Mekong Delta

Mekong Delta Boat Driver
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Its amazing how a border (essentially an invisible line) can create such a division.  A difference in scenery and cultures.  We came from Kep, Cambodia -- a small coastal town about one hour from the boarder of Vietnam.  It was a quiet town with very little tourism.  We stayed in a gorgeous hotel with a view of the ocean and a great swimming pool.  We rent a moto to drive around as entertainment.  The town was surrounded by lush rice paddies with the occasional palm tree and thatched roof house.  It was peaceful and beautiful.

Boat at the floating market (produce for sale is hung on the tall pole)
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We hired moto drivers to take us across the boarder.  It was a 45 minute journey first on paved roads and then on dirt roads.  Lucky for us it had rained heavily the night before so the dirt roads were muddy and the large pot holes were filled with rain.  It seemed as though the boarder was in the middle of no where.  For Cambodia, it was.  In fact, the depature office on the Cambodia side was a small hut and the boarder was blocked by a bamboo stick.  This was in stark contrast to Vietnam.  Within 300 yards, there was a huge modern concerete and glass building (the Vietnamese immigration office) and the road was fully paved.  Tony and I went through the standard immigration process without any problems and our moto drivers (still with our large backpacks on their motos) walked right through the boarder without even showing id.

Traditional row boat on the Mekong Delta. Tony and I rode in this type of boat except we had a motor.
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Vietnam was like hitting a wall of civilization.  The road was paved and that meant there were buildings on either side.  We were dropped at the nearest bus station and chose our destination based upon which bus was the next to leave.  Ultimately we ended up in Can Tho a large city right on the Mekong Delta.  During the four hour journey by bus in Vietnam, the road was nearly perfect (no potholes) and constant buildings.  It was like night and day.  We were already longing for a small town in the middle of no where.

Woman washing clothes in the river behind her house
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Can Tho was a great choice.  It is the location of the largest floating market in Vietnam.  So the next day we booked a half-day boat tour of the Mekong Delta which included the floating market.  The trip started at 5:30 am in order to catch the sunrise.  It was just Tony and I and our driver/guide (the cutiest old Vietnamese man who stood maybe 5' tall) in a traditional boat -- barely wide enough for Tony and I to sit side by side.  We spent the next 5 hours cruising the Mekong Delta and other numerous side canals along with boats of all shaps and sizes including tug boats, barges, ferries, row boats, etc.

View of houses along the river
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The market was great.  The boats display their goods (mainly produce) for sale by hanging them from a pole above their boat.  So if you see bananas and potatos on the pole you know that's what they have for sale.  Smaller boats shop by simply pulling along side the boat which has what they want and buying how much they want.  In standard Vietnamese form, it was crazy.  The boats selling stuff were all over the place and everyone else just wound there way through the maze.  The smaller boats got rocked around by the wakes of the larger boats and running into each other was not uncommon.  It reminded me of carts in Safeway on the day before Thanksgiving :)

Local family carrying a log in their boat
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After the market we cruised the nearby canals (which are much smaller than the actual Mekong Delta river).  It gave us a chance to see how people live along the river and how much they depend on the water for their everyday life.  Here though the river is literally outside their back door so washing vegetables, themselves or clothes is very easy.  Seeing their houses also confirmed that there are no building codes or regulations in Vietnam.  If you can use it as building material and it stays together and relatively upright without leaking too much . . . its good enough.  You will notice though that regardless of how shabby the house or the type of material, almost all of them have antennas for their TVs.  Even the Vietnamese have priorities!