I got on with my guide in Hanoi, he was laid back and willing to exchange information more than impart it. He let me correct his English and told me about local food and customs. He told me that, because his wife was born in the year of the tiger and he in the year of the monkey, signs that don’t get on, they had to have a sham first marriage where she stayed the night at his place and left early the next morning, symbolically breaking something (a bucket) to end their first marriage. With the bad karma out of the way, they got married again properly.

Of course I was taken to tourist stores to shop but though the prices were a little higher, they were reasonable, came down when I objected and in any case, I was willing to trust. I saw how lacquered paintings were made and pearls were extracted from oysters.

Cambodia, by contrast, was a little more uptight. My guide was the font of all knowledge and didn’t like it when I disagreed. His English wasn’t so good either, he frequently searched for words to explain things and mangled those he knew but he objected to, or ignored, any suggestions I made. He could be obsequious too and liked to boast.

I liked him anyway. He was patient with the fact that I couldn’t walk so well at the moment, helped me up and down stairs in Angkor Wat and insisted I see what was important, even when I complained about the pain in my leg.

When we visited the temples he had to wear an official uniform and badge and I had to be photographed and given a pass. I didn’t change money in Cambodia, everywhere I went, even in the markets, people asked for US dollars. In Vietnam, people preferred dong though they kept quoting prices at me in US dollars till I pointed out that I wasn’t American and US dollar prices were as confusing as dong.

In Cambodia they just assumed I must understand US dollars. My guide thought US and Australian dollars were the same. I found it harder to be sure I had spent well.

The stores for tourists were overpriced. The quality wasn’t bad in the first store but they still expected me to pay $200 for a silk shawl. I had spent less than that for a silk dress, handmade to my measurements, in Vietnam, so the price seemed wrong even though the salesman assured me the silk took a long time to make and weave. The rest of the stores asked inflated prices for junk, $25 for a silk change purse, $75 for marquesite earrings made of metal which was only 65% silver. Prices dropped by two-thirds when I objected. I bought the earrings for $25 which I thought was still too high but I felt sorry for these people. I suspect the Cambodian government takes more than its fair share and maybe someone thought all tourists were fools, though it isn’t the people dealing with them every day. Maybe the only way they could sell anything was to look sad.

Once the Khmer republic stretched from Burma to China. There was no Laos or Southern Vietnam. Northern Vietnam was controlled by China and there was the tiny nation of Champa along the sea coast. Angkor Wat dates from that time, when the Hindu kings lived in the city of Angkor Thom. Angkor Wat originally had nine towers and three levels. I’ve been waiting to see it since I was a child and thought I never would, given what’s been happening in Cambodia over the years. It’s covered in low relief sculptures, almost like hand-drawn wallpaper, with rows and rows of gods or demons lined up next to each other, holding snakes across their waists facing the other way. Leave it to the Hindus to imagine multitudes.

There are no empty spaces, patterns fill the columns and lintels and at the base of each is an apsara, a beautiful woman, each one wearing a different style of clothing. Sometimes they appeared two by two next to windows. The windows were filled in by vertical columns of disks, spaced just enough apart to let in light. The towers were shaped like a child’s top, knobbly conical shapes which bulging waists, covered in shapes mimicking curls. We waited forty minutes to climb to the top level on narrow wooden staircases and could see across the temple precinct. There were buildings everywhere, peeping out from between trees.

In the middle of Angkor Thom was the Bayon, a Buddhist temple with faces on all four sides of its towers. You could climb right up and touch their cheeks. Beng Melea, 65 miles away, was a bunch of ruins with a wooden pathway for tourists. You could see galleries and towers but mostly piles of moss-covered stones.

We drove out to a hotel farm in an area where those who lost their land had been resettled in corrugated Iron shacks. Unicef was at work there installing water spouts for fresh water. I presented a sack of rice and a bag of other goodies and had my Western face photographed to use in publicity. The restaurant at the hotel organised all this, then gave me a tour of the farm and the vegetable market stall, and a cooking lesson. Under guidance, I made fish salad, clear soup with chicken and mushrooms and a beef stir fry with a very tasty sauce. Then I ate it all. It was fun but I was full. It had rained heavily the night before so I was also wet, splashing around in puddles as I toured the farm and attempted to visit the toilet.

The Cambodians were very friendly and worked hard to make me feel welcome. Each time I returned to the hotel, they would welcome me home with cold towels. The guide stopped the car when I wanted to buy sticky rice in bamboo tubes and we sat while we ate and laughed with the women selling it. I saw Cambodian houses built high on stilts to escape flooding rains. People greeted me everywhere but they lacked the spontaneous compassion of the Vietnamese.

My guide didn’t like the Vietnamese much. He wasn’t too happy when I mentioned Vietnam and insisted on checking my flights with Vietnamese Airlines because he thought they were unreliable. People always hate their neighbours, they say, which is sad because you can do so much more when you work together.