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Published: July 12th 2015
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The morning started off early with a boat ride to the floating markets on the Mekong River. These are not the tourist markets of Thailand, but the real ones the farmers, middlemen and traders use. It took about 30 min to get there from our hotel, but once we arrived there was a plethora local men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes trading and selling their produce, meat and fish. The small row boats were the farmers bringing their goods to market to see to the middle men, in larger boats. The middle boats would put their product on a pole in the air to sell to the traders. So there were poles with sweet potatoes, gourds, roots, and other fruits and vegetables. There was even one boat full of butchered meat with NO refrigeration. Not pretty. Clearly it was not USDA standards. The farmers come in early and then head back to the farms, but the middlemen and traders are there most of the day. It is a traffic jam of all boat sizes and we were right in the middle of it. They even had a floating sandwich lady and bar tender to help keep everyone going.
We stopped at a riverside cafe (we use this term loosely) to get some coffee and so the boat captain could eat. They invited us into their house to go to the second floor to get a better view of the market. We got back on the boat and headed to a fruit garden. This is where the 10 year-old-girl we had picked up on the way suckered us into buying coconut jewelry. It's not fair to have a trapped audience.
We arrived at the fruit garden and walked around to see every kind of tropical fruit you can think of and some we never knew existed. They served us a plate full of the exotic fruits and we discovered our new favorite fruit, the mangosteen. It is delicious.
From here we had a 4 hour drive back to Saigon to catch our flight to Siem Reap. We took the highway home and as there was not as much to see along the way we commenced the napping. So now we refer to the van as the "nap trap" because it was almost impossible to stay awake. We did get some quality time with our guide on
this drive between naps. He was very curious to know our thoughts of the trip, Vietnam and the differences between his country and ours. He also threw in a few hilarious (note the sarcasm) jokes. We did hit a traffic jam on the way when a truck caught on fire in the middle of the road, but was out out by the local fire department.
We arrived at the airport a bit early so Kirsten could pick up her long lost luggage. Much to her relief it was there. It took a bit of time to try and get information from the representative and after they offered to pay $50 for 3 days of lost clothes she walked away with a few choice words for them. But they continued to tell her "so sorry".
We had a short 1 hour flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, on a prop plane that Chester and Lynn was sure would crash. However, we landed like a rock, skidded down the runway and then had to back up to find the right entrance to the terminal. Seriously, the pilot missed the turn in to the gate and had to back up on the
runway.
We arrived at the hotel at a reasonable hour, so Lynn and Chester went to have some drinks at the bar while Kirsten carried on the tradition of massages and got another message. For those of you counting at home, that's three massages in three days. We finally had dinner around 9 pm, and then back to our room and crashed.
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