Mekong - Vietnam

---

Most people entering Cambodia from Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) will do so via air or a direct bus journey by road. These travel options miss out on perhaps some of the most beautiful and interesting parts of both Vietnam and Cambodia. The Southern Mekong Delta region tells a story of people who have lived and worked together in harmony (from both Vietnam and Cambodia borders) despite the raging wars and political corruption that surrounded them.

With this in mind we decided to book ourselves on a two day Mekong Delta river trip leaving from Cai Be, a one hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh.

Day 1
Starting from Cai Be we first went for a boat ride around the floating markets where locals exchanged goods, mainly fruits and vegetables from their boats (hence floating market). The range of goods available was amazing and clearly showed that parts of the Mekong Delta region seemed to provide a good level of life sustaining food and nutrients for those who could afford it.

Next stop was to visit Vinh Long to see local production of both rice papers and rice crispies using local methods dating back hundreds of years. Its truly incredible to see people working so closely with natural handmade tools and skills passed down over the centuries. Skills now almost forgotten in our westernised societies.

For lunch we visited a small riverside restaurant to sample to local Vietnamese food and afterwards treated with traditional music. At the restaurant stop there was also a strange crocodile holding area, however we couldn't work out whether they we captured Crocs from the river or simply bred ones.

The first part of our river trip came to an end with a crossing on a crowded ferry to catch a bus to Chau Doc where we stayed overnight.

Day 2
Next day we moved our luggage to another boat (via bicycle) before confusingly being put into small rowing boats. However it became clear that the larger boat would take us on to the Cambodia boarder but the floating village trip would be done in these smaller rowing boats - so with our fingers crossed that all our bags would be there when we got back we set of with a lady pushing fifty years old and her young son! Despite our rowing ladies small and frail appearance she certainly was a tough cookie and well experienced at rowing with very powerful strokes. The tour of the floating houses, caged fish breeding and towel weaving was a real eye opener making us very aware of the poverty that exists in large parts of the Mekong today with people trying to scrape out an existence here.

The group was transferred from the smaller rowing boats into the larger river boat for a two hour trip to Vinh Xuong - our border crossing for Cambodia. It was here that we encountered our most basic toilet to date - six sloping tiles and a bucket of water. It was also obvious that the pipe ran directly down into the river, the same place that clothes, food and cooking/eating equipment was washed too! Let's hope that our stomachs can stand up to this.

Once over the border crossing we transferred into yet another river boat for the final leg to Lek Luang. The three hour ride to Lek Luang was fantastic, taking in all the busy life along the banks of the Mekong river from fishing to crop growing, from Children to Water Buffalo to Monks all bathing in at the waters edge. At Lek Luang we carried our rucksacks to a very small minibus for our one hour transfer to Phnom Penh.

---

Photos

Rice Paper Production
Using some techniques from hundreds of years ago.

Rice Crispy making...
... not sure they were the snap crackle pop variety though.