Friday 1st April Up at 6.15 & down for breakfast before we went to the airport to fly to Ho Chi Minh & then on to Hue. The first flight was in a small turbo prop plane but because of the low cloud we didn't see anything until we reached Ho Chi Minh airport. Here we cleared immigration & customs & walked to the domestic airport for the next flight. After a couple of false starts we joined a long queue for check in & then walked what seemed t...

Tuesday 29th March Up at 5.15 to have the bags packed & put out for collection. We left after breakfast at about 8am on the buses. Ours was freezing cold & despite all attempts to modify it d*** sat with his rain jacket on for the first half of the 5 hour trip as cold air blasted over him. We swapped for the second half when Jane donned the jacket. The road was lined for miles with local houses in various states of repair & with dry paddy fields wit...

Monday 28th March Woke at 6.40 to find us on our way again but don't know how the ship freed itself. We were told that apparently the vessel had been pulled off the mud bank by the Scenic Spirit another river cruise boat. A late start today as we moved on to Kampong Chan, the 3rd largest city in Cambodia, arriving at about 11.30. After a film on Angkor Wat & lunch we set out at 2.30 to the Wat Nokor temple sitting on a hill outside the city. This proved som...

Sunday 27th March Today we went to a huge Buddhist complex at Vipassana Dhura near Oudong the capital city between 1618 & 1865. Arriving at the site we walked to the pagoda constructed in 1995 for $17 million, apparently paid for by the locals. d*** was otherwise engaged but heard some of it on his earpiece. Leaving the temple we walked to a large reclining Buddha & then to the monks' accommodation blocks to hear about their lives. They can start at 10...

Friday 25th March The ship traveled overnight to Pnom Penh in Cambodia & at 6.30 it moored, or I thought, anchored, in the city. We are near the bow & when it anchors the sound of the anchor chain being lowered is very loud. The ship was moored up next to another Mekong cruise boat & we caught up with some friends from Perth who had arrived in Pnom Penh 2 days before us. We had an early start at 8.15 after breakfast to get buses to the 'Killing Fie...