A final goodbye to the Mekong

  Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Sunday, April 3, 2005

Well, our Delta tour didn't start so well with us missing the bus. 10 months, and still haven't quite got the hang of it. It was a very convoluted affair - M was actually there in time, trying to get them not to drive away but couldn't convince the tour office that we were on the trip, as they had forgotten to write our names down (because so many people do just randomly turn up at buses and claim they are booked on them?). I had the tickets, but was still at the accommodation, waiting for them to rustle up some change for a US$100 note. I got there about 2mins late, by which time they had left, which seemed pretty anal when you've got someone claiming they are meant to be on the thing (especially as our previous tour with the same crowd had left 15mins late last time). They looked a bit peeved when I produced the tickets and they realised they had, indeed, screwed up (OK... "as well as us"), and eventually they put us on the 1-day tour bus, with vague instructions that we would catch up with the others. As it turned out, this bus that was in such a hurry it left without us actually drove around town for another 1hr, and we drove past some people waiting on the roadside, who would later get picked up by it...

Never mind. We met up with the 2-day group here and there, always curious as to when we would swap (after the morning's performance, we were half expecting a startled look at any moment and the tour guide yelling "why didn't you get on the other bus at the market/restaurant/dock/etc?"). Tour started (aside from with us being pissed off) with a visit to a local market. Ho hum.



Was walking around aimlessly, however, when we spied something that was, streets ahead, the most "foreign" thing we had seen in all our travels. They were selling frogs. Nothing unusual. Except these were skinned and headless (and possibly gutted). Still nothing unusual. Except they were still hopping around and breathing. Apparently I haven't been completely desensitised yet, because that fucken freaked me out. Especially when I noticed one of these skinless, headless frogs had made its way across the road towards us, and was about to jump on my foot.

I have truly never seen something so horrific. Luckily I have pictures for you. If it doesn't look gruesome enough, just imagine them taking deep, full breaths, and hopping around the plate. If that still doesn't work, imagine one of them chasing you down the street. I don't know if they were alive or dead. They seemed to hop around for an awfully long time for it to be a death reflex. BUT THEY HAD NO HEAD!!!!!



Recovering from that with a nice little boat trip down the river, we had lunch at some random orchard. Nice enough lunch, but we had absolutely no idea what the significance of it was. Then we went to watch some coconut toffee making - really hand-made. They even did the heat sealing of the packets with just a candle. Its great in these sorts of countries, they don't waste anything. The toffees only use the milk from the coconut, but they boil the milk off with a fire produced from the coconut husks. The ash from the burnt husks is used as fertilizer for the surrounding fields. The roof is made with the coconut leaves. The squeezed coconut pulp is fed to the pigs...



Then more little boat rides through the delta. Didn't really pick up many differences to life on any part of the river - in theory it's tidal, but the water gets salty only very rarely, so it's all pretty much same, same. There were communities of house-boat type things, where the families actually have a fish farm tied up underneath the boat, and that was it for unique river life.



Stopped at a "honey-tea" place, that gave us cups of tea with honey in it... Slightly more interesting was some Vietnamese music afterwards, which is still pretty screechy, but not as screechy as Chinese music. To top it off in terms of random unrelated stuff, they bought out a big python for people to hold. M had a go (I thought she would be a bit hesitant, but she looked at me condescendingly and pointed out that one that small can't actually do much to hurt you). The girl after her wasn't quite so logical, and the look on her face during the entire experience brought much merriment to all.



Then off the river, and back into the bus, to finally swap to our proper bus at Bonsai Garden. Had lots of bonsai trees and monkeys in cages. The monkeys seemed surprisingly happy considering the size of their cages. There were also some boa constrictors in cages and, of course, in true Asian style, some cute little ducklings in the same cage looking very worried. The boa was in one corner, the ducklings pressed as hard as possible into the opposite corner. I know it's outnumbered 2 to 1, but my money's still on the boa...

Ferry ride after that, where we met 3 little Vietnamese boys off to catch crickets. Idyllic, except they were then going to use them in fights (I have absolutely no idea how you convince a cricket to fight). They could speak no english, but were mighty fascinated by my hairy legs and biceps - prodding and poking them, and comparing them to their own. Vietnamese men have very little bodyhair, and are of pretty slight build, so I was apparently quite a spectacle to them. Regarding my leg hair, this curiosity is probably deserved, but I'm not sure my biceps rate astonishment - cruising around beaches and rivers is not exactly the way to a better body in just 10days.

Spent the night at a homestay which was a nice change. As there were 12 of us doing it, it wasn't exactly a quaint night with the family, but it was a nice boat ride out to their place in the dark - watching the fireflies and bats dart across the water. Kind of cool was that there were some Kiwi's staying as well! The first ones we have met since leaving NZ over 10 months ago. It was nice hearing our accent for a change, although it sounded a bit hick...

The host was pretty jovial too, and it was, overall, a more preferable evening than yet another night in the big city. Plus we had fun inflicting months of pent-up rage on the mossies with one of those electrified swatters.

The next day started way too early, at 6am. At least there was no buses to miss. Was worried that the frogs might have visited me in my dreams (our anti-malarial drug has been giving us some wickedly vivid dreams and nightmares) but I appeared to have had a peaceful night - luckily for the other 3 people in the same room. We had to walk a fair way to get to our boat as it was low tide, and that seemed to amuse the local children no end as a whole bunch of westerners walked past their houses. Life is quiet on the river I guess.

Then it was a float through the floating markets, which was probably the only type of market we haven't seen yet (have ticked off tribal markets, sunday markets, night markets, weekend markets, russian markets, silk markets, old markets, electronic markets, food markets, new markets...).



Pretty standard fare - mostly food, but the little coffee-maker boats were quite cool. Tiny little low dinghies complete with a mini-stove to bring you that piping hot cup of java in the morning. Pretty sure they didn't do expressos.

The bit that captured my interest most, however, was the rather cavalier attitude the boats had towards their propellers. These are on the end of big, long, cantilevered poles, so when the pilot wants to stop the boat, he simply lifts it out of the water - around about our headheight. With this thing still spinning, he then preoccuppies himself with looking for a gap ahead, and the spinning propeller sways from side to side erratically. Not so good if he is right next to you at the time...

Actually did 2 floating markets. The ride along the river in between, we all wore those Vietnamese flax hats to keep off the sun, so we looked like right prats.



Shared the boat with a family of 5 who are backpacking for 2 years! Kids were aged 5 - 12, parents must be slightly retarded. I think they had a budget of $US70,000, which would mean that they are not doing it the rosey way. Had been on the trail for 6 months (had done NZ already) and so far everything was sweet. We suggested they write a book about it - I have seen legions of travel books, but never one on a quest as foolhardy as that. The kids found the worst thing was all the locals poking, prodding and pinching them. Unfortunately they still had China to go, which should give them new boundaries into how much poking, prodding and pinching can happen to the average western, blond child while walking 100m down a street.

Bit of a cruise in some little inlets, I think, according to the brochure, "to mix with and understand village life". Got myself a world of understanding as we sped past. Stopped at a spot where they made rice paper, once again with the whole system using everything available from the raw material.



Then back to the bus, a dramatic interlude where M & I, after dawdling, had to leap across the ever-increasing gap onto the ferry as it pulled away, and a final stop on the way home to yet another market. No nightmare-inducing frogs, but they did have live snakes for sale - anything from water snakes to boas ($20/kg). Prospective customers would just dive their hands into the squirming mass and try to find a particuliarly wiggly one I guess. Everything in the market still had a bit of jump in it, so all over the floor there were various eels, fish and snakes trying to make a dash for freedom.



And there ended our delta tour. Certain sense of completeness from it - over the past 6 weeks, we have followed the Mekong from vaguely near its source (starts in Tibet I think), all the way down to where it hits the ocean. We feel jolly organised to think that we had a theme to this latest trip (even if we did only realise it in retrospect). My overall impression from this 6 weeks is that the Mekong is quite muddy-looking.

Back to HCMC that night, checked back into our hotel, which had happily kept our booking and then booked ourselves on the open bus all the way for Hanoi. Vietnam has an open bus that allows you to hop off at about 6 places as you head up north for only $22 (thats nearly 2000km). Horribly insular from the locals, and you can guarantee you will never be off the track, but just so damn easy and cheap that we couldn't resist. I'll hob-nob with the locals when we're back in China.