from our hotel as the bus, with no warning, veers off the road and onto the pavement.  

"Siem Reap" shouts the driver as he slams his door and wanders off.

We shoulder our way through the cloud of tuk tuk drivers.....

"where you go, where you go?.....Tuk Tuk.....tuk tuk, which hotel?"

In determined silence we unload our rucksacks...

" Which way to the river?" we ask.

"River?.....River??  No, no river"

We show them on a map.

"Oh!....Ribber!.....This way"

Off we toddle in searing heat, it's around 2pm and completely stifling.  Fortunately it is a short walk to "the ribber" and across the bridge we can see our accommodation for the next few days.

Here's the thing with us and Siem Reap, we've seen all of the temples before, back when you could get some isolation but we did love the city, so the plan, such as it is, is to just chill, walk the place, take in a museum, a city temple, a cultural show, people watch and drink a bottle of wine on our rather splendid balcony and watch the world go by, in short.....what travel is all about.

Straight across the ribber is a beautiful temple full of stunning carvings and a huge frieze depicting scenes from Budhist legends.  A gorgeous golden Budha stares down in placid contemplation on ranks of incense sticks, small offerings and a reflective pool.  Behind this a further reclining Budha, one hand cushioning his head in the traditional pose of the Budha having entered Nirvana. The feeling of peace and gentle repose is all enveloping as small wind chimes tinkle and from a distance we can hear monks in the school beyond the temple chant in dolorous rythm.  The effect overall is hypnotic, peaceful and it's easy to fall into a meditative, contemplative state.

All of this is no doubt to prepare us for exiting the temple where we are greeted by a carved life size tableu vividly depicting a dead man with his tongue lolling out, he lays supine, his stomach ripped open by a warrior who stands over him with a long handled blade, an eagle is perched on his genitals and is ripping out a large beak-full of pink glistening guts. Time for some breakfast then.

The  Angkor history museum is really rather splendid. As you can imagine, with the source of the Angkor temples the exhibits are rarely short of stunning.  The workmanship at times is simply amazing and, once you check the dates and see that these imaculate carvings graced complex cities, with street lighting and rudimentary air conditioning while we were still painting our arses blue and living in mud is somewhat humbling.  What's also clear is the influence that Hindu beliefs the muslim world and China had on Khmere religion and beliefs and vice versa.  With centries old trade routes that wound through China, India  and into the middle east throughout South East Asia. No wonder they were a tad confused when we rocked up in the 17th century and told them they were all wrong and we'd burn them alive if they didn't agree.

While shopping for a "cheeky white" we bump into an Aussie ex-pat.

"I've been here 18 years and I still can't live with the f*cking heat!, my advice is get in some f*cking shade by 1pm and don't f*cking come out till it's f*cking 4 oclock and gone"

Apparently he was a vicar in Australia.

He's right about the f*cking heat though. It starts to build at midday and piles on for the next 4 hours until it's just sweltering.  The sun beats down remorslessly and the heat can't seem to escape, everything slows to a torpid and dust hazed crawl, tuk tuk drivers park and slumber under trees, in markets, hammocks are slung, people wander down to the rivers edge, kids swim and caper, grown ups just stand, shin or waist deep, all waiting for the sun to dip toward the horizon, where it turns from gold to a bright red orb as it settles on the edge of the world, then slowly dips, like a jaffa cake biscuit with all the chocolate sucked off (Janet!!) into a creamy cup of tea....and.......gone, and the place booms back to life.  Evening prayers are chimed and called for Budhists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus (Funny how in countries that have been civilised longer, these divisions don't seem to matter.  We're all off for a pray, that's all, I can't pretend to know I have a better idea of what happens to us after we're dead than you do, enjoy your prayer and see you up the pub in an hour!)

There's an area of town, like there is in a lot of towns that Siem Reap dedicates to what they understand to be the needs and desires of travellers.  "Pub street" is pedestriansed around 6pm and is flanked by bars from end to end, and as if to prove the Cambodians right, it is utterly jam packed everynight by our fellow world be-striders of a "certain age".  Hundreds, if not thousands of would be hippies, apparently gone native in their baggy pants, crop tops and dreadlocks jump up and down, waving a fist in the air, out of their boxes on buckets of gin or vodka, while bass heavy computer game soundtrack  booms out at ear splitting volume. (Christ, I sound like my dad!) 

During the day the whole place reverts to row upon row of really rather nice restaurants and market stalls.  A really cool place to order a couple of coffees and people watch, which is exactly what I do while Kim pops to the manicurist for an hour.

Last time we were here we remember enjoying a bewitching culktural show and we're chuffed to find it still runs.  A mere $12 gets you an all you can eat buffet and an evening of traditional dance and music.  Probably one of the great bargains in the City, and we wander up to the theatre in swelteriing heat to choose our seats.  The dancers are beautiful, the dancing, spell binding, the music, intricate and seemlessly integrated with the story telling.  It's a wonderful evening.  We walk back toward the river at 9pm it's still very, very hot.  The waterside trees are all hung with lights, the sort that cascade downward, reflected in the river, their mirror images rise up out of the water, it really is very lovely and we stop off at a waterside bar with an upper floor open air balcony for a night cap and a reflection on how bloody luck we are.

We've learned now that big buses, while on the face of it may seem more comfy, are not the best way to travel here.  They cover the big distances well enough but, as you approach journey's end they make a hugely frustrating number of stops to pick up, or drop off, anyone who flags them down for a relevant back hander. It's here that you 5 hour scheduled trip turns into 7 or 8 gruelling hours while locals pile on chickens, pigs or worse....children!

As usual we're outside the hotel at the allotted hour, wow, there's a white mini van outside dead on time.  I approach the driver.

"Stung Trueng?" I say.

He laughs, gets in the van and drives off.  A flyblown, greasy little individual sidles up to me.  I assume he's a road sweeper after a tip.

"Stung Trueng?" he wheezes.

He has a tuk tuk, it already contains two large Germans and what looks like the contents of their house(s).  He gestures for us to "Mount up".

We demonstrate how this will not be possible by repeatedly bashing his head against what looks like a side board which the Germans have placed in the tuk tuk.

"Ok, I come back"

He leaps into the moto saddle and drives, roaring off in a huge plume of black LPG smoke, dust and flies.

15 minutes later he's back, all bundled in we're driven to a ghastly looking guest house where a crowd is assembling.  As usual, tickets have been sold with scant regard to the number of seats available and in the belief that no one will carry any luggage of greater capacity than a dry tea bag.

The loading commences.  Kim and I watch, determined to have nothing to do with it until they sort themselves out. Various permutations of people to seats are used and eventually our driver seems content, until it's pointed out that all of the luggage is still in the middle of the street........ Everybody gets off again.  The luggage is jammed into the rear area which should accomodate a the back seats, every one piles in except the two unfortunates who were to have occupied the back seats.  The driver, satisfied, makes his way to the front seat preparing for lift off.  The two left over point out the error of his ways........  Everbody gets off again.  We were sceduled to leave at 8am, it's nearly 9. The luggage is jammed in, the two germans are sat on top of the luggage, this pushes the luggage back so far that the rear doors won't shut.....Every body gets off again.  The luggage is rearranged, the germans are perched on top of the luggage, the door will still not close, two men apply their feet to the door ramming it as close to shut as possible while another wraps a luggage cord around the rear door handle and secures it to the van under carriage. A chines passenger realises that a small cord is all that is stopping her luggage falling out of the back of the van and onto the Cambodian highway, (Let alone two Germans) She gets off the bus, takes a series of photos and, despite my lack of Chinese or Khmere, it is clear a heated conversasion is taking place.......Everybody gets off again.  It's now an hour and a half past the time we should have left.  A large Cambodian man rides up on a moped, he has no top on and sweats profusley.  He gesticulates wildly and shouts a lot, I'm not sure but I think I may now know the words in Cambodian for Fuck and possibly C*nt.  He pushes everyone onto the bus including the angry Chinese lady, If you want to know the Chinese for "Fat motherf*cker" I may be able to help you.  The Germans are perched on top of the luggage, the fat man leans on the door with two others, the door still won't close, they re-tie it with straps while the three men lean on it.  I'm not sure but I think the fat Cambodian man is trying to teach the Chinese lady how to say,

"This bus is fucking leaving, now, with you, or without you, so either get the fuck on or get your shit luggage and your snot nosed fucking brats off and figure out how else you're going to get to Laos today" 

I'm not sure she's quite word perfect but in return I think she teaches him how to say

"If my fucking luggage falls out of this deathtrap I will see your bollox roasted over a slow fire and eaten before your eyes"

She gets in. Everyone's on board, the back doors are tied shut, the heat inside the van by now must be like an oven, it's at least an hour and 45 minutes late, all ready to go then.....

"Hello" says Kim and I.

Everybody gets off again.

Meanwhile Kim is talking to the ticket lady explaining 'politely' there is no way we will get on that bus. OK OK another one come for you. You wait 10 minutes.

Eventually a second van turns up. We end up in a quite nice mercedes van with a wounded German (He's fallen off his moped) and a family of 3 cambodians and all packed we're off a mere 2 hours late.

The journey takes us through some beautiful rural countryside, all farms and small villages, little snapshots of Cambodian life. Houses on stilts against the floods, living quarters and ground level usually open on all sides so as to maximise through draft in the sweltering heat.  A large communal table will be there along with chicken coops, a pig tied to one of the stilts, a large earthenware churn of water for washing, clothes strung from side to side drying out of the dust, a cook fire.  All the valuables are stored upstairs in the sleeping quarters, away from flood water and snakes.

We get dropped in Stung Trueng, it's on a confluence of the Mekong and Sekong rivers, the town pretty much looks like what you have when you empty a Dyson vacuum cleaner.  We're having one of those, "why the f*ck aren't we at home" days.

The guesthouse is a bit of a shithole and we're thinking we need to cut the stay and head straight to the border with Laos.

"Where's the nearest bar?" we ask our host.

"Bar???" he says.

We're cutting short our stay and heading straight to the border, on foot if necessary.

A huge Australian in a heavily stained "Humpty Roo Guest house" vest comes down the stairs from the rooms.  We chat to Bill, he and his wife and a couple of Brits have arranged for a boat to take a trip up river to the sunken forest, a waterfall and to try to see the mind bogglingly rare Irrawaddy Dolphins.  If we join them it'll cut the cost for everyone, with the added bonus of meaning the boat will be overcrowded and we'll be heading toward an almost certain violent death on the Mekong rapids.......What's not to love?

It turns out there is a bar as well.  "The Blue River" is down a very steep climb from the bank.  Initially steep wooden steps, they end and a stair is carved in dried river mud, we cross a rickety plank to a timber floating platform which is ringed with a ballustrade holding what look like Christmas lights, as a bar it makes a wonderful mosquito trap.  No one speaks any English, they have a food menu of photographs, the only thing we can recognise is an egg.  We mime "drinking", they point to a fridge, we open it, they have Lao Beer! It's icy cold, .......it's the best bar we've ever seen.

06:15 and we're all in the open front lobby of the guesthouse. As we leave to board our tuk tuk our host says

"Have you got your ear plugs?"

" Of course! I always carry some ear plugs"

Turns out the engines are unfeasibly loud, we actually do have ear plugs but they're in our ruck sacks up 4 flights of near verticle stairs.

"Sod it! We'll use bog roll" we do always carry that!

We meet Gary and Helen our fellow victims who are from "Brizzle" (Bristol) after we've been tuk tuked to the "pier".  This is a low stretch of compacted mud sweeping out into the river.  This morning it's lined with longtail boats and canoes selling produce from up and down river.  A woman who looks about the same weight as a chocolate flake is unloading a huge cargo of watermelons by throwing them as if they were balloons to a bloke on the pier who in turn has the build of a nibbled pencil.

We scramble onto an unfeasibly small boat which lurches from side to side as we take our seats (Planks!) threatening to throw us over the side into the river.  The boatman backs us away from the pier and out toward the centre of the river, turns us facing upstream and off we go. We spend the next 5 hours apart from a short pee break chugging up the Mekong.  Our pee break is further enlivened by meeting a brand, new born water buffalo taking his very first steps struggling for mum on shaky legs.

We pass dozens of small riverside villages, fishing boats and nets clustering the sandy edges ekeing a living from what is now a huge river. Passing through a huge sunken forest our boatman earns his keep by avoiding tree tops now below the water line.  Huge trees still seem to be growing, exposed roots combed out at right angles by the current bows spreading at water level, fisher birds perched in topmost branches.  It's a strange but beautiful sight with trees catching the early morning sun.  On the way back catching the rays of the Mekong sunset it's even more majestic.

So, after 5 hours perched on planks in a long tail boat being buffeted up river we're finaly stepping over the side into the shallows of the river, stretching the kinks out of backs and knees as we scramble up a sandy bank to where a small village food market is clustered at the rivers edge.  We're bundled into a 4x4 for a bumpy 15 minute drive to the Cambodian side of the Li Phi waterfalls. We're near the widest point of the river (9 miles) and the falls despite it being the dry season are huge and awe inspiring.  They're 16 meters below their wet season height at the moment but still roar as the river crashes through fissures and over lips of granit and rock.  We can see at the top of the falls fisher men who balance along traceries of bamboo in order to access the mid streams of flumes of wild water. Many die here each year and it's not hard to see why.

A wander around the riverside food market convinces most of us to wait till we get back to town for dinner.  I'm offered a spatchcock chicken from a barbeque that I would guess has been charring for about a week and a half.  The last time I saw something like it, it was hanging out of a funeral pyre on the ghats of Varannassi.

We load back into ther boat and head upstream about another 45 minutes till we get to a small sand island in the rough centre of the river.  The boat is beached and our boatman indicates we should get over the side.  Into the shallows we go and wade ashore onto beautiful soft golden sand, above us palm and jungle trees lean down toward the water which here, is a light emerald green in the sunlight, the river is beautifully warm as the sun beats down and the boatman points toward midstream.

A pod of white dolphin break the surface and by swimming steadily into the current maintain a steady position a few metres away from us.  I'm dumbstruck!  At least 3 adults and a couple of young dolphin are feeding and playing within a stones throw.  The boatman indicates we should climb the sand bank, and by doing so we get a better view, looking down on these ghostly creature as the rise to breath and fall back into the river.

Time to get back in the boat and we think that's it.  But we're powered upstream of the dolphins, the engine is cut and we drift silently toward these wonderful animals time and again.  To be honest I'd be happy to still be there, with only the sound of the river, the dolphins breathing and birdsong.  It's up there with one of the great experiences for me, I don't expect ever to forget it.

The trip back promises to be faster as we'll go downstream.  It's certainly no less spectacular.  Now, entire village populations are down at the rivers edge, bathing, fishing, starting cook fires.  Kids are held giggling and squirming in the shallows, their heads great cones of suds as mum or dad tries to ladle water over their heads to rinse, repeat. As the sun sets it turns the river the most amazing copper, outlining the trees of the sunken forest, great Vs of pure white egrets flap overhead to settle in river side trees the branches bending and bowing to the rivers surface under te weight of hundreds of birds as the settle, flap, argue, knecks craning wings spread, wow!

Finally the sun drops below the horizon and we're left on the river in virtual and then total darkness.  How the boatman is steering is beyond me but his tip is going up by the minute!

Eventually after an 11 hour round trip we're back at the pier trying to get legs and backs to work such that we can cross the gap from the boat to dry land.  We limp up the pier to street level and set off for anywhere that can cook a noodle and open a beer.  It's been a bloody amazing day with great people and a fantastic unforgettable experience, topped off with a river fish amok (cooked in coconut milk) and an icy beer.  Back at the guest house we need to say our goodbyes to Bill Heather, Gary and Helen.  We've no idea how we'll get on in Stung Trueng without them.

Well it's Sunday (I think) and market day.  We take a turn around the dust filled streets.  The meat and fish stalls are especially interesting.  Great piles of bits of bloody animal sit, fly and dust covered on mats set out on the ground.  Heads watch us with beady, dead eyes, piles of offal glisten, huge bowls of live catfish squirm about in water just deep enough to reach their gills.  Some huge fish come out of the river and here and there a wizzened little woman (they're always wizzened and little here) hacks  away at one with a cleaver.  One stall seems to consist entirely of fish heads but then again fish head soup is big biccies here.

We need a coffee and maybe a little comfort food.  We spy a coffee house which actually has doors! This could mean A\C!  There is a picture menu for us "white heathens" to peruse, it has a picture, a toasted ham and cheese sandwich!  The toasted bread white, with delicate grill marks, looking crisp outside, soft, yielding, inside; creamy yellow cheese (cheddar?) bubbles oozingly from between bread and wonderful looking ham on either side.  I cannot tell you how good this looks after eating Cambodian for the last few weeks.  We point and make the universally accepted gesture for 2 please. 

You know those electric sandwich maker things we all baught back in the  eighties?  Two sandwiches turn up clearly made in one of those, the little triangle edges all puckered closed like an old stitched scar.  There is no sign of oozing cheese, cheddar or otherwise, one bite sends alarm bells clanging.  We prise the lava hot sandwich apart.  Inside, what appears to be the remnants of a crabstick, something like chicken appears to have been grated onto it and in the centre of each half a spoonful of what appears to be fruit jam.

We call the waitress over and spend 15 pointless minutes asking her to compare and contrast the picture of a lovely cheese and ham toasty with the crock of vile, vomit inducing fish stick, chicken and jam that she has presented. The only response we can get is a smile and “cheese and ham toasty, yes” “We know that’s what it says it is ......but it’s fucking well not, is it??” She simply cannot grasp the concept of our expecting to receive what is in the picture. We’re tempted to show her dollar bills and leave used toilet roll but fear she won’t see the funny side. It’s safe to say I think...... We’re done with Cambodia!