Civilisation again

This is how we are celebrating New Year's Eve - in front of a computer.

We are back.

Since our last entry we ended up at Stung Treng - a town on the Mekong and the last town before crossing to Laos. Here we had the chance to visit a small village and spend time with a Cambodian family. This included a picnic on the Mekong. Kathy swam Cambodain style with all her clothes on!

We then went east on a very rough road to a very isolated part of Cambodia to Ban Lung. It is like the wild west - very dusty streets etc. All the roadside vegetation is coated with a thick layer of red dust.

We have been travelling with two French women who work in the south of Cambodia. One day we hired motor bikes and saw some fantastic little villages. It was really getting off the beaten track. Not too many Europeans come this way so we were a bit of a novelty.

At one spot we came across two elephants working in the fields - rubber plantations. The real thing!

We also did a two day trek heading towards the Vietnam border for 3 hours on a very rough 4X4 track. It had ruts in the road up to 70 cm deep, created in the wet season. It took 2plus hours to travel 60 km. Then we crossed the river in a littleboat and walked on a jungle track for 2.5 hours.

Just after dark we arrived at a minority hill tribe village - Nay. These people are very 'primitive' and isolated. Our guide could speak their language so one family invited us to stay in their house instead of in the 'classroom.' (This was a roof with a bit of a fence around it.)

It was an unbelievable experience. No electricity. No running water. No torches. No loo - choose your own spot. We washed at the well. We took photos of the kids milling around and they loved looking at the previews on the camera. After eating, we joined the men and tried the rice wine. We had to a share the bamboo straw as we drank from the clay pot.

The only difficult bit was sleeping - We ended up sleeping on the floor. Underneath we could hear the pigs and chickens. When I got up to go to the loo, I met one of the buffulo!

People arose early and started their chores after warming up a bit by the fire. Women went off to get water from the river. Breakfast was cooked and the families sat around and watched us.

We gave them some leftover fruit, sugar, tea and biscuits. It was received keenly. An old man came asking for medicine because he had a sore mouth.

Where do we find a balance so these people can have some basics and we not have too much?

We are back south again now at Kratie - on the Mekong again. We went to see the fresh water dolphins in the river. Ausaid provides $$ for an environmental projectto protect the environment from pollution from diesel, netting and the plastic bags that get into the waterways.

To sum up - it's been great - better than we could have imagined.

Hope you are all well.
Happy New Year.