Today we spend the whole day leisurely cruising the Mekong River to the border with Vietnam, where we anchored after lunch. After two hours with customs and immigration procedures, we traveled down the manmade Tan Chau Canal connecting the upper river to the lower Bassac River, and eventually anchored near the Vietnamese fishing port of Chau Doc for the night.
During the day we experienced two extremely informative lectures on the history of Cambodia. The first at 9 a.m. was an extremely enthusiastic presentation entitled “A Shorty History of Modern Cambodia (1953-1993)” given by Royal University of Phnom Penh Professor, Dr. Jean-Michel Filippi. Jean-Michel in his 90 minute lecture tried to sort out the complex situation and chaos which lead to the rise and eventual fall of the Khmer Rouge. After a short break, Jean-Michel stayed around for another hour to answer questions before catching a taxi back to Phnom Penh. In the afternoon at 4 p.m. former Canadian Ambassador to Cambodia, Gordon Longmuir, gave his interesting lecture on “Cambodia, Resurrection of a Failed State” which dealt with events from 1994 until the present, mentioning his firsthand experience having lived in Cambodia at the time.
At 3:30 the Jahan crew and staff gave a demonstration of Cambodian culture-dress codes for Krama and Sarong or Sampot style.
In the evening, we met with one of our Vietnamese guides, Mr. Tri, who gave us a warm welcome and a wonderful and comical slideshow of his native land.
