A 6am start that turned into a 2hour wait for the bus whilst they try to locate my new hostel. The bus arrives in the end and I fall asleep- so can't tell you much about the journey. I know it was about 4 hours. We all depart and head for our boat. I proceed to the back along with a couple of auzzies (so many in SE Asia!) and a guy from Israel. We sit in the sunshine at the back as we sail through the floating villages and fisheries along the Mekong. We head towards a rice farm where the locals work to get every possible use out of rice- rice wine, rice paper, rice noodles, rice cakes, rice toffee and using every last scrap! Lots of samples later and a purchase of rice wine by the boys we head back to the boat and go to a floating fishery. Quite disappointing as we depart and stand on a house boat whilst the tour guide feeds the fish that are trapped under the boat. And that's it. Back on board and we go for lunch through a maze of smaller canals off the Mekong delta. After lunch, back on the boat and we sail back to the bus. A few hours later we stop by a crocodile farm for 20minutes, just hundreds of crocodiles not really moving (not exciting) back on the bus for a few hours and we arrive at the Mekong Floating Hotel. Which really is a floating hotel built on rafts and tethered on the edge of a small town. A short walk into town, we spot some local marshal arts training and watch for a short while. Then back to the boat for dinner and we crack open the rice wine. It tastes similar to tequila but slightly more ricey! We drink the whole bottle between the 4 of us and them bed time for a good deep sleep.
Next morning, another early start with a jerk awakening from the staff banging on the door. Breakfast and back onto the boat. We have a short (disappointing) trip to a small village where we walk through it to a mosque. Here is the only place in Cambodia where there are Muslims. Then back to the boat. Not fun. Here we separate into fast boat people ($5 extra) or slow boat people (me). An eventful trip to say the least. A group of Chinese tourists position themselves across the entire boat- 1 front right, 1 front left, 2 middle, 1 back right, 1 back left, 1 on the engine and they decide to yell across the whole boat for the entire trip. The yelling became markedly louder as (from what I deciphered) their bags were not on the boat and they blamed the one that had basic English. So this was fun. 2 hours pass. Engine sets on fire. I move to the front and sit with my rucksack, waterproofing things like passport, camera, phone and sit on a life jacket. The driver puts out the fire with water and continues on. I did not relax for the whole journey. Visa application time to cross the vietnamese border to cambodia and I have a visa and Chinese passport thrust into my face with a pen tapping. Translation: write my visa form please. Begrudgingly I complete the form and continue to read my lonely planet guide. Another visa and passport thrust in my face. Then another. And another. I wrote all but the one with the slight English. So this filled the time until the border. 2 hours at the border and then we cram 14 slow boaters plus bags into a minivan for 12.
Not a comfortable journey at all! Finally we arrive into phnom penh, not at the bus station as promised, but at a random hostel where I am told the hostel I had booked is no longer there. Oh, yes it is but it's really far away, too far. I should stay there. Hmmm no thanks! Taxi to my hostel and I arrive (it was there standing strong!)
So advice, I do not recommend the "Mekong delta cruise" as it I spent more time on a bus then a boat and the stops along the way were nothing to write home about!