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What an incredible day! We boarded the Sampan at 830 this morning. The weather was overcast but not looking threatening. Bob grabbed a golf umbrella off the boat before he boarded the Sampan and I did comment that it did seem like overkill. As it turns out I did live to regret that one….

First stop was a bustling town/city called Tan Chau where we all had an individual ride in a rickshaw. Lots to see around a busy local weekday. The thing that stuck out most for me was there were a few places selling dodgem cars out front. Interesting…

We were dropped at a beautiful temple which accommodates 4 different religious denominations and is called Caodaism: Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Catholicism where we spent some time inside.

We then reboarded the sampan and headed in intermittent rain to Evergreen Island to see local farming and the stilt houses the locals live in from the days before the Chinese dammed the river and it used to flood.

We visited a local farmhouse and learned about the lives of the family that live there. The heavens opened at this point and we were stuck inside the home for a while. Unfortunately the weather was too bad for our planned walk through the cropped area and we headed back to the Sampan.

We said a very appreciative goodbye to our tour guide ‘Tom’ who is unable to continue with us to Cambodia as he is Vietnamese. We will meet our Cambodian tour guide tomorrow. At lunch we watched as we passed an unbelievable number of grab dredges taking silt from the river bed for industrial use. Then we crossed the border into Cambodia.

This afternoon we headed to the bridge with our captain and learned about navigation of the Harmony along the Mekong. We headed straight into a tour of the galley with the Head Chef before relaxing for the last part of the afternoon. Some amazing storm clouds as we travelled towards Phnom Penh and arrived after dark.

It was disco time tonight on the pool deck where we all enjoyed letting our hair down for night 6 of our river cruise.

Uploading tonight has been very difficult. Posts in Cambodia may become sporadic if things don’t improve.