I was telling our guide, Paulo, about Noel Coward's song as we cycled off after lunch with the temperature at over 400. "The natives grieve when the white men leave their huts, Because they're obviously, absolutely nuts" but Paulo looked blankly at me and pedalled off. Is this the way I should be spending my 58th birthday I thought as I followed him?

We had started the day in Phnom Penh, being picked up at our hotel at seven. We didn't see much of what seems to be, if anything, a more modern and cosmopolitan city than Ho Chi Minh City. I remember thinking when we visited Albania last year how remarkably quickly places can recover from devastating economic and social disaster. By all accounts, Cambodia in 1979 was on its knees. Its infrastructure destroyed, the population starving. Things didn't really start to improve until 1993 but now it is, if not exactly a tiger economy, at least a jaguar or a puma (dreadful metaphor, I know). There are big new skyscrapers going up and plenty of large, foreign cars on the streets. People look well fed and dressed. The previous evening our guide had proudly showed us Cambodia's second flyover. Things are obviously on the up.

Things change a bit as we get out into the countryside. Compared to Vietnam the roads are worse and there is little traffic. The land is less intensively cultivated and there are few roadside stalls and cafes. The houses along the river are built on stilts because of the annual flooding during the rainy season (which is just starting) and there are few new ones in evidence.

The pagodas, though, all look newly restored, gleaming in the sunlight, red, yellow and gold. 95% of people in Cambodia are Buddhist and giving money and food to the monks is considered a duty. Paulo tells us there are 3,000 pagodas in Cambodia and I reckon we've passed about half of them today. There is a small Muslim population and we pass a couple of mosques as well but, despite the French heritage, we don't see a single church.

Our guide thinks the French did a pretty good job in Cambodia. In fact, he wishes it were still a French colony. A bit like the Victorians regarded the Romans in Britain, he sees the French as a civilising and stabilising influence. America was also good for the country he says, protecting it from the Vietnamese. According to him, the history of Cambodia can be seen as a constant struggle against attempts by the Vietnamese to rule it. The Khmer Rouge were created by the North Vietnamese who knew that, sooner or later, they would provide a pretext to invade and take control. He says that under the present government the Vietnamese are effectively running the country. His evidence for this is that the Prime Minister's wife is Vietnamese. I mutter something to the effect that on this basis Britain is actually ruled by Greece and add a comment about the risks of relying on the Americans for protection. But who am I, a foreigner, to tell him that he is wrong?

Anyway, by now it's far too hot to do much talking. The heat is fierce and the roads are dry and dusty. Soon we don't need to bother with sun cream as we are covered in a thin layer of red dust. Stopping is to be avoided if at all possible - it is much cooler cycling. Relief comes with a tarmac road, which means we are nearly in Kampong Cham. Soon we arrive at the VIP Hotel where our room features heavy, ornate furniture and over-the top soft furnishings - heavy swags, pelmets and curtains around the overly ornate headboard on the bed as well as the window. 5 minutes after we arrive a thunderstorm breaks out over the city.

Seems like a pretty good way to spend my 58th birthday, if you ask me. Especially when Paulo and our driver arrive with a pink, sticky birthday cake!