Chau Doc to Cambodia

Ba Chuc temple, at the Bone Pagoda.
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We arrived in Chau Doc on the minibus from Cantho, to be met by the usual Cyclo ambush. "20,000 Dong, one person", said the grinning cyclo boy. "No", I said, "20,0000 Dong, two people". Bargaining over, off we went, a cyclo each, the two cycling boys giggling away (come to think of it, we were smiling a bit as well). Inevitably, it started to rain, just as we discovered that the Lonely Planet recommended guesthouse was shut, padlocked and dark. This didn't bother the two cyclo boys at all; another five minutes in the rain and we were checking into the fabulous and fabulously-named Guesthouse No 6. We gave the two guys another 10,000 for their trouble, making it a grand total of 50 pence each (are there any London cabbies reading this?).

Kids at the Bone Pagoda.
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We spent the afternoon organising our boat to Phnom Penh and a motorcycle tour for the next day. After a really tasty dinner of Pho Chay (that's veggie noodles to you) at a stall in the square, we had a beer at a cafe near the hotel. Niamh had a bit of a chat in French with an old moto driver; he was really rather charming, although a bit wistful perhaps at the lack of work coming his way these days.

"Very Harry Potter" muttered Niamh

Statue of a female Buddha.
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Our motorcycle tour started bright and early the next morning. The guide was highly informative and genuinely interested in telling us about the way of life in the area. For example, he stopped us next to mobile rice-milling machine, explaining how it was far more affordable for the local (poor) farmers for the machine to come to them, sometimes right into the fields themselves. A little later we stopped at a sculpture park, exhibiting work by artists of many countries as well as Vietnam.

The view from Sam Mountain.
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We drove on through the delta, our guide explaining at one point how the paddy fields are kept fertile by the flooding of the Mekong each year, and how the flood draws freshwater fish from the Tonle Sap in Cambodia all the way back down to hungry Vietnamese farmers, waiting with their nets.

After some distance we reached the Bone Pagoda, a very graphic memorial to a horrific massacre of 3000 villagers by the Khmer Rouge in 1978. The pagoda itself contains the bones of those killed, skulls piled behind windows, below them leg and arm bones in neat rows, behind them a messy pile of rib cages. A series of photos shows in almost unbearable detail the manner of the villagers deaths. We were shown around the temple where 200 villagers were murdered by an old monk, whose father was among those killed. He himself had fled with other villagers to the mountains. The walls of the temple still show the bloodstains from the bodies. Our guide explained that at the time he worked as a truck driver and had been involved in the removal of most the people in the area, before the Khmer Rouge attacked. Those killed were the people who couldn't afford to be relocated.

A handful of scorpions.
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Later we visited pagodas and temples built on the side of Sam Mountain. In the first, the guide lead us to a meditation room at the rear of the pagoda, where a small cave extends back into the mountain. On either side of the cave is a huge model snake, it's hissing mouth and eyes illuminated by red lamps. "Very Harry Potter" muttered Niamh. At another pagoda at the foot of the mountain, our guide was interrupted by an old woman who held up a cage stuffed with tiny, fluttering birds. "She wants you to buy one and set it free" said our guide. We refused and walked off, much to our guide's approval. "The birds can't fly very far, anyway. She'll just catch them again."

Queen Termites in wine. Nice.
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So, now we're back in Chau Doc. Later I think some more Pho Chay and beer may be on the menu. Then tomorrow it's the slow boat to Cambodia.

Next installment from Phnom Penh.