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Published: November 15th 2005
Our "Swift" Boat
This was the speedboat we took from Saigon and up part of the Mekong River."I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn't even know it yet. He was close. He was real close. I couldn't see him yet, but I could feel him. As if the boat were being sucked up the river and the water was flowing back into the jungle. Whatever was going to happen, it wasn't going to be the way they call it back in Nha Trang."
Ok, I'm not losing my mind or heavy into opium at the time of this writing. I'm only reciting quotes from a movie. If you don't know this movie, I am sorrowful for you but will give you a hint...it's from Apocolypse Now.
So, after taking 5 different boats and 3 different busses over two days, my journey up the Mekong River and crossing the Vietnam-Cambodia border was complete. It started early in the morning at the edge of a very poluted and fast moving Saigon River. John Wayne, our vietnamese tourguide, who yes, actually talked like John Wayne, but with a vietnamese accent, escorted us in a rather fast and quite comfortable motorboat to the mouth of the Mekong River. Along the way, we passed dozens
Shanti Town on the river
Most of these rundown homes were made of sheet metal and looked like they were about to fall into the river.
of barges filled with a highly prescious commodity in Vietnam...dirt, yes, precious dirt was being transported. Probably 50 tons of it per barge was moving at a snails pace from somewhere upriver, down to Saigon. I observed a similar transport of large rocks in Hue along the Perfume River, but this was done on much smaller sampans, rather than tremendous barges like these. The purpose of the dirt? For building everything from homes, to skyrise buildings, to roads in and around Saigon. With a little over a year between visits, Saigon has changed and continues to grow at a rapid pace. It has several streets that resemble even the most modern cities in the world, with high-end shopping, hotels and restaurants. The only real difference were the gals dressed up in ao dai, standing every 30 yards, handing out brochures for a massage to every westerner passing by. Don't get the wrong impression here, their methods are a stark contrast to the bozo's in Vegas who flick their porn advertisements at you. In addition, they are not offering sex, but rather great massages that everyone should experience. Their amazing use of their feet to crack your spine and neck is
Palacial Home
There were several of these brand new homes being built along the river. Most of them were owned by government officials and they were situated right next to the shanti towns. well worth the $15 per hour full body massage. Needless to say, I'm a big fan and highly recommend it next time your in Vietnam...ha!
Back to the boat trip....
As we cruised up the Mekong, the sampans and small VC transports were left bobbing against our waves as we motored up river. If it weren't for my flashbacks from my swiftboat days and fear of VC waiting to pounce on us with rocket launchers around the next bend, I would have enjoyed the trip a bit more. We passed several shanti towns, homes made of sheet metal sitting on stilts, that reached into the river. We also got to see some of the new government sponsored palacial homes, sometimes within 100 yards of the shanti towns. Lots of building going on in many places along the river and all around Vietnam.
We disembarked from the boat after about an hour. The island we had arrived to was one of the larger islands in the Mekong called Cuu Long, "Night Dragon." Here is where we took a smaller, much less stable, boat through some very tight canals. We ended up at a place where they make fresh coconut candy.
VC Transport
A VC transport filled with supplies and ammunition. It was sunk immediately after this photo as taken. Yum! They also had a few unique things at this tiny home/factory. For one, a large reticulated python was available to hold for pictures. Of course, I had to have one with the beauty. There was also a honey tasting where they had offered us to taste some honey that would come straight from the bees nest. A nest that was covered with it's inhabitants. At first, everyone had said, no freakin' way, in whatever language they spoke. Snakes were one thing, but a swarm of bees protecting their nest...I think not. However, the gal holding the bee hive was nice enough to guide the first "victims" hand into just the right spot to get some honey on their fingers (this is not a sexual reference, although it is quite funny). Once the first person went without getting stung, we all got brave and got to taste some fresh honey.
After some honey tea, we headed back to our boat and we set off for another river island. This one was called Ben Tre and we had lunch there. I decided against lunch because I had brought my own Banh Mi (vietnamese sandwich) with me. However, they served what I
Potential VC
Victor Charlie disguised as two old ladies paddling up river. think was called Elephant Fish which came directly from the river. The entire fried fish was brought out to the table, propped up horizontally as if it were swimming. The fish was to be shared by the entire table and so there was a serving lady who tore some peices off with her chopsticks and rolled fresh spring rolls using rice paper and served them to everyone at the table. The food got good reviews and I was a bit disappointed for not trying it.
After lunch we walked to another covered area for some dessert. Thankfully, it consisted of all kinds of delicious fruits. I was definitely not going to pass this up, especially since there was plenty of my favorite, dragonfruit. The other fools in my tour group weren't even eating the dragon fruit...haha, more for me! We also had pineapple, longons (look like human eyeballs outside of their shells), a very orange colored fruit that was ok tasting...I think it was mango or papaya or persimmon, not sure. Unfortunately, they didn't have my other favorite fruit...jackfruit. But there was one the size of a beachball hanging from a nearby tree. During dessert we were serendaded by a
Mekong Canals
The canals we traversed to get to the Coconut Candy "factory". vietnamese mariachi band and some gals dressed in ao dai. This name of this dress is pronounced, "ow" and "yai"...or "zai" if you're from the north and speak correct vietnamese (this will probably get some of my friends pissed off, haha). The girls were all different ages and the first to sing were the two older sisters who sung a duet. Then, we had a solo from mama-san and the little girl, probably not older than five years old, who stole the show. Following their lovely songs we walked through some more jungle to get onto even smaller boats than before. This time it was three to a boat, each rowed and guided by two rather strong women, as most of them are. We cruised through some narrow canals with dense jungle on either side of us. It felt like we were on a secret mission and VC was going to pop up out of the bush and give us a little surprise. My war fantasy was interrupted thanks to John Wayne and his radio phone playing some garbage Celine Dion songs. He was close to being thrown overboard to swim with the leeches after he pulled that stunt. After
Me and Monte
This guy guards the coconut candy most of the time. Other times he dines on Australian tourists...good boy. about 10 minutes of cruising through these little canals we arrived at a little dock where we disembarked and got onto the boat that brought us there. We slowly cruised upriver for about a half an hour to another dock where we took our bags with us and boarded a mini-bus (VW Vanagon). This began a 6 hour jouney...a 2 hour drive to a town called Con Tho where we dumped some of the people who were doing the 3 day tour. Since myself and 4 other blokes from England were on the 2 day tour, we had another 4 hours drive up to Chau Doc. It really wasn't too bad since we each had our own row of the minibus to ourselves.
When we finally arrived to Chau Doc it was around 8pm and the hotel that was booked through by the tour agency was surprisingly nice. If it weren't for the 12 geckos/lizards guarding the entrance to my room up upon the walls and around door making their distinct noises or the 4 inch long spider hovering over my bed when I walked in, it was rather cozy. Unfortunately, airconditioning cost an extra $5 per night so I
No Money, No Honey
The beekeeper was good enough to guide our hands into the nest so we could get a taste of her honey. haha! holy! thought the fan would be enough. I was running low on cash because I was successful in getting rid of most of my vietnamese dong before leaving Saigon. Cambodia uses the Riel as their currency, but primarily the good ole US greenback is the currency of choice. The dong is no longer worthy, although I did save a few as souvenirs and to pay back Katelyn's mom who had given me some dong prior to going.
The guys and I shared a meal and a couple of beers at the outdoors restaurant of this hotel. We were also given back, arm, hand, and head massages while sitting at the table after dinner. Now, THIS type of service is what they need everywhere around the world. Eat your meal, drink your beer, and then get a 10 minute massage for a $1. I know some people who work at computers all day that wouldn't mind having an on-call massuese to give them back massages at their desks. Perhaps the liability card is too much of a gamble for corporations, but it would make people much happier, that's for sure.
Anyway, our wakeup call came at 6am the next day. Little did
Back on the Boat
This was on a very narrow boat that took us through the canals. we know that this day would be a rough one. Already, I had traveled by plane, bus, motorbike, train, and boat to 5 different cities, all in less than 7 days. Wow, now
that is some traveling and I still have a ways to go since I was only heading towards my second country on this trip.
The bus took us a short way into town where we boarded another small rowboat. We began a short tour through some smelly floating villages that survive on nothing but the fish that they harvest underneath their floating homes. The river is also used for anything and everything, including drinking and ice. The gal rowing our boat even offered Gavin, one of the English guys, her sugar cane drink filled with ice. Gavin was about to drink it when the guide adamently advised against it. I'm sure it would have torn his stomache apart.
Even though this floating village and every decrepit shanti town village we had passed along the way had next to nothing and were super poor, every one of them had an antenna sticking from their roofs and cable tv in their homes. Go figure...maybe the government provides it to
Floating village / Fish hatchery
Some ladies trying to manuever their boats around with oversized oars.
them. However, you can bet that "big red" filters out a lot of what the people can or cannot see.
After a very brief visit to a Cham village, one of the 54 ethnic minorities living in Vietnam, our guide left us and we were off to the Cambodian border. We got on a small, slow moving, boat that had small, upright, beach chairs on it's small, covered, deck. As you can tell...this thing was small. In the States, you'd see children sitting in these types of chairs instead of full sized adults. As we cruised along the river passing people working and kids playing in the brown muddy waters of the Mekong, I was looking forward to getting off the boat and into Cambodia. Our new guide gathered our passports and the $26 fee for a Cambodian visa. Since I didn't have any spare passport pictures, I had to cut up a photo I had brought with me. I guess they didn't mind that I had a shamrock sticker on my face and in the background were a few people holding up drinks during the San Diego St. Patrick's Day Parade. Then again, this was Cambodia, which was as
POW
We were captured by the VC and being taken to their prison camp. Note the chains on the boat where my feet were tied to. third world as it gets, so I don't think it mattered much.
Another hour on this boat and we disembarked at the Vietnamese border for some lunch and some badgering from a few rude children who forced their little trinkets on us at overblown prices. A lot of us just were tired from being in the sun and weren't in the mood at the time. After about an hour and half wait, we finally walked on through a rather odd and low security border crossing. Easily, we could have walked across along the beach and nobody would have known. If they had noticed, we probably could have taken out the 3 or 4 malnurished, stick figured immigraton officers on the Cambodian side anyway.
When we got to the Cambodian immigration office, the oddest thing happened. There were two very stern looking officers, not saying a word, while stamping passports of the other travelers. The odd thing was their choice of background music that really blew my mind. None other than Snoop Doggy Dogg was playing on their archaic radio. Of all music, this was not what I had expected to hear at a Cambodian border crossing.
So, after breezing through
Smiling VC
Smiling back at her newest POW. this border without any hassles, it was onto yet another boat with a few new passengers. I suffered a vicious blow to my head upon entering the narrow, low lying entry way of the boat, I sat down, actually, I fell into a seat, quickly to soothe the burning pain in my cranium. It wasn't the worst blow to the head I've taken, but it was right at the top, where my creativity resides. (This is the excuse I'm using for this rather dry and unhumorous recount of my boat trip.)
As we put-putted along the river, we all hoped this would be a short trip. We sat on the benches that lined the port and the starboard sides of this very narrow boat. So narrow was this boat that it had to be equally balanced in weight on either side. Captain Stubing made sure each passenger was evenly displaced. We all laughed to ourselves whenever, Gavin, the large English guy, shifted his weight to grab a peak out the opposite side of the boat. Stubing and his fiesty first mate, probably his wife, would look back in shock and horror and bark at him to move back to his
Cham villagers
Some girls from the ethnic minority village. Obviously, with the mosque pictured in the background, this was a muslim village. seat.
As we sat on these backless wooden benches in the middle of the blazing afternoon, we all withered and prayed for it to end. Perhaps it was the sun's reflection bouncing off the river, or maybe it was the incredibly slow pace that the ancient, and rather, deafening diesel engine produced. After about 3 hours in these desperate conditions I was ready to jump ship, but then again, this was the Mekong River. Even though it's the 3rd largest river in the world, it needed a few billion tablets of chlorine. Plus, I wasn't interested in acquiring leeches or any other sort of parasitic friends.
Finally, we pulled over to the side of the river where we gathered our bags, banged our head again, walked along the most rickety plank to shore, up a small hill passed starving white colored waterbuffalo, through someone's
house while avoiding a rabid, avian flu infected chicken that seemed to lead us through the house and then turned on us when we got too close to it. Amazingly enough, we ended up on a dirt road. Waiting for us was another minibus. After that boat ride, anything would be luxurious....
anything. Then again, maybe not.
This was, afterall, the first time I had been in Cambodia. I heard about the condition of their "roads".
After piling our backpacks in, we piled our bodies into the bus. As I approached the back seat, I noticed a couple of feathers bundled together on the ground beneath my seat. "Please don't be a dead chicken, please don't be a dead chicken!" It was never confirmed what it was for fear of the worst, but we each found sanity in the hope that it was just a feather duster.
Thankfully the seats in this Hyundai minibus had some cushioning and it wasn't packed to the gills. However, we had a new passenger, a buddhist monk dressed in his orange sarong and shaved head. He was joining us for the ride to Phnom Penh as well. He had a bit of a mean look on his face, but maybe that was because he had just suffered through the same dismal boat ride as we had. A boat ride that turned a monk, the most peaceful and loving of all people, into an angry dragon. =)
So off we went and thus began the ride that turned all of us into
The Royal Palace of Phnom Penh
Throne Hall (1886-1919) in the background, Marcus Aurelius (1976) in the foreground. ragdolls. For about 2 hours, we bounced...and bounced, and bounced all over the place. Our necks and heads flailed in one direction while the bus took our torsoes in another. Never was their a break in this until the driver decided to go under a bridge rather than over it. The traffic was really slow on ithe bridge because a few guys were
pushing a large truck filled with something across it (how could this be normal). So, loaded down with well over 1000 lbs, our driver thought it was a wise time saving decision to take a Hyundai minibus, offroading into a dried up riverbed. Thankfully, the axles and tires held up and we snailed along and finally made it up to the other side. As we got to the top, we noticed our risk wasn't time saving at all since they had just gotten the truck across the bridge. Someone needed to teach our driver some patience.
The outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's captial, signified it's status as a country still operating in the stone age. Some of you may know the tragic and sad reasons behind their current economic status as a third world nation. If you
Royal Palace of Phnom Penh
Throne Hall again.
Marcus Aurelius again. don't, it will be worth your time to read up on the destruction that their former dictator, Pol Pot, and the Khmer Rouge caused their own country and people. Pol Pot was this countries former, psychotic, dictator that ran his own genocide upon the Cambodian people in the late 70's. In short, anyone who was educated, who had money, lived in the city, had a high ranking in the military or looked at him strangely was killed or sent to S-21 and eventually killed. S-21, or Tuol Sleng, was the name of a school turned into a torture prison camp for thousands of Cambodians and some foreigners. Some of them would be brought to what is known as, "the Killing Fields" and buried in mass graves. Both of these sites were on my list to see, although I knew it would be a full day of being depressed and disgusted.
Back to our arrival to Phnom Penh...
As we entered the city center, the scene dramatically changed. For one, the road was paved and our backs, necks and butts were very thankful for that. Later, we passed a couple of very large and very beautiful pagoda's. They were more
The Royal Palace of Phnom Penh
Check out the four faces at the top of the right spire. impressive to me than any of those that I had seen in Vietnam. We also passed a few oddly named stores, like BBworld, which is a burger joint. It that looked completely out of place here. When we turned off the main road it was back to the bumps again.
We pulled into a fairly nice budget hotel/restaurant/travel agency. None of us wanted to stay there, even though it looked relatively good. Everyone decided to find a different place to stay instead of this place. The English guys took off to another place while Blaine, a Canadian guy who I met on the tour, and I decided to split a room in a hotel that was closer to a better part of town. Because we had booked a tour for tomorrow through them, they were nice enough to drive us by airconditioned minibus to any other hotel we wanted. Unfortunately, we were being turned away at some of the places we read about in the Lonely Planet. Most of them were full, but we finally found a decent hotel for $18USD per night. Wait, I thought this was third world? $18USD? After showering, we each downed a 650ml Anchor Beer,
the local brew, and chatted about our travel experiences. Then, it was down to Herbs Happy Pizza for some long overdue feeding. The pizza cost the same as it does in the States and there wasn't enough Happy Herbs in it, either! I was finding that Cambodian prices were much higher than what they should be. Using US currency was also a bit odd. However, it was worth the price to sit still for a while and chill out
along the river rather than
on the river.
Phnom Penh....next day
We started around 7:30am when our driver for the day picked us up at our hotel. After some eggs and toast (forgot about the bird flu thing...oops), we headed to the area called, The Killing Fields. Another terribly bouncy and dusty drive to the outskirts of the city. Thankfully we had an airconditioned minibus as opposed the brave/dumb/unfortunate people who traveled by motorbike or tuk tuk. Upon arrival, one could see a large stupta that stood a good 400 feet tall in the middle of an open field. It was nicely decorated and had windows on all four sides. Through the windows, one could see little round, white objects.
The Royal Palace of Phnom Penh
Seven headed snakes guarding the temple...yes! Ok, not objects...they were human skulls. Thousands of them on display as a memorial to those who were murdered by Pol Pot's Clique, as they called it. Surrounding the stupta were what looked like round bomb craters next to each other. These were the uncovered graves of the people that were killed. In 1980, they had uncovered about 86 mass graves out of 114. Some of the gravesites were marked with what was found in them at the time of exuming the bones. One of the sites contained over a hundred children, which was situated next to a tree that was used to torture the children in view of their parents. Other sites contained some 400 headless bodies and from there it just got worse. Over 8985 people were sent to their death here. It's hard to describe what it looked like, but picture a field of small crater like holes between each hole was a small dirt path you could walk along. Along some of the dirt paths you could still see the white of bones coming out of the earth. Along one path, there was a half buried skull that a little girl, who apparently lived nearby, went
The Royal Palace of Phnom Penh
Two stupas, on the palace grounds, memorialize King Norodom and his Queen. over to play with. It was a difficult thing to comprehend and think about. Did she even know what she was doing? or what this place represented? Most likely she didn't and probably never will. She and the other kids around the place were so poor and followed us around asking for money the entire time.
Now that I've thoroughly depressed you and myself for recalling this place, I will not continue on about the S-21 Genocide Prison/Torture Camp. It's just much worse and I already feel depressed thinking about it. More info is at your fingertips on the internet if you want it and I've included some pictures, as well.
So, I'm on the eve of a 7 hour bus ride to Siem Reap, the town outside of the temples of Angkor Wat. It should be an amazing experience to see these ancient temples, which has to be one of the biggest in the world.
My mission of finding Col. Kurtz will also come to a conclusion at Angkor. "They were going to make me a major for this and I wasn't even in their army anymore. The horror...the horror."
I'll be send some more updates from Thai
Thai, the land of smiles, when I get there this weekend. That is, if I can drag my body off of it's beautiful beaches to sit in an internet cafe for a few hours. Oh, how I can not wait to stay in one place for a prolonged period of time.
Lt. Col. Lewin Out!
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Claire
non-member comment
A World Away
Your account of your travels really makes me feel like I've been there myself. It's utterly amazing to read about a place so different from here. And, yet, the burger joints and pizza places are seemingly everywhere! Thanks for sharing your adventures with us!