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Published: July 25th 2008
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Hi All, Well we survived the Mekong river delta. The trip was not as easy going, relaxed and comfortable as advertised and we were glad it was over when it was. We opted for the 2 day, 1 night on a (1 week old floating hotel) and slow boat up the river and across the border to Pnomh Penh, Cambodia, it all looked nice in the brochure.
We got up early for our 7am departure and had a 3 hour bus ride to get to the boat. We boarded quite a nice boat and boated on up the river stopping at a few traditional factories making Coconut Candy, Rice paper and Pop Rice (pop corn with rice instead of corn). It was nice and plesant on the river, it was cooler and less humid than Saigon and there was a good breeze as the boat moved up the river. After an hour we arrived for lunch. Freshly caught 'Elephant Ear' fish with salad and sauce. It was plain enough and needed the sauce for a bit of a taste. The brochure claimed that we would have ample opportunity to relax in a hammock, ride a bicycle or walk through the nearby
Mekong Floating Market
Minimum purchase 10kg villages and get to explore the locality after our lunch. In reality we only had 20 minutes to spare, there were only 3 hammocks between about 30 - 35 people, no bikes and after being told about the variety of snakes in the locality nobody fancied straying too far.
As I was wondering about, I noticed a Danish guy looking into a cage and there he was. It was a big 8-9' Python, he was massive I'd swear he was after feasting on a small dog or something, he was that round. The guide, after noticing our curiosity, ran over like an excited schoolboy and liberated the snake. He was showing off by carrying him over to unsuspecting guests and then he started to pose for photos. Then he let people hold the snake and have photos taken. I (much to Maeves horror) couldn't wait for my chance. I called him 'Monty the Python', he was quite heavy 18-20kg and not slimey at all. He must have been fed recently as he was quite docile and friendly. Maeve just about managed to get a few shots of me and Monthy before proclaiming that she wasn't going to touch me for
Local Brew
Cobra and Scorpion Wine days or at least until I had a shower.
We went a bit further on the boat and were transfered to a bus for a 3 hour bus ride to Chau Doc and our floating hotel.
One of the main attractions for me, of the cruise was the ability to travel a long way on a river and avoid the roads and all those bone shaking potholes. So 3 hours of trashing around the back of a bus was a huge dissappointment to me, that was until we got to the floating hotel. This thing was more like 1 decade old not a week. The staff left the windows open and lights on in order to have it fresh for our arrival. It was warm sticky and full of mosquitos and a lizzard. The shower didn't work and the restaurant only offered one thing on the menu, that was a fish soup with rice, no starters ,no deserts and no choice. We did relax afterwards with two really nice couples from Toronto and Texas, we sat around chatting and having a few beers.
We really didn't sleep that well. The room was warm, the fan was noisy and Maeve was
Elephant Ear Fish
Mekong speciality can grow to 6 feet long in her usual state of perpetual paranoid Mosquito alert, anything (real or imagined) would make her jump. We were dying for a shower from when we arrived but that night it didn't work and the next morning it was liquid ice. The windows were made of paper and we could hear every boat pass from a mile in either direction. The next morning we were to be up early at 4.45am to watch the sunrise over the Mekong Delta. We wearily got up and ready to go, only to be told that we weren't supposed to get up for another hour. We got to the next boat to watch the spectacle, we got to see it rise for about 2 minutes before being herded down for breakfast. That was to be the best part of the day. We boarded a tiny boat and were tortured by the noise of its roaring engine for a solid 3 hours as far as the border. You couldn't sleep or relax or read or talk on the boat as it was too cramped, noisy and warm. The sights were spectacular though, only for our camera battery to die, so we don't have any pictures
to show you. It was really good though, there were plenty of people out in the paddy fields tending their rice crops. We saw water buffalo making their way down the river banks to wallow in the mud in the midday heat. People were washing their clothes, food and themselves as we were chugging along. We saw people fishing and swimming. Actually we saw a couple of guys fishing snakes out of the river, apparently a big business in Vietnam and only 20 feet up the river from the snake catching there were children swimming.
After the 3 hours we arrived at the Vietnam/Cambodia border where we got off for an hour to have lunch and go through the border. The food, for such a remote spot, was quite good compared to some of the crap we had to endure on the trip. We then boarded a different boat for the last 3 hour leg of the trip. This boat was more spacious but just as noisy and annoying as the first and the 3 hours eventually ground out to over 4 hours. We were glad to get off and head to Pnomh Penh (PP from now on).
We could see changes when we crossed the river border. In Cambodia there was much less industry on the river bank and no towns or villages as there had been in Vietnam. There was much more Maize grown instead of rice and every farmer had a few cattle on each plot that he used for pulling ploughs and other implements. You really could be back in the stone-age around here (the ploughs were made completely of wood, no Iron therefore it could even be the stone age and not the iron age - although they still had their mobile phones). The cows are more Brahma style and most were really white, I was just commenting on how white they were to Maeve when we came across a farmer who brought his herd (4 or 5 cows) down to the river and was washing them. We saw many farmers washing their cows like this, it's a real pity our camera died.
Anyway that was the end of our trip in Vietnam, a great little country, if they could only do what they say in the brochure!!!
Vietnamese Men 5/10
Vietnamese Women 4/10
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Sally
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Finally....and a few days later!!!
hey guys!! well I have FINALLY gotten a chance to check out the blog!!! Living in relative isolation with the books at the dining room table in Raheny at the moment!!! Cannot believe all ye have seen and done so far....it sounds absolutely amazing and I'm even more jealous than I was before ye left!!! Keep up the fantastic blogging - it really is great to be able to get such an insight in to your travels!! hopefully i'll be able to follow it more regularly once the exams are over!!! So greetings from Fi's kitchen in Castlelyons (in Cork for the wkend staying here!) We've just had great fun reading all the entries and we're going to finish out the evening now with some pizza, garlic bread, Avoca rocky road........and of course the necessary bottle of wine....(sorry Maeve - the beer thing really didnt catch on for me once u left!!!) love to you both - continue having so much fun and take care of each other!!! miss u lots Sal xxx