Near Mutiny

The boat to Phonm Phen is a long thin affair of 70 rows four across, four exits and bleary Perspex at elbow height instead of windows. Not what we had been led to expect. . . Claustrophobia sets in at the thought of 7 hours incarceration, and tempers smoulder.

The boat is so overcrowded we're allowed to sit on top. No shelter and back to back seating only but there is air. Jack and I grudgingly "Make the Best of it". When asked how I survived in Congo, I point out that I'm paid to travel there. And anyway, even the blacklisted Lake Kivu speedboats are well supplied with windows to escape from - many a trip have I whiled away plotting how to wiggle over my neighbours.

We hurtle out into a vast expanse of water with no land - or life jackets - in sight. We list alarmingly.

Losses en route included various senses of humour, Ukrainian Tractors, last seen moonlighting as a sunbathing head-rest, Jenny's hat, Dad's glasses - I watched them gently plop from his pocket and disappear into the murky depths, and my phone,victim of flooding beneath.

But the trip is beautiful when you can see out - through the floating villages that I'd righteously declared off limits to the family (stateless Vietnamese scraping by in utter destitution, buzzed daily by vulturing tour groups); past fishing boats rammed with out of school children, grandparents, kitchen sinks and pets; along leafy banks and clustered canoes under stilt-ed wooden hamlets; and besides silhouetted homes piling on top of each other into the river.