Get up at six, leave at seven. Three hours by bus to the Mekong. Walking, boating, walking, eating, walking, boating, walking, bus, walking, ferry, walking, three hours by bus. I fall asleep again and again. The hours pass me by like a zombie on tranquillisers. The sun is shining and water lilies float in the brown waters of the Mekong.
The tour group is quite nice, a colourful mix, young and old and from all over. Not terror tourists, but people with interesting stories and questions. But I’m too tired. Switch on the MP3 player and go back to sleep. Some work in the evening, but I can’t concentrate. More than 6 hours’ sleep for the first time in three days.
The next day starts better. That means I don’t run into the first doorframe with my eyes squinted. Today I save that for the roof of the boat. At least the squared timbers have real edges. We cross the Mekong again to a Muslim Cham settlement. I’m tired, for once not because of a lack of sleep. It’s all going round in circles, constant repetition.
Then it’s back onto the Mekong. I do a bit of web design on the sun deck. Water buffalo graze on the banks. Barges chug towards us. The people here are desperately poor. The huts on the banks stand on stilts, the walls are made of palm leaves.
I am not a Teletubbi. That’s why I have an aversion to wave-wave-terrourism. Not today. All the children on the shore wave to us. All of them. And me back. Farewell to Vietnam. They make somersaults into the water and laugh. Do you have to be poor to laugh like that?
After two hours we reach the border with Cambodia. The crossing is so cutely small that you almost want to pat it encouragingly. A dirt track. A barrier. Cambodians and Vietnamese cross uncontrolled on bicycles. The uncontrolled invasion of neighbouring countries has a long tradition in both countries. Finally peaceful today.
Another three hours on the Mekong towards Phnom Penh. An overcrowded minibus, TukTuk and finally some rest. It is already dark. A UNICEF flyer against child prostitution hangs in the room. As I go to dinner, an ugly Westerner waddles down the stairs with a Cambodian girl. I don’t think she was 18 yet. When packaging becomes wrapping.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.