Hi all,

Hope you got our last blog - no replies but we hope it went OK.

In Hoi An we had a cooking class- lots of fun and the food was excellent (in spite of us!)The cook explained all the fresh greens and herbs - sure we won't find most of them at home though.

Well, we have survived Saigon - what a madhouse it is! So many cars and scooters - whenever we left the hotel the doorman would escort us across the road, putting himself on the traffic side and would hold up his hand but the traffic just roared on straight at us. It is a very noisy city too and we were glad not to spend much time there.

We spent two days in the Mekong Delta - as you would expect, lots of rice paddies, corn, fruit and veges. The people are generally extremely poor - sobering to see how they live.A great sight was going to a bird sanctuary and seeing hundreds and hundreds of egrets and cormorants coming in to roost for the night.

After a 5 hour boat ride up the Mekong river we arrived yesterday in Phnom Penh - a really nice city with wide streets , more cars than motorscooters, very few horns blaring and good drivers - what a change! We are in a wonderful hotel - lots of tall trees and bushes and from our room, through french doors,we have our very own swimming pool ! It's completely private and a perfect temperature. We cancelled a market and another temple this afternoon so we could enjoy our pool - wouldn't you?? This morning we saw the Genocide museum and then the Killing fields of Pol Pot - truly unbelievable and so sad. Our guide lost his father during that time and said everyone of his generation (he is mid 30s) has lost at least one member of their family, often the whole family. There are also a lot of disabled people begging here, more than in Vietnam, and most of them are victims of land mines - from the US - remember when they were never in Cambodia?

Tomorrow we fly to Siem Reap where we will see Angkor Wat and many other wats too!

Hope you are well,please write with your news - you can reply here or write to us at our [email protected] address.

off to pack, Elinor