Day 138: Saigon – My Tho - Cai Be

RV Orient Pandaw
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Our main concern about the Mekong cruise we’re today embarking was what the rest of the guests would be like, particularly their age. However, we quickly establish at check in at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel that whilst we’re certainly below the mean age, our new friends aren’t all “little old blue rinsed ladies from Devon” as someone had suggested. Germany, Switzerland, USA, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Israel, Australia, England and Scotland all represented with an age range of 9 (one couple had kids) through to mid sixties. Everyone seems to get along together and over the coming days prove to be happy chatting to whoever over cocktails on the sun deck.

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The morning is taken up with check in and a few hour bus ride from Saigon out to My Tho to reach the boat. Greeted by the ever cheerful international staff (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Myanmar, Indian & German) and shown to our cabin. We had booked a main deck room but find we’ve been upgraded to the upper deck given the boats not full. Unable to push the single beds together to create a double I ask Alex, the boss on board who happens to be passing by at that moment, if there’s any doubles we could swap to. As luck would have it one of the superior upper deck cabins is free so we get a further upgrade to a front of boat room with larger outside sitting area – fantastic start!

All aboard the Mekong

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The pandaw (our boat) is very nice and quite spacious being built for around 60 but only half full - perfect numbers for us to get to know everyone else aboard but not be stuck with just a few people the entire time.

After lunch the afternoon sees our first excursion once moored neared Cai Be (where we stay overnight) – out on smaller boats to see the waterfront of this river town and the many many boats on the river. We go ashore to see popcorn and rice papers being made (very hot stuck in a small building next to a large fire here) and also take a brief stroll to the An Kiet House, a traditional (but grand) dwelling house set in an orchard garden. Very pretty area here, just a shame it’s a little overcast for the photos (although still very hot and humid).