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Published: March 26th 2009
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Our journey from Saigon to Can Tho on the Mekong Delta nicely illustrates how we've acclimatised to the confusingly haphazard way things are done here. We take a couple of motorbike taxis to a minibus company that services the routes south into the delta, and when we get there they put us on another couple of bikes to another company without explanation. Whereas 2 weeks ago we'd have been worried as we crossed the city to an unknown destination, we're now relaxed about being the last to know what's going on. And when the ticket guy tries to charge us double, we now know enough about what it should cost to be able to avoid getting totally ripped with smiles and a little friendly conversation.
Our fellow passengers seem to be having some trouble getting their heads round me and Ritch being a couple, and one little boy makes it his journey's mission to win my hand! He flirts in the style of an eight year old...turning his eyelids inside out and passing me bits of paper with his name written on. When he asks me for the ring I'm wearing and I explain it was a present from Ritch,
it's a lightbulb moment and the rest of the journey is spent competing with Ritch...asking him to flex his biceps and then frustratedly hitting them. By the time we reach the final car ferry to Can Tho, he's given up and tries to cadge a cigarette off Ritch to console himself! We obviously refuse and try to explain why he shouldn't smoke but he just pulls a face and runs off. We find him later sitting at the back of the bus, furtively smoking a fag...jesus!
The Mekong River starts in Tibet and winds it way down from the Himalayas, through China into South East Asia, ultimately to the delta here in south Vietnam where it finally meets the sea. The Mekong Delta is closer to the mental image I had of Vietnam...a maze of vivid green waterways and steaming hot, small rural towns surrounded by rice paddies where water buffalo cool themselves in muddy puddles. Can Tho is an important transport hub and trading port, and is a good base for visiting the floating market at Cai Rang. The riverfront area around the tin-man-like Ho Chi Minh statue is lovely though, and it feels small, more like a
village despite the urban sprawl beyond the riverfront.
We wake before dawn to catch a boat to Cai Rang floating market, and the sunrise is obscured by a thick morning mist. Our lady rower pushes off from the dock and we float through the ghostly river mist towards market. It's already busy on the river; a boat comes towards us out of the fog and the man sells us cups of hot, strong coffee to kickstart our day. There are houseboats, the upper and lower decks stacked with vegetables, pineapples and bananas. As kids sleepily wash and eat their morning pho, their mothers busily make sales...a quick wave and we pull up alongside for a fruit salad breakfast. We float about, watching the morning's business; Cai Rang is more of a trade market and most sales seem to be from these big boats to business owners on smaller longboats like ours, and it's all done by 9am. The route back to Can Tho takes us through tiny canals thick with jungle, it's everything I'd imagined. Today is Valentines Day and this morning has been effortlessly more romantic than Hallmark could ever hope for.
We're back at Tan Thanh
Hostel (highly recommended...great food, lovely helpful staff) in time for an early lunch. Along one wall of the restaurant are big tanks where you can choose your dinner...fish and prawns sit alongside more exotic meals of sea snake and huge frogs. We pick eels, which are wrestled from tank to kitchen where they are transformed with lemongrass and chili and served with prawn noodles. After eating we drink beer and watch a group of kids fly home-made kites. The idyllic scene is twisted in a truly Vietnamese style, when one tiny boy reels in his yellow and black bumblebee kite, and tucks it under his arm whilst he lights his cigarette.
I'd been researching small Mekong villages to find somewhere good to spend my birthday, when Ritch says no, we're going to Phu Quoc island instead. Phu Quoc is described by the Lonely Planet and every travel website I've seen as the most pristine and beautiful coastal area of Vietnam. The expensive boat crossing had put us off, but my lovely man has other plans and we are paradise bound for my birthday.
The hydrofoil to Phu Quoc leaves from the port town of Rach Gia, a few
hours away by minibus. This time me and Ritch are sat upfront with the driver, where we have a splendid view of the craziness that is Vietnamese driving. Slow mopeds, three deep, veer out across the road overtaking slower bicycles, whilst being overtaken by cars and minibuses on the wrong side of the road. No one looks in their mirrors, no one indicates and no one seems shaken by the trucks that come careering headlong towards you blaring their horn for you to get out their way coz they ain't stopping. It seems as long as you sound the horn, anything goes. By the end of the journey I have deep crescent shaped indents in the palms of both hands.
Our hydrofoil to Phu Quoc departs early in the morning, so we check into a cheapy hostel across the road from the port ready for an early start. That evening we sit outside at one of the street cafes to eat the spiciest pho in Vietnam. There is so much chili the broth is deep red; 4 weeks ago it would've been inedible for me but we are now chili fiends and happily slurp it down, the burn only really kicking in once we've finished. As we leave I am so preoccupied with getting my body temperature back down that I come very close to disaster. We get back to our hostel room before I realise that I have left my bag under the table I've just vacated. Everything important is in there: passport, shiny new ATM card, back up credit card, $200 in dong, plus our hydrofoil tickets to paradise. A vision of the worst flashes before my eyes as we sprint back down to the cafe, but luck is on my side...the table where we sat is still empty and my bag unnoticed in the shadows. I am a very lucky idiot.
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