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Published: January 31st 2011
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After staying in Vietnam for a bit longer than anticipated I still hadn't done the Mekong Delta. I decide that perhaps a faster way to do this and get to Cambodia would be to do a tour. I found a two day tour that could show me around the area, get me across the border and finish in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Whilst this was a two day tour, I was the only one doing it so they combined my tour with the one day tour, which returned everyone else to Ho Chi Minh City in the middle of the afternoon on day one. I had my own tour guide for the rest of the first day which finished at Chau Doc, close to the border on the Vietnam side and for a couple of hours the next day. I thought this was a bonus!
A delta is where a river splits into several rivers before running into the sea. They are all over the world but this one splits somewhere around the Cambodia / Vietnam border and covers pretty much the whole of the area south of Ho Chi Minh. The Mekong river itself starts in the
Himalayas and is apparently the 12th longest river. The locals live on and around it and treat the rivers like highways and have developed towns and villages on them. The first stop was Cai Be floating market. Bikes and cars are replaced with river boats of various shapes and sizes and the buildings protrude off of river banks on stilts in a shanty town style. Traders also operate from boats and if you want to browse or buy something you have to bring your boat alongside theirs. Pretty cool way to work. We got a river boat along the Mekong to Vinh Long, the main town in the area, just in time for some lunch and local entertainment... harsh singing!!
After lunch, I split from the group and caught a bus to Chau Doc via the Long Xuyen ferry, for dinner and a hotel for the night.
Early next morning, after meeting some others, we went together for a rowing boat ride around Chau Doc floating village. We saw the locals living out their lives and it was a nice relaxing way to get about. Although some pretty handy climbing skills were required to get on and off
the various boats because the gangways consisted of planks of wood, about 6 inches wide, 15CM. We had to get on and off with all our gear and one slip and we would have ended up in two foot of mud!
The tour ended with a ticket for a river boat up the Mekong river to the border and on the Phnom Penh, about 6 or 7 hours worth in total.
The river boat to Phnom Penh was a really nice experience, with a boat change, a short wait at the border and a nice big green visa sticker in my passport, arrival was well over due... With no accomodation booked I settled for the first room I found, which conveniently was a reasonably centrally placed massive comfy room for USD15.00 a night... I am in Cambodia :-)
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