Mekong island

Today we started off by going dolphin watching on the Mekong river. The local area has been set back by various issues and so the company im travelling with promote eco-tourism in order to help the locals to earn a living. In particular they organise dolphin watching trips and employ ex-fishermen (who can no longer fish in the area due to environmental reasons) to guide the trips. I really enjoyed this and our guide actually managed to get us within 10 metres of the dolphins which is apparently very rare.
In the afternoon we took a local ferry over to an island in the Mekong river. Here we firstly took ox carts to a local fruit farm where we planted trees and met the island’s chef. To be honest, I felt very uncomfortable on the ox cart as you can see the animals physically suffering and I don’t think I’ll ever be going on one again. I understand that they are used for farming anyways and using them for transport gives the locals another form of income, but I don’t think they should be used for the enjoyment of tourists…
After this the chief then took us to various rice paddies where he explained how the crop is planted, cultivated and harvested every year before heading back to the boat.
I really enjoyed these activities (minus the ox cart) and the local adults and children on the island were so friendly and welcoming. Not only on this island but pretty much everywhere I’ve been in Cambodia all the local people wave and say hello which is really nice to experience.Les mer