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We could have spent another day in Saigon either relaxing or spreading what we crammed into the previous day over 2 days, but we felt that wasn't productive enough so we decided to do a 3-day trip to Phnom Penh in Cambodia via the Mekong Delta in south Vietnam. It's basically where the Mekong river coming down through Cambodia breaks off into various distributaries as it hits Vietnam and reaches the South China Sea. We set off from Saigon at another ungodly hour, hung over, and headed off…somewhere.I don't know I really don't remember much of those 3 days, I mean they were ok but the place was not as great as it's made out to be and we spent most of the time getting everywhere in long boat rides. Anyway we went to various riverside villages where we saw how stuff like rice paper and coconut candy was made and also visited bee (I hate bees!), fish and crocodile farms (I've never seen so many crocodiles in one place before, I mean there were hundreds, crammed into these enclosures so much so that they piled on top of each other, most of them no doubt will go on to make nice shoes and bags etc.). The coconut candy was tasty as hell actually so we bought loads. But I bought mine as gifts, whereas Ben bought 3 packets for himself and soon realized he couldn't get through them, so proceeded to hand them out to random people we passed by throughout the remainder of the trip. Anyway we did a load of little boat tours during the 3 days and visited another temple for another sunset, and the muslim village of Vietnam (where we ate stale cakes and got ill having missed the huge sign saying "don't buy the cakes from the little kids, they are months old!"). It was a pretty relaxed and stress-free few days and the scenery was nice enough, quite tropical riverside banks and quaint little huts, but the water was brown because of all the motor boats used by the locals to get around and trade and stuff. So all in all it wasn't a highlight of the trip but again it was a new experience and good to see a more traditional side of Vietnam compared to the modernized hullabaloo of Saigon. And again it was cheap, with good accommodation, all transport, a guide and some meals included for only $40. So the Vietnam leg was over and now time for our last stop, Cambodia. Thankfully everything is in US dollars, which makes things easier not having to spend half the time figuring out the equivalent of massive denominations of South East Asian currencies. Phew! Although what will I use my brain for now??
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