Today, I am back in Phnom Penh, I leave for Vietnam tomorrow. I have decided not to go to the south coast in Cambodia now, I think it is time to move on and make sure I dont run out of time in Vietnam or Laos plus I've heard that the Thai beaches are far nicer anyway.

This week I did a long bus journey upto Kratie on the Mekong River, it's a lovely town, so different to Phnom Penh. All the locals sit along the river eating and drinking and they seem to lead a far more basic, rural lifestyle. As soon as I got to my guesthouse, I had 5 minutes to settle in before being whisked off on the back of a motorbike to get to where the dolphins are half an hour away from the town. The journey itself was great - one long road along the river of wooden huts, a few wats, a school and tiny shops selling dolphin shaped souvenirs. Children were everywhere waving and shouting hello and waving as we zoomed past. When we arrived I joined one of the boat trips and we slowly went out to the middle of the very wide river where we sat quietly and waited. I heard a splash and there were the dolphins, we stayed for about half an hour - there were so many of them, jumping out of the water one after the other, its hard to believe theyr an endangered species because we saw so many in such a short space of time but I think we were just lucky .

The next day, I got another bus (well, a tin box on wheels) to go to Ratanakiri with a Norwegian couple and some Italians. The journey was long and the closer we got, the muddier and bumbier the journey was, the bus was packed full, not just with us in but also lots of locals so you bearly had half a seat to yourself! We were then stopped because a big bus had slided down and got stuck in the mud! A tracter came but couldnt pull it out, we slowly edged our way past and carried on, I have no idea if that bus got out (some people from the bus said they had been stuck there for 4 hours already!). Finally arrived and walked through the dusty red town to our guesthouse where we organised a tour for the next day, we went to 3 waterfalls (you couldnt swim in them though as its the rainy season so its too dangerous and the water looked pretty murky anyway) then to the big crater lake - its huge! We tried to swim to the other side but gave up half way, thinking that we wouldnt be bothered to swim all the way back again if we made it! Its a place where local kids come and play and you can jjump off platforms and its deep enough to dive, lots of fun! We then walked round the lake before being invited by a big Cambodian family to join them for their picnic, they gave us a beer each and took lots of photos with us. The next day we made our way back to Phnom Penh - a 12hour journey but it actually only took about 9 hours so that was good. In Phnom Penh today as my Vietnam visa doesnt start till tomorrow.

So, I go to Vietnam tomorrow, excited about getting to a new country!

xxx