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Laying on the open aired top deck of our small but luxurious private wooden boat, cruising down the backwaters of the mighty Mekong River system, carries a contradictory feeling of intimacy together as a couple but also a sense of belonging to the surrounding river dwelling local community. It becomes exponentially harder to wipe the joyous smiles off our faces as we journey our way deeper and deeper into the curiosities of the way in which these Vietnamese locals spend their days. Our senses are going into overload at the fascinating sight of bicycle riding ladies wearing their signature conical hats (con las), carrying fresh greens in their handle bar baskets. Flailing Vietnamese flags adorn the facades of almost every front fence. Families lather up with soap as they bathe on the waters edge, whilst their neighbours are in the infamous asian squat position doing their basket of laundry. A couple of laughing kids pop up their heads after submerging themselves under floating river weed, waving frantically and yelling “hello” until our boat is well out of sight. Wooden grain barges carrying rice plough the water in the opposite direction, staring at us with a look of optimism for the riches
of yesterdays abundant crop with their brightly bow covered with eyes. Rigid concrete framed and red brick clad houses perch precariously on top of slanted matchstick thin concrete columns. All the while our ears are filled with the glorious sounds of riverside free range farmed geese and tiny chicks crying out for their mother hens, broken only occasionally by the men cranking out a few Vietnamese tunes on their home karaoke machines connected to sound systems that are clearly struggling under the off tune decibel pressure. This is what our trip vision is all about, experiences over must see sights, activities over attractions, and observing people in their home surroundings, living their lives as they would day in day out, regardless of the two large white tourists staring at them from afar, with curiosity.
Exchange Rate $1AUD = 19,500VND
We found a little known local but still comfortable and air-conditioned bus travelling direct from Phnom Penh to Can Tho after researching far and wide on internet forums. The journey and border crossing from Cambodia into Vietnam went swimmingly. We left Phnom Penh at 6am and arrived in Can Tho at around 2.30pm, with a one hour wait at
the border between 9am and 10am and a lunch stop in Vietnam between 1pm and 1.30pm. We had a beautiful beef Pho at the local restaurant lunch stop. The bus company took our passports in the morning and gave them back in the afternoon and dealt with the immigration at the border, it was extremely painless and all we had to do was wait on the bus, only getting off to walk across the border itself.
Arriving into Can Tho was a both a little uninviting and underwhelming. We were stuck at the bus station for a while trying to catch a taxi…. there doesn’t seem to be any tuk tuk’s in Vietnam, what the!? And our chosen hotel, Xoai, left a lot to be desired. We decided to take a walk to the river front touristed area of the town to find an ATM to retrieve some dong, but only got about half way before the heavens decided to open up and we were left high and dry without a rain jacket or umbrella. We swear, it came from nowhere. Another taxi ride back to the hotel entailed. Our extremely poor dinner consisted of sickly sweet bakery mini
pizzas and a travellers diarrhoea induced banh mi from a small street food cart. It was all we could find in the area immediately surrounding the hotel as the rain didn’t let up for quite some time.
But the new day brought with it renewed excitement and enthusiasm. I had organised a surprise 3 day cruise on the aforementioned private boat on the Mekong for our belated 6th wedding anniversary. Every year we take it in turns to organise a surprise getaway. The little trip has to also take on the theme of the traditional wedding gifts adopted by the US, i.e. year one is paper, year two cotton etc. This year was my turn and the theme was sugar/candy (Suz’s favourite food group). And what do you know, the little area that we would be cruising to is famous for none other than coconut candy! Perfect.
We toured on the Gecko Eyes 1 boat owned by the company Mekong Eyes, and we were certainly not disappointed with the splurge. It was a magnificent trip filled to the brim with relaxation, adventure, activities, and food. More food in fact than anyone could possibly stomach. We had the entire
boat to ourselves which included a bedroom, bathroom, living room, and sun deck. The 5 private staff members that looked after us during our stay included a guide, chef, captain, mechanic, and a deck hand. Day 1 of 3 had us slowly cruising from Can Tho to Cai Bai, stopping in a small canal along the way to enjoy an afternoon stroll through a local village. Our guide, Nam, was great at pointing out all of the locally grown fruit and vegetables and also explaining a lot about the way the local people live and about their homes. We stopped to buy 2kg of fresh mangoes for a staggering 10,000 dong (about 50 cents) before meeting back up with the boat to continue the journey. During sunset we joined a much larger branch of the river system where we motored alongside floating fish farms for about 45 minutes. The farms themselves were nothing more than large nets strapped to rotting timber planks, which were in turn balanced between air filled plastic drums. On one side of the floating structure stood a small 15m2 tin shed where clearly a family lived and worked. Inside we could see piles of fish food
packed into hessian bags. The piles of bags looked to also double as a shelf for the families television. Bedding was either strewn across the floor next to a small cooker or suspended from hammocks. All the while thousands of fish were eagerly jumping around in the large nets awaiting their dinner. It was quite an extraordinary sight and made all the more magical by the setting sun.
On day 2 we were transported onto a small wooden passenger boat powered with what looked like a really large grass cutter with a propeller stuck to one end. From there it was onto an even smaller wooden boat powered by a Non La (conical hat) wearing woman with two long paddles. She handed us our very own Con La’s to wear for the short trip and then took us peacefully and quietly through a very small village creek, before it was back onto the passenger boat and over to Cai Bai town. Here we made our much anticipated stop at the coconut candy factory. It wasn’t quite the large warehouse production line that I was expecting. instead it was a very small open aired but covered structure, run by just
the one family. Inside they had very small but labour intensive operations for producing not only coconut candy, but also rice paper, popped rice, and snake wine. It was very fascinating watching the family produce their gastronomical delights from their self engineered and purpose built cooking mechanisms. The coconut candy and puffed rice was quite nice, and we walked away with a couple of packets of the candy, however the snake wine was foul, and tasted more like snake rocket fuel.
Following the factory tour we each grabbed a bicycle and followed our guide for an hour tour through the backstreets of Cai Bai. He took us along the small creeks and canals that branched off the Mekong, following concrete paths and passing local houses. We also ventured through a local produce market where we saw all types of interesting “edibles”. At one point having to look away a little queasy as a woman stuffed a live geese’s gut with watered down grain, likely she was producing foie gras. And again when another woman was taking live rats by the tail from a bamboo cage one by one and slamming their heads against a large rock. It was the
first time we had ridden bikes around for years, and it felt great to be cruising around, almost effortlessly on the flats paths, observing the way of life of the Vietnamese locals. Certainly one of the activity highlights of our trip so far. On the way back to the Gecko Eyes boat, a storm rolled in and this time we managed to beat the heavy rain but only by a couple of minutes. It was really enjoyable sitting in the comfort of the glass surrounded living room of the boat watching the rain stream down the outside of the windows, sitting on the Mekong river, enjoying some coconut candy, whilst awaiting the arrival of a five course dinner and a nice bottle of Australian wine.
In the afternoon our boat made it’s way back to Can Tho, and we anchored up on the quieter opposite side of the river to the town. On the final day of our tour we took another small passenger boat and explored the floating markets and a rice noodle factory. The floating markets weren’t really what we had expected either. For some reason, I guess travel show televisions influence, we had pictured hectic small
canals, bustling with small rowing boats carrying their produce. However, the reality was more like large cargo boats carrying typically one item of produce that wholesaled to some smaller boats, all set in a very wide section of the Mekong river system. It wasn’t quite as romantic as what we had in mind, however was still quite interesting and busy nonetheless. The rice noodle factory was very similar to the rice paper factory that we had experienced the day before and we even got to try our hand at making rice paper - not as easy as you would expect.
The entire private cruise was a brilliant money can buy experience and certainly conjured up the romantic visions and feeling that we have had since watching Luke Nguyen’s travelling and cooking show set along the Mekong River. It was a big one off splurge on our budget, however we will remember our sixth wedding anniversary forever. The sights, experiences, and food made it well worth the money we paid. In fact over the three days we got to taste over twenty courses of fresh local meals on board the boat, including a surprise wedding anniversary cake that they had
happy 6th "sugar" anniversary
celebrated with coconut candyprepared for us on the first night. There was way too much food for just the two of us, however we certainly did our best to expand our bellies and try everything thrown our way. Following our return to the Gecko Eyes boat from the rice noodle factory, we were transported the 4 hours by private minibus up to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it was known, and is still referred to by the vast majority of the locals.
*****
Our first glimpse of HCMC was unexpected. The wide avenues leading into the city were lined with carefully manicured grass. It was a really nice change to see that so much effort had gone into the soft features coming into a major city. HCMC was only to be a quick overnight transit point for our much longer stay up in Hoi An in the centre of Vietnam. So we hadn’t booked any accommodation for the one night. We sat at a cafe and worked methodically through Trip Advisor, filtering the accommodation with our essential needs of aircon, free wifi, free breakfast and a private bathroom located as close as possible to our current location, the backpacker
district of Pham Ngu Lao. We ended up staying at The Seventy Hotel. It fit our requirements perfectly. We had around 20 hours to burn in the mega metropolis, so we were keen to make the most of it.
Our afternoon walk around Pham Ngu Lao and District One uncovered yet more green space and also surprisingly a very walkable city. After what we had read, I think we were expecting it to be more like Phnom Penh, but even worse, where pedestrians were forced out onto the road due to packed footpaths. But this wasn’t the case at all. Yes the roads were as manic as expected, however the footpaths were free for walking. The long thin major park between Le Lai and Pham Ngu Lao streets was full to the brim with locals participating in extraordinary variations of fitness. One bloke was power walking with open hands facing forwards whilst both vigorously and ferociously swinging just the part of his arm below the elbow forwards and back, and skilfully being able to keep the part above the elbow completely still and draped by his side. I swear at one point his lower arm swung so far forwards
then upwards that his hand curled around and was able to scratch his own upper back! Then you had the really interesting stationary exercise machines. People of all shapes and sizes were having a crack at these. You had your cross trainer, your bike, your lower body only twister, lower body only swinger… well I’m sure they are all the technical names anyway. It was so interesting and enjoying watching these locals take to the mechanical contraptions, that naturally, Vince just had to join in and see what all the fuss was about. As expected, the machines seemed to feel as though they did very little to the target muscle groups with almost no resistance whatsoever. Lastly, we walked almost directly through a very large “pop-up” group exercise class that seemed to appear out of nowhere, a bit like the infamous dancing flash mobs. Complete with a giant sound system and enthusiastic instructor, it seems anyone could join in on this zumba cross aerobics cross “flashdance" fitness class. We decided to give this one a miss for a fear of self injury!
Instead, crossing the roads was about enough of a feat of concentration, endurance, perseverance, and determination for
one day. It really is insane the way that the roads and giant roundabouts especially operate in these Asian cities, and HCMC was by far the top of the pile in terms of insanity. But somehow it all just seems to organically work. So we did what the locals do, took a deep breathe, huddled together, closed our eyes, stepped out onto the 4 lane wide roundabout and hoped for the best. Of course no one actually uses any of the 4 lanes. There is really only one golden rule that we could comprehend on this roundabout, and for all intersections for that matter. If something or someone is crossing your path, leaving from point C, and will get to your shared point B before you get there from your point A, then you slow down and give way. Otherwise if you have calculated that you will get to point B first, then you casually continue on your way whilst your brain stays one step ahead, calculating the same equation for the next passer by, and so on and so forth. An accident will occur if both parties at point A and C miscalculate! Capisce (cah-peesh)?
At night we
wandered the streets around our hotel and we were again surprised by just how clean and organised the city was. There were a lot of clothes boutiques and cafes and plenty of alleyways off the main drags. All were brimming with interesting restaurants and locals homes, with their front doors wide open so you could get a sneaky peek of the way they lived.
The next day we managed to fit in a trip to the War Remnant Museum before our flight out to Da Nang. The museum was set over 4 levels, with each level having a different theme. A bit like you were taking a chronological trip through Vietnam’s history, starting with the late 1800’s occupation and rule of colonial France, and ending with today’s horrors and affects of the chemical warfare weapon, Agent Orange. Surrounding the building in the grounds were shells of former vehicles of war, including tanks, flame throwers, and fighter planes. From our research of this long period of war and instability, it has become clear that it was very much a political war. Where pro-communism (North Vietnam, China, and the Viet Cong (a South Vietnamese rebel group) fought long and hard against
anti-communism (South Vietnam, the US, South Korea, and Australia) and vice versa. The US seemed to fear the spread of communism through South East Asia, hence their involvement in the civil war, and also why they eventually turned their defensive occupation of South Vietnam into an offensive air and ground attack on North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. I guess they failed in their quest as Vietnam is today ruled under a Communist based government, and Ho Chi Minh’s face adorns all of contemporary Vietnam.
Our brief time in HCMC was very enjoyable and we finished off with a cold drink in “Fanny Icecream” before boarding the one hour flight to Da Nang with the low cost carrier VietJet. From here we take a 40km taxi to Hoi An where we are expecting to find some longer term comfortable accommodation to settle in for around 3 weeks.
Favourite Food Finds:
• pho bo at roadside cafe after Vietnam-Cambodia border crossing
• whole fried elephant ear fish on Gecko Eyes
• fresh mango bought roadside in Mekong Delta
Favourite Exercise Experience:
• cycling around the Mekong Delta
• chicken runner across HCMC roundabout
• zero resistance contraptions in HCMC
park
We'll Remember This Place For:
• waving a returning hello’s to the locals from the top deck of Gecko Eyes
• monster meals in the glazed dining room
• HCMC park fitness routines by the locals
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Liz Bleakley
non-member comment
cruising can tho wearing con las & eating coconut candy
It sounds like your anniversary was wonderful and so different from anything you have done before. I agree you will remember it for the rest of your lives. What an experience. You are winning me over with your stories of Vietnam, however, can't say the same for you know who??? Your favourite spot on the boat would have been mine too. Enjoy every minute. xxxxx