Mekong Diaries: Day 42

It’s hot and humid and the crowds have thinned; it could be because of the economic crisis that has hit local people really hard as rice and petrol process have spiraled upwards.

Mekong Diaries: Day 40

Day 40

Team A in the midst of the Water Festival in Phnom Penh. We are within a stones throw of the King as he launches the races. Millions come from all over the country for these races, crowding the banks of the river. We meet a team from Kampong Cham, who like their chances of taking out line honors.. time will tell. Two more days of races after this.

Mekong Diaries: Day 37

Day 37

Today we get up at dawn, whose idea was this! Down at the river the fishing is already in full swing well before the sunrises. When it does rise the river turns golden and the mists peel away from the valleys and hillsides. Then it is time for the team to break in half again, with some of us off to Phnom Penh in time for the Water Festival and boat races, and the others off to Ubon Ratchathani to keep following the river.

For Team A the Living Rivers Siam takes us to a community meeting on the Ni River. Villagers gathering there discussed all the issues facing agricultural people. Local government representatives were there as well, and we take the opportunity to interview him, and the head of the community forestry.

Afterward we return to Chiang Khong to get some shots of the border crossing. Then it is onto a dodgy bus to Chiang Rai, where we spend the night before catching plane back to Phnom Penh for the Water Festival.

Meanwhile Team B catches a plane to Bangkok, and doesn’t miss the opportunity to visit the shopping paradise and snack out in some really good food courts. However a marathon search for cheap miniDV tapes comes up blank. Note to world, Thailand has completely lost the right to claim it is a bargain.

Then it was downtown to the central train station and onto a ‘first class train’. This must be a new budget kind of first class. After sleepless night face to face with an air hose direct from the arctic, Team A arrives in Ubon. Cold, sick, cough…