1. After our amazing adventures in Hanoi and Siem Reap, we finally boarded our floating home-away-from-home the lovely MS La Marguerite. Here we all are boarding the boat, which literally was pulled up to a muddy riverbank and tied to a tree so we could cross the rickety wooden gangplank to get onboard! (There's my friend The Best Dressed Lady on the Tour on the right!) Note the local children on the right -- they apparently know the tour schedule and turned out en masse to give us a gala sendoff!

2. I didn't get a WIW photo that day, but here I am enjoying the first of many amazing meals onboard and you can see the top of my outfit. I was wearing my uniform of longsleeve cotton tee, linen pants (navy on this day), and colorful scarf, along with my fab comfy Keen sandals.

3. The first full day on the river I busted out my olive shorts because there were no temples on the agenda. Paired them with my black and gray striped tee and fave floral scarf from Target and felt pretty good.

4/5/6. First stop: A local fishing village where most of the people live on floating houseboats and fish for a living. We took small boats through the floating homes, then docked in the center of town. Our boat captain was a novice and it took a village -- including a Buddhist monk -- to get us tied up at the dock!

7/8. The local marketplace was really something to see! One of the first vendors we came across was this lady, who was selling dried fish and giving mani/pedi's! Note the long green nails on her customer's hands and feet!

9/10. Even though it was very hot and humid, the local fashion was covered up, and pattern mixing was everywhere!

11. This monk and his young helper were going from store to store, collecting alms and giving blessings. The proprietor would come out of the shop with an offering, the monk would hand it off to his young helper who would put it in his basket, the proprietor would bow his or her head, and the monk would give a blessing. This was repeated all the way down the street.

12. This was typical of the reception we received throughout Cambodia. This young man and his grandfather were delighted to see us!

13/14/15. After the morning excursion we got to relax in our beautiful suite before heading out to the next excursion, featuring an oxcart ride through yet another village! (Note the poinsettia in the corner in 14 -- the whole ship was decorated for Christmas! And that's the view from our little balcony in no. 15!)

16/17/18/19/20/21. Again, the local children were totally up on the cruise company's schedule, and were out in force to meet us and escort us thought their village in exchange for gits of school supplies and practice chatting in English! This young lady walked behind our cart the whole time, chatting and singing songs. Lots of gardens, rice paddies, and the local commuter bus.

22/23/24/25/26. We ended the day with a visit to Cambodia's national buddhist center, where we were blessed by the resident monks and got to see some beautiful old and new shrines. Note the beautiful Buddhist nuns in white! And that's me, looking a little less fresh at the end of a long day!

Next up: Silk weaving village and (finally) arrival in Phnom Penh!

Thanks for looking! I hope I'm not being too long-winded, but it's such fun sharing our adventures!!