Mekong Youkong

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I haven't been getting a lot of sleep on this trip. Overnight buses and early starts have made for an exhausting time and getting up at six on New Year's Day to catch the bus to Mytho, it didn't look like that was about to change.


The only realistic way to see the Mekong Delta with a couple of days and no Vietnamese is to take a tour from Saigon. From what I heard from travellers coming the other way, if you go independently you'll only end up at the same tourist sites, paying more. So I struck a compromise: I'd do a day tour and be dropped there to make my own way to Cambodia.

The tour guide was an interesting character; a young guy who referred to himself as 'the cheeky bugger' and insisted on repeatedly calling going to the loo 'singing a happy song'. I have no idea why. Despite this his English was still quite good; it hadn't yet reached the level of ingrained awfulness attained by older guides after years of telling their bad jokes only to themselves and listening to no one else.


In Mytho we took a boat across the mighty Mekong to a river island devoted to tourism but, like the tour itself, quite insightful nonetheless.

Growing by the path was every kind of tropical fruit: noni, stinking durian, milk apple, cacao, longan, rambutan and more.

We were taken to a 'bee farm' where we tasted honey tea made with kumquat, pollen, honey and jasmin; we were fed pineapples and papaya and shown traditional dress (the ao dai for women, a kind of long tunic-dress over trousers) and how to make coconut candy. Before lunch, issued with conical hats, we took a kind of punt along the crisscrossing canals of Ben Tre surrounded by palm fronds. In short, a tour. No flag though, thankfully.


Finally bidding goodbye to the cheeky bugger at about three o' clock, I was dropped off along with a Swedish couple and an Englishman with his Russian girlfriend. We crossed the dusty road to the bus station and immediately:

"Where you go?" The town's motorbike driving population sprang to our aid.

"Vinh Long," I said, hoping to get to the small town in time to arrange a homestay with a Vietnamese family.

They shook their hands in the air in that way that means 'No, I'm afraid there are no buses to Vinh Long today my friend.'

Never mind. "Where are there buses to?"

More shaking.

"No buses at all?" Ah.

After a lot of map-pointing, phrasebook-flicking and a chorus of generic 'Where can we go not on a motorbike?' remarks, we a found a solution.

We hitched a lift with a bus to the highway 5km away, during which the Englishman - a former Maths teacher - expounded to me his passion for all things mathematical ("I mean logarithms... just crazy!!"). At the highway we parted, the others all heading for Rach Gia on the coast and I north to Chau Doc near the Cambodian border.


So this is how I found myself sitting on a hammock at a roadside cafe in the middle of nowhere, drinking over-priced water and wondering if this minibus would ever come.

Not much later, a small minivan did pull up and the driver, in collusion with the distinctly untrustworthy biker who had followed me from the bus station, dreamed up a ludicrous price:

"300,000 dong?! Are you out of your mind?" I said, utterly bewildered and yet somehow not entirely surprised.

"It's New Year's Day," said one.
"It's the last bus," said the other.

I tried a little lacklustre haggling but they had me by the proverbials and they knew it, so I soon gave up and handed them the ten pounds.


Squeezing myself and my bag between the Vietnamese families probably returning home after Tet in Saigon, and slotting in right at the back - accidentally sitting on several innocents on the way - it slowly dawned on me just how much these people had ripped me off.

I had no choice, I told myself and tried to forget about it. But it wouldn't leave my mind. I didn't even know if they were taking me to the right place, and they'd taken all the last of my dong.

Eventually I settled down, the boy next to me fell asleep on my shoulder and I resigned myself to watching the view as we bumped over the Mekong on a huge suspension bridge, everything glowing in the evening sun. The warm air blowing through the open window must have relaxed me and I entered a state of near-elation philosophising about Travel and the Journey and the Passing-through and making big plans for my weekends back in Yunnan. Sleep deprivation has its upsides.


The down started to come when we stopped to eat. I had no money for food, so I hovered by a picturesque old coach full of orange-robed monks parked in the twilight, waiting for two or three stragglers who were in the restaurant arguing over the bill. Hungry and penniless in the growing darkness, my worries started to return. The guidebook specifically warns to take a stash of dong to Chau Doc as there ATMs and dollars are redundant.


It was around this time that I remembered the laundry. I'd wanted to do it by hand but the people at the hotel in Saigon wouldn't let me hang it anywhere unless I used their service... and I never got it back. My already pared down clothing inventory was now left with two each of Tshirts, shorts and underwear. Less weight at least, but more washing!

Not five minutes later I felt something splash my feet. The little girl in front had peed on the floor. And my bags. This wasn't getting any better.


Five hours after leaving Mytho I was just about ready to scream. I passed the time imagining all the ways in which I would hurt the dirty-dealing driver if he took me anywhere that wasn't evidently Chau Doc.

Luckily for him, he did.

Just before nine o'clock I rocked up at a recommended hotel and flopped into whatever room they offered me.


Never again. Never what I had no idea: just never.


In my semi-conscious state, I decided to get the seven o' clock boat to Phnom Penh the following morning. No more tours. No more Vietnam. Cambodia.


This determination lasted only as long as it took to have a shower and realise I was in no fit state to go anywhere. The thought of a lie-in and a day exploring the town flung the prospect of another night short-changed of slumber off the balance. With that, incoherently exhausted, I fell into bed and passed out.


The next morning I was woken up by the clashing and bashing of Chinese New Year celebrants parading down the street. My room had no outside window and still the cacophony penetrated through.

I watched from the balcony of an unoccupied room as the troupe of young men and boys dressed in red went from shop to shop, bang clash bang clash shaky shaky Chinese lion etc, all to bring luck (and specifically, money) to the superstitious shop-owners.

Another troupe, this one in yellow, crawled meekly past, careful not to upset the competition.


Shaking from my limbs the ache of a ridiculously well-needed rest, I set off into the town and soon found the market. By the riverside and half on stilt houses, it was almost empty of buyers but busy with the hum and the drum of festival brouhaha and gossipping groups.

Miraculously and, I think, for the first time ever, once I approached them people were keen for me to take their picture, demanding even. Old ladies waited to see themselves reproduced on the little screen then clapped their hands together and trotted away laughing. Among children the posing was infectious; I had to beat them off. What's more, everybody was so inviting and willing to have a go at communicating with the funny foreigner. It was a truly joyful morning.

Lured by one fish seller, I was stuck briefly in a corner because they had hosed the fishy floor down behind me and a river of unpleasantness separated me from dry land.

Crossing that, I found a temple in the middle of the market where young boys were practising their New Year racket overseen by a man of about my age. They banged and rattled and made, I thought, every bit as ugly a din as the pros, but apparently they still needed training.

The stern-faced teacher patter the bench for me to join him and appreciate the noise. Later he beckoned me into the temple and motioned for me to pray.

I bowed.

He crossed himself raising his eyebrows.

-Am I a Christian? No.

He seemed puzzled but didn't push the issue. He took me instead to see the limp, bodiless heads of the lion costumes, laid out ready for the old shaky-shaky later on.

As I was leaving, a new boy sauntered up to me. He pointed to the camera and demanded "Five thousand dong, five thousand dong" for the photos before being swatted away by the teacher.

It was the only English I had heard the whole time I was there.


I stopped for lunch at a small, empty restaurant, pointed to the noodles and said, "One, please!"

I could never have been ready for what eventually emerged from the kitchen: a steaming bowl of noddles filled with slices of pork, tiger prawns and a quail's egg, plus much gubbins on the side for me to put in myself. This must be pho deluxe, but still only 15000d (about 50p).


In the evening I rented a bike and cycled around the town, ending up at the shore where they were preparing a stage for the night's festivities. I left my bike with the giu xe (parking) man and took a stroll in the warm evening air; more friendly smiles, more open faces.

'Most pleasant day ever?' I've written in my notebook.


Later on I'm sitting outside with a cold beer and my book and a young guy stops to chat.

He sits down opposite me and I presume he wants to practise his English.

"Are you a student?" I ask.

"Ngh?!" he nghs.

"Sing vien?"

"No, no, no. Security. In hotel."

Syntax lacking, he proceeds to show me a series of finger-clicking tricks I can't imitate, and I notice his long, well-kept fingernails. When I ask him about them he makes a claw and growls, then laughs and gets back on his bike and rides off.

Nothing to sell, nothing to beg; just passing by for a wee chat and a finger-click. Can I really have been in Saigon just two days ago?


The following morning the boat for Cambodia left at seven. On the way we made an unexpected detour to a traditional fish farm and a Cham minority village. The fish farm is located underneath the family's floating house; they take up the floorboards to feed the 100,000 or so catfish and others. There are more than a thousand of these in the area and the huge, bulbous, brightly-painted wooden boats they use to transport the fish live can be seen docked here and there.


After two hours pootling along the Mekong, waving to the many small groups of bathing youngsters and women washing clothes, we reached the Vietnamese border and had lunch while we waited for the Cambodian visas to be sorted. Then another boat took us along to the Cambodian border for passport control and from there it was a straight ride up the river to Cambodia.


And Cambodia... well, that's another story.

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Photos

By the Post
One of the many would-be child models in Chau Doc market.