Day 17 - Mekong Cruise Day 6

Woke this morning at 6am, probably a little earlier than needed today as today our ship left dock at 6am to make its way onto our next site which wouldn't be docking again until about 3pm.

I got up and looked around at some of the sites, but as we were travelling up the river there was only water and some of the scenery to see.  Breakfast this morning wasn't until 8:30, so getting up out of bed at 7am left me with a lot of time before breakfast.  This morning breakfast was just good, I managed to finally film how they make their omelettes, completely different to how I make mine, but way much better, I really want to see if I can perfect this style of omelette when I get home.

After breakfast I headed to the gym to spend a little time on the treadmill. Mum eventually joined me in the gym, but I had already done must of my workout by then so I headed off and left her to carry on her workout.  I then headed down to level 2 to see if I could fix the projector system, apparently it was cutting out a bit during the karaoke. I had noticed this myself, but it was raised with me so I figured I may as well take a look at it, I didn't have anything else to do and this sort of thing makes me feel useful.  After a good look at the system it seemed like there could be an issue with the projector, I managed to get them up and running with a workaround and fix the issue, but in an email I sent them I did state that I think there could be a fault with the projector. 

For the majority of the day after that there wasn't much to do until we docked at Angkor Ban. Angkor Ban stands as one of the rare Cambodian villages that remained unscathed during the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. Apparently instead of destroying the village they made the locals move out and they moved into the buildings and repurposed them.  We docked where there wasn't really a dock and all the families and kids on the island were there to great us, the left over food from the morning is taken and given to the locals.

We walked through the village getting shown some of the buildings, one of which belonged to an 80 year old lady who was living in a building thst was at least 2 generations old, I guess that would make it as old as her. It was rather high off the ground, intentional for when the floods come, but also allows for ventilation through the bamboo floor.  It had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and she slept in the main room, I guess what we would call the living room. 

The local children joined us as we walked around the village and held our hands as we walked around seeing things that they see every day, the little boy who grabbed my hand was called Nat, he was 5 years old, it looked like the Crocs he was wearing were too large for him, but I guess he would grow into them. The houses looked rather old, but we learnt about how if a house had more water containers outside they were considered richer than others, and things like how Banana plants can't be grown next to houses where it could touch the house, otherwise an evil spirit could come in. We headed back to the ship, I said to our guide Ry that I felt bad not having anything to give them, he told me not to as the kids do it all the time, even with locals, they just like hanging out holding your hand.  Just us being there brings them benifits to their community, I guess with the donation our guides give them and the food that is given to them from the ship, but still it felt hard not giving them something. Arriving on the boat couldn't have been timed any better, as soon as tmwe were all on the weather changed and water started pouring down.

We were given a brief of what was coming for the next day, it's hard to believe that tomorrow night will be our last night on the cruise, seems to have come around so fast.  We will still be in a hotel for a few nights as part of the trip, but we will say farewell to the cruise staff tomorrow night and the next morning.  We sat for dinner with David and Sonja, a couple of Australians who my parents as well as Mike and Gill got talking too, so they joined us for the evening at an 8 person tablet setup especially for us.  The meal options to choose from were all pretty good, so good in fact that we all chose the lambshank as our main. It was very well cooked, but if you have read any of my other posts then I'm sure you know wmthaf about the meals on this cruise.

After dinner it was time to enjoy a bit of local rivalry with the crew member teams all competing against each other, 3 guests were selected to be judges for the evening. All Australians, so some may say it's a little biased, but really it made no difference, the performances were all very entertaining, even if we didn't necessarily know what was going on. The winning team ended up being the chefs, they all started off singing in Cambodian, but then they got the guests up to start to dance, I think that small act was what was required for them to win, as it certainly wasn't the singing that got them across the finish line.

After the competition I the room became a dancing hall, where the crew and the guests all got up and danced together. Mike and Gill broke out some rock and roll, I got up and partied a bit as well, I actually forgot just how much of a sweat you can build up with a bit of dancing.