An early start as we headed from Saigon down to the Mekong Delta. Ironically saw our first bit of Vietnamese blue sky as we left! Luckily we did leave, our travel agent looked confused when we told him which trip we had come for, and spent the next half hour on the phone! Slightly worrying, but it was all sorted out in the end. Good start for the worst organised tour ever!

After a couple of hours on the bus, we boarded very narrow longtail boats that took us for a cruise on the delta. The scenery was stunning despite the murky brown water - apparently it is clearer in the dry season! We went passed lots of floating villages, houseboats and markets, waving at all the super friendly kids, before having lunch on one of the islands of the delta. We then cruised back along the river to get back on a bus for the next 5 hours, taking us to the border town with Cambodia. Despite being assured that we should leave our luggage on the bus and the guides would look after it, a few minutes into the journey we realised that 3 out of 10 bags were missing! Obviously mine was one of them! Luckily we met up with the other bus easily and all the bags were retrieved! The border town was fairly dull, only beaten by the dullness of our included dinner which was a plate of rice!

Another early start the next day, we headed to a floating village and fish farm - the fish are all kept under the floor of the house,they all go mad at feeding time! We then moved on to a Cham village, which is one of the minority groups in Vietnam, they are Muslim rather than Buddhist, and girls are locked away in a small room all day from age 12, to keep their skin fair until they marry at about 16. We then transferred onto a slowboat which would take us to the Cambodian border. ABout 5 hours later we arrived, got our visas stamped and then swapped onto a Cambodian slowboat which kept flooding with water! Again stunning scenery but we were getting restless by then! Another 3 hours and we transferred straight onto a bus for 2 hours to get to the capital, Phnomh Penh. We managed to fit 11 people in a 10 seater bus, plus all our bags as there was no boot space! Very cramped! I don't think you can claim to have ever experienced a proper numb bum unless you have made this day journey! The roads also started off pretty terrible with loads of pot holes, but luckily became better nearer the city. Very glad when we could finally stand up!