Mekong Delta (29 September to 1 October 2007)
The Mekong Delta provides roughly 60% of the Vietnam’s rice, and Vietnam is the second largest producer of rice in the world. So you can only imagine what the landscape is like. The delta is a maze of rivers and canals with floating villages and markets and everyone getting around by boat - be it a fancy speed boat or a simple rowing boat.
We took a bus from Ho Chi Minh city to Can Tho (a beautiful small city, with the friendliest people, lovely gardens and a splendid boardwalk next to the river - I wish we could have spent some more time here). We spent one night in Can Tho and then moved on to Chao Doc to cross the border into Cambodia.
From Can Tho, we did many short boat trips to the different villages within this part of the Delta. We went to a local coconut candy factory - a very simple production line, producing products like rice paper (for wrapping the candy), rice wine (just because they can), rice snacks like rice cakes, puffed rice and delicious rice biscuits, and coconut sweets (which happens to be divine - we bought a whole bag full of the stuff). We also visited a rice husking mill, where we got to see how they make puffed rice by heating the rice in a huge bowl of scorching sand and then sifting out the sand for the puffed rice to remain.
The one lunch venue, a small village-restaurant right on the river bank, had quite an interesting set-up. They have two ‘normal’ squat toilets with a HUGE python in a small wired-cage next to them and then they have a bamboo toilet perched over a small pond with fish. The queue at the conventional toilet was too long, I saw the hostess using her bamboo toilet and decided to give it a shot. I had to ‘walk the plank’ to get into the 1 x 1 meter bamboo box. I first had to squat down to remove my pants as the bamboo is also just about 1 meter high. I squatted down, all the time keeping my balance on the two bamboo shoots and as nature took its course, the fish in the pond started going berserk! It was as if they were waiting for it in anticipation - it was the weirdest thing ever!
After dinner in Chao Doc, one of the local cyclo riders took a small group of us (Rob, Alan and Stef from the UK and Shu-wi from Singapore) to a local ‘bar’. The bar was more like a 3 x 3 meters room right on the street with a TV, blearing speakers for karaoke, a couple of small chairs and tables on the pavement and, most importantly, a GIGANTIC canister of locally brewed beer selling for 4500 VND (about R2,00) a litre! We ended up having 12 litres of bear among the six of us and singing karaoke into the wee hours of the night! Allan did a bit of Sinatra, My Way, and boy was he good! The rest of us might lack a bit of talent, but that certainly did not stop us from performing. The locals even joined in and Alan ended up doing a duet, singing ‘Delilah’. It was a fantastic party!!
The border crossing was an experience not to be forgotten - we left Chao Doc at about 7:00 to first visit a Cham minority village where I ended up buying a sarong for about R20, and Eon is still cursing me for not bargaining down to R10 ? Then we moved on to the border on a slow boat, which was a simple motor boat with a gazebo roof and no windows - so at least we had a breeze to keep us cool and a roof to keep the sun away. But when they say “slow boat”, they really do mean it; it took four hours to get to the border. At the border crossing, we had to get off the boat, have lunch and then get onto a new boat to continue on to Cambodia. The new boat was almost slower than the first one, but this one was closed up with windows that do not open. There was no breeze and no air-con and no open windows and the heat just kept building up, creating a nice little sauna in the boat. To top this, there were tiny red ants everywhere and one actually bit me on my tummy and it stung like crazy! This boat took four hours - four hours of sheer hell!
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