Day 44 - From the Mekong to Siem Reap, Cambodia

Another super early start today, meeting Ly at 5am to visit the Mekong's floating markets. It was still very dark when we got up but once on the river we did get another great sunrise.

The floating markets are at risk of dying out due to a lack of interest of the trade from newer generations. In addition, the people's reliance on the river for transport is diminishing as roads get better, but for now it is still a hectic and colorful way of life for farmers, middlemen/women and buyers to exchange mostly agricultural produce. We visited one small floating market first, (see video) and then a much larger one that had bigger boats, doing a much larger trade. We saw one boat that was totally stuffed with watermelons. You can see from the photos how some people both work and live on their boats.

The rest of the day was largely a travel day. We had a 3-hour drive from Can Toh in the Mekong Delta back to HCM City airport and then another short flight to Cambodia and finally, a short drive to Siem Reap. The drive to HCM was a little stressful as an accident backed traffic up and we were stationary for at least 15-30 minutes. Finally, things got moving again. Back in HCM city, we made a quick stop to grab more cash from the ATM. Most of the countries we've visited limited cash withdrawals to about $120, meaning we were forced to make several trips (and several sets of fees). This ATM also managed to eat Steve's card however which kept us a little more stressed (all sorted now).

On the way we did manage to add to our "weird/ridiculously large/cute things on a scooter" photo collection:

Then it was time to say a sad goodbye to our excellent guide Ly (certainly one of our favorites) and our driver "Mr Paul". As usual, the service level from our Wild Frontier staff was excellent. They made sure we had no language issues, and they facilitated and confirmed ticket and baggage check-in. In the future, we might forget how to take care of ourselves!

The flight was uneventful and short and once we again we were met at the airport and whisked off to our hotel in Siem Reap, The Jaya House. What a unique and stunning hotel! We definitely highly recommend it if you're ever in Siem Reap. We were greeted with sandwiches, fresh fruit and wine and the staff, as always in South-East Asia, are lovely and bend over backwards to help us. As you can see from the pics below, the hotel is kinda funky with quirky furniture (yes that's a couch made from stuffed ducks), loads of interesting art pieces and lovely pools. In addition, they have a fleet of hotel TukTuks at the guests' disposal!

More on Siem Reap and of course the temples here tomorrow.

Final Vietnamese Fun Facts:

• In rural areas (such as The Mekong Delta) the government blast propaganda from a loud-speaker at 6am

• We noticed people of all ages do a lot of squatting. We see this on the sidewalk, on boats, at work and inside peoples" homes.

• We saw very few people smoking in Thailand and Laos but many more in Vietnam