After leaving Can Tho we took a bus to Chau Doc to cross the boarder into Cambodia to travel up the Mekong to Phonm Penh by speed-boat. Our guest house arranged for a pick up to the bus station in Can Tho and booked our tickets on the bus, when we arrived at the bus station where we had just to go to the counter that has 'Chau Doc' above, pay for our tickets and jump on the bus. It was a 3-4 hour bus ride to Chau Doc where we had a room booked. The bus company transferred everyone to a minibus that then took us to the door of our hotel. It is surprisingly easy to travel around Vietnam by futa bus, they usually leave on time and stop every 2 hours for toilets and food. The seats are slightly smaller than western buses as the local people are very much smaller. You very rarely see a fat or tall Asian person.

The hotel in Chau Doc was very comfortable and after breakfast at 6am next morning we were collected by a 'pushbike' with a kind of seat at the rear that we had to both sit on with our luggage. Somehow we achieved this balancing act and cycled a couple of streets to the dock. It was quite fun for this short period, but all the way the driver (or bike peddler) kept saying "lady you give me tip" all the time while looking over his shoulder! My tip was he needed to look at road not me, unfortunately he didn't understand.

The boat to Phnom Penh crosses the boarder into Cambodia a short while after leaving Chau Doc. We have still been lucky with the weather and it was very pleasant riding the boat up the Mekong with a nice breeze in the sunshine (29°). We managed to get a seat on deck, which has hard seats as apposed to the soft ones inside the cabin. After a while Chris sat on the floor on one the side of the boat and enjoyed the rest of the journey sitting watching the waves speed by getting a little burnt in the sun.

We filled in our visa forms before we reached the first border crossing out of Vietnam and paid our $34 each ($30 for the visa and $4 for the 'fee' for the boat company to help process the visas). We then all got back on the boat and motored up to the next crossing into Cambodia where we had our passports and visas stamped. The process was very easy and well organised by the boat company and I thought worth the $4 extra they charged. We then spent the next 3 hours speeding up the Mekong and arrived in Phnom Penh in time for lunch.