The real Mekong River and Phenom Penh

Another early start today to catch the Victoria hotels riverboat up to Phenom Penh. There was no real excitement during the trip, which lasted about five hours, including the border stops. However, the riverbank scenery was constantly changing, and most of the time we travelled close enough to one side or the other, so that we could have a good look at what was going by. About thirty minutes out from the hotel, we made a left turn, and it was then that I realized that everything that we had seen of the Mekong up to this point was barely a creek compared to what we just turned onto. From here to Phenom Penh, I doubt that the width was ever less than a mile, and that might be a conservative guess. My other surprise was to realize that my Hollywood war movie concept of the Mekong with gunboats and strategic hillside artillery lookouts was certainly incorrect. If the elevation of the surrounding landscape ever exceeded 5 metres as far as the eye could see, then I missed seeing that strategic point of land. This is the bread basket of the region, you can see irrigation pipes down into the river constantly, there were thousands of them. Rice, corn, and fruit (lot of mangos from what I could see) and I'm sure there were lots of low growing plants like melons and pineapple that would not be visible from the river. About an hour into the ride, we pulled into a dock and all got out at Vietnam customs. There was a hotel rep on the boat who had collected all our passports, Cambodia visa paperwork and fees. He disappeared somewhere and 15 minutes later we all got back on the boat and away we went, for about five minutes when we docked again and all got out. This time we sat on benches under some trees while he dealt with some officials at an open air table. Eventually, he got up, handed out our passports, and then we lined up for a passport review at a small office. All in all, probably another 45 minutes. We got into Phenom Penh at the expected time, was met by a guide and driver, and were taken to our nearby hotel. He gave us the pickup information for tomorrow and told us that there would be someone else looking after things tomorrow.
We wandered about for an hour or two this afternoon, spent an hour or two by the pool, had a good pizza for supper, and back to the hotel at a decent hour.
Tomorrow morning will be tough, the killing fields and genocide museum, then I think we visit the Russian market before the short flight to Siem Reap.
Here are just a few pictures of the scenes and landscape of the Mekong River.