Cruising the mighty Mekong

Making pop rice in one of the villages in the Mekong Delta region
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Wed 24/10

Early start with the bus departing for our overnight trip in the Mekong Delta region on time at 7.30am. We had a very good and talkative guide (Mr Fak we think?) for the first day who kept us informed on all things Vietnam.

few beers in the deck chairs as the sun went down

Our first stop was in Cai Be where we transferred to a boat and cruised along the Mekong and viewed the wholesale floating market. The boats selling things have a large bamboo pole with the produce they are selling on the end of it eg bananas or sweet potato, and buyers simply pull their boat up next to them.

Accessorising like the locals
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Next stop was in a small village where we saw how rice paper is made - and it is quite difficult as a volunteer learnt! Also saw how they make the coconut candy (unique to Vietnam) - whereby they breakdown the hard white part of the coconut into a fine powder and then add sugar cane and cook it so it caramalises. They mix different foods such as peanuts, chocolate or panda leaf (vanilla flavour) to make variations of the candy. We were able to try all sort of them but Mike and I found a little too sweet to purchase any more.. Finally we saw how they make pop rice (kind of like popcorn which is consumed in square portions). It was here we ran into Maree and Lou who we had shared the cabin with on the train trip from Hanoi to Hue!

Paddle boats on a canal off the Mekong
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The boat then took us back along the Mekong and down a canal and we stopped and had lunch at an island village called An Binh. Bikes were available for us to hire and explore the village but they were pretty crap - no air in the tyres, low seats and hardly any breaks! So Mike did not last for long but I went exploring long enough that I got a little burnt in the hot sun...

From there we boarded row boats (the Vietnamese row forwards standing up) and went further down the canal - quite peaceful if not condusive to a little more sunburn (we did weat the traditional cone hats though). Back on the larger boat we headed for the pier at Can Tho and that was where the group split up. Some people were staying in Can Tho at a hotel and others were cruising on a larger boat overnight (including us). Here was where the confusion started also... with so many different types of trips eg 2 day, 3 day, stay in hotel, stay on the boat, return to Saigon, continue to Cambodia and people at different stages within their trips there was too many on the bus to head for the boat. We concluded that the guide must have mixed up the numbers or miscommunicated numbers so that two late comers switched to the boat stay - and Mike and I felt interrogated over our trip, what we paid and our receipt demanded to prove we were in fact to stay overnight on the boat! The new guides lack of English did not help....  They had made the error but we just laughed as we had become used to this lack of organisation in SE Asia!

Early morning floating market at Chau Doc near the Cambodian border
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Bus took us along the most bumpy (crater potholes) road to Sau Doc where we stopped at a house thing for showers - basically 24 people taking turns to use 4 cold showers. Quick walk along their busy markets and then boarded the boat. It had a large upper deck, lounge/dining room and dorm/bunk set up (ended up quite comfortable). A few beers in the deck chairs as the sun went down (behind the clouds but at least no rain for the day yet) and we were thinking this was a great way to end nearly 6 weeks in Asia.

The happy kids who live in the "floating city"
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The food was very average for dinner - Mike gave it the name "rice a riso" as this was what it was comparable to. To make it worse the combined salt and pepper shaker lid must not have been secured properly and soon covered my "casserole bowl" of dinner. The tour was a lot cheaper than the Halong Bay cruise however so we did not expect the same quality but at least thought we may get a few spring rolls and maybe some fruit for dessert too! We had to pay extra for the breakfast and lunch on the boat the next day and it was unanimous with others on the trip also that we would prefer to pay a few extra dollars for all meals to be included. We met a German couple and chatted to them for a while until everyone went to bed. It was at that time that the rain and lightning started - very loud on the boat's tin roof!

Mike rowing on the Mekong
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Slept well but were up early at the sound of the boats around - we were in the middle of the Chau Doc floating market which starts at about 5am. Mike and I wished the lady selling bowls of pho who have brought her little row boat near us for breakfast instead of the boring egg and bread we were served on board.

Back onto another bus for a short trip to Sam Mountain and the pagoda situated on it - for views of the surrounding countryside including the Cambodian border just few kilometres away. Also were given a very detailed description from new guide Thanh who was very animated and really made the second day of the trip informative.

On to the row boats again and around the "floating city" on the Mekong river. Learnt about fish farms that are under each of the houses on the water. We continued along the river (ducking power lines connecting electricity and pirated cable tv lines to the floating houses) to the Cham Village - a minority group close to the Cambodian Border. We saw lots of gorgeous little kids trying to sell their home made goodies - with just enough English to say "you buy from me?" and "3000" (dong).

Row boats took us back to meet up with the big overnight boat and the 6 hour cruise back to Sau Doc commenced. It rained most of the way so spent the time inside reading and sleeping a bit (lunch a slight improvement on dinner - noodles with veg and pork). Unlike Halong Bay the group was too big and we did not make any friendships as we had from the previous cruise. After the 6 hours on the boat it was 3.5 hours on the bus - and that was to travel only 156km!The bus went very fast (in fact the guide told us he asked him to speed?!) but the traffic when back in Saigon and the awful state of the first leg of the highway meant it took so long. People tried to sleep on the bus but it was pretty impossibly - the German couple were in front of us and seemed to be propelled out of their seat and woken up at each bump - even just the joins in the road made for getting airborne!

Thanh gave a great local and history lesson on the last hour of the bus ride. He really made the trip enjoyable with his charisma and personality. Regardless of the administration hiccups (German couple's luggage was also "accidentally" sent to Cambodia), Delta Adventures ran a very good tour.

Finally back we headed back to the hotel and on the way heard Jon and Andrea call out and we had again randomly run into them - they were with Nick and Kendell also. It was quite late though to go back and meet them afterwards, plus a few things to confirm since the next day was time to leave Asia and fly to London...