Toum Tiou Cruise: Saigon to Siem Reap

Legend Toum and Tiou * The Toum Tiou derives its name from a traditional Khmer tale of star-crossed lovers, the Cambodian equivalent of Romeo and Juliet, Toum being the boy and Tiou, the girl. * This beautiful love story turned tragedy features Tiou's mother, an ambitious woman who wants to marry her daughter off to the king and Toum as the awkward lover. The king, good-hearted and understanding, eventually gives up on the marriage to make Tiou happy. It ends tragically when a frame-up involving the mother and the governor leads to the death of one of the two lovers, the other committing suice to follow suit. * This story is taught from primary to high school. Many songs and pieces of traditional music allude to the pair of ill-fated lovers.Construction * This traditional locally built boat started out as a freighter with a metal hull and a capacity of 150 tons, with two large but low-ceiling decks in order to maximize storage space. Like all boats of this type, it went up and down the Tonle Sap and Mekong, stopping at Siem Reap, Kompong Cham, Kratie and Stung Treng. * We stayed as close as we could to the original line of the boat, because we wanted to retain its slightly curved and elegant lines. * The Toum Tiou is 38 meters long and 6.5 meters we in the mdle. It has 10 rooms in all (3.3 m x 2.5 m), 4 on the first deck and 6 on the second, each air-conditioned and with a bathroom (2.5 m x 1.4 m) including toilet, shower and sink. The water on board is taken from the river, passed through a powerful filtration system and chlorinated in the final step of the treatment. * In order to make the best possible use of the common areas from the standpoint of both size and variety we have installed a library-reading room on the lower deck. There is also a covered space at the front of the mdle deck, a restaurant to the rear anda half-covered sundeck on top. INTRODUCTIONSiem Reap, Phnom Penh and Saigon are the key destinations that we use to offer you trips into lands of disconcerting beauty, with an incomparable historical heritage and legendary traditions. Cambodia's waterways are more than a convenient way of getting around; they are the country's lifeblood. Take a trip on them and you get an unparalleled in-depth look at the real country, becoming totally immersed in something both gentle and spectacular that cannot be experienced by any other mode of transportation. The shallow draught of the Toum Tiou makes it possible to reach the very heart of the remotest of villages where the sense of discovery is often reciprocal. Is it the travelers or the Khmers who are most surprised by the encounter ?