The Mighty Mekong - Down in the Delta
Trip Start
Jul 10, 2008
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16
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Trip End
Jul 10, 2011
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Can Tho,
Vietnam
Friday, December 19, 2008
Rach Gia was our gateway to the waterways of the Mekong Delta. The luggage was dumped in a large room, no conveyer belt, it was then outside for an ordeal with the taxi/bike people.
It was $3 for a very slow 2 minute ride to the 'bus station', that was really just a petrol station outside the airport gates. Demands of 500,000 dong for the bus ride to our next destination were bargained down to 200,000 for both of us. I did see locals tickets later and learnt they paid 42,000. We'd been swizzled but not speaking the language it's hard to argue. Erica was none too happy but I reminded her we're only been swizzled $6US! The slow bus to Can Tho took us about 4 hours. There were waterways along the road for most of the way as there are throughout the Delta. Nowadays waterways are important during the floods and the wet season but they are loosing their importance as roads get built on higher and higher banking. I was surprised out here to see that even though the housing looked pretty sparse the roads were still jam packed with traffic. One thing we had seen a lot of driving around were bicycles trailing big bunches of Christmas balloons that were for sale. The houses along the way nearly all had small manmade ponds in the gardens, it looked like these were to allow people to raise their own fish.
Banana Boat
All the water we saw though, whether in ponds or waterways looked a dirty brown!We disembarked the bus only to be surrounded by motorcycle touts. Erica really wasn't enjoying the dealing with the locals part of the trip, so we walked straight past them and walked the half km into town. It was the fact that prices weren't fixed and the feeling that some people were trying to rip you off that got Erica's goat! I've said it before and I'll say it again, bus stations in foreign countries seem to attract the scum of the earth, always someone wanting to extract a little additional money from your wallet!
We booked into the sparse but clean Hien Hotel. Not wanting to deal with the hassle of a DIY trip again we paid out $75 US for a two day combo of boat and accommodation to take us all the way back to HCMC. That afternoon we wondered through town having pizza and beer at one place before hitting a waterfront café to watch some of the boats go by. Can Tho has about 350,000 people and the bus station was a bit mental, but down here things are a little more calm. Dirt seems to be the main commodity on the Mekong! Every second boat seemed to be some big barge transporting dirt; some transported it up stream, others down! The other think you notice is all these long thin boats with these long long motors that seems to stretch out 20 feet out the back. I seem to recall a James Bond movie chase in one of these boats once!
We ate at the Mekong Restaurant that night. It was certainly a bit grotty looking but the food was great and it was as cheap as chips! In Vietnam (in my opinion) you need to check 2 things to determine how expensive a restaurant is - beer and spring rolls! This place did 750mm bottle of Tiger Beer for 18,000 dong, a sure sign of a bargain basement place! This place also had snake or frog on the menu, was teaming with geckos and sold San Miguel beer! This brought back lots of memories of sunny Spain in my younger days where we this was the beer of choice.
We were up at 5:30 next morning, these markets are early morning affairs apparently! There were lots of dirty grimy houses and factories as we motored down the river.
Boat Eyes
We stopped at a small riverside café for a pre-dawn coffee before arriving at the market. A few boats hitched up to ours and tried to sell us more coffee. As we floated though we saw people selling fruit and veggies. There were bananas, pineapple and watermelon and if the vendor wanted to let you know what they were selling they would have a long pole sticking out above their boat with the fruit attached! They say locals aren't visiting the floating markets as much anymore, better roads and more of the population owning a scooter. This first market was the Cai Rang and did not seem to have that many customers. It seemed very touristy and there were some large boats run by the tourist board. The sad thing about these boat was they were too large to get into the heart of the market that resulted in the odd boat coming out to them and all the Asian tourists leaning over trying to buy whatever that could!The second market we went to was the Phong Dien, this was definitely more interesting with smaller boats where all the boats floated in a cluster and you had to pull yourself though the middle with just a paddle. Our boat driver took a pineapple he had bought earlier. After a bit of slicing and dicing he presented it to us like two lollypops on sticks. The sticks being the long stem that were left on the pineapple. I did try a couple of local 'doughnuts' also, but they were certainly nothing to write home about!
We left the main waterway and took an interesting backwater route back to Can Tho.
Boatman
There were lots of kids waving, banana trees, water hyacinthes and veggie plots including runner beans along the way. We also got to cross a monkey bridge! These are wooden bridges with a thin piece of wood you have to balance your feet on and just one handrail. Once the wood becomes mossy and damp it can be a bit hairy! Apparently and perhaps unfortunately the government has a goal of replacing all these with concrete bridges! That's progress I guess!We had a pizza lunch again before jumping back on the boat for our 4-hour trip back to Vihn Long - one of the guys had laughed at us as he said it was an hour by car! We did comment as we ate lunch how everyone wore a helmet, New Hampshire has a lot to learn! A law had been enacted about a year ago and we did find out that before this law people would deride the use of helmets here. What was funny and didn't seem enforced was only the driver had to have the helmet. The wife and 2 kids on some of the scooters were obviously expendable.
Once on the boat we crossed over the Lower River AKA Hau Giang AKA Bassac River! It's a good old size and there were plenty of ferries taking people and the vehicles across. This is all to change though soon as there was a mightily impressive suspension bridge going up. Just the 2 main support towers were finished really and I think our boat driver said they had been working on it for four years. I guess the ferry owners were safe for a few more years yet!
We had a quick stop at a tofu factory.
Boy Fishing
They have some process to liquefy the soy beans and they then put the liquid in a big pot for 30 hours, every hour skimming a layer of crust off the top and leaving it out to dry. The room the guys were working in was like a furnace, certainly not a job I'd like to do long term!As we continued up stream our noisy engine would occasionally get drowned out by a boat that sounded like it's muffler was totally missing. The drivers of these boats but have lost their hearing a long time ago! All the boats you pass in the water, large or small also have 2 eyes painted on the front; we presumed this was to keep a 'watch out' and some sort of good luck symbol. The ride was pleasant passing a number of small towns and eventually we arrived in Vihn Long where we crossed the Upper River AKA Mekong AKA Tien Giang. The Mekong is one of the world great rivers and travels 4500km from the Tibetan Plateau, through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before emptying into the ocean in Vietnam. The Vietnamese call it the river of 9 dragons as it splits into multiple branches when it reaches there.
We headed across the mighty Mekong where our boat driver dropped us at what was meant to be our home stay. Our rooms were bamboo bungalows with just a high wall separating us from the bungalow next door, if you jumped up and down on the bed you could probably see in! Luckily our new neighbours weren't snorers! That night also turned into a bit of a chilly one and we had a blanket that if your feet were covered really only came to the bottom of your chest! I chose to have cold feet! The bungalows were actually raised up over a small pond, I presume to help with cooling but this caused a problem with mozzies! We had a net though so all was well and good.
The house we stayed at was called Ba Tung.
Cai Rang Floating Market
The owner was one of those genuinely happy, salt of the earth type of guys who always tried to make you feel welcome. He started our dinner with an aperitif shot of his homebrew banana wine and gave us an additional shot for when we finished our dinner! We got a whole spread of food that evening. Elephant ears fish to start with, along with some rice paper rolls, cucumber, mint, lettuce, noodles and a nice fish sauce for a make your own rice paper rolls! We got some smoked fish cooked in a rich soy sauce and although a boney fish I though this tasted fantastic! We got fried spring rolls, soup and pineapple pieces with a salt and chilly pepper dip that actually made a great combination!The next morning we had a nice ride around the island. There were concrete paths along most of the smaller waterways with thin bridges with no sides didn't inspire confidence when you were wobbling across on your bike! There was this fantastic big arched bridge close to our bungalow that reminded me of the famous bridges from the Greek mountains or the old packhorse bridges from the UK. It was a nice ride checking out the nice house and gardens with their flowers and butterflies that seemed quite typical of what we were used to seeing outside the cities in the Mekong.
There was a small accident close to our bungalow when a scooter hit a dog. The guy was a bit shaken and the dog just kept on yelping loudly and looked like he was in shock. This must happen a lot in Vietnam as there are always dogs running around trying to keep out from under people's feet!
The sad thing about Mekong waterways is that is what is often used for trash and wastewater.
Cai Rang Floating Market 2
Apparently this wastewater is starting to cause environmental problems as well as odour issues! The litter everywhere also looks unsightly for Westerners.After another great lunch we took some scooters to the ferry back to Vihn Long. The speedometer never seems to work on the bikes over here. From here it was a taxi to the 'bus station'. Our bus ended up been a 7 seater SUV that dropped us exactly where we wanted in HCMC. This full service experience definitely turned out to be worth the extra money and after the local bus experience a few days earlier I know Erica definitely appreciated it. It amazing the roads for the full 3 hours back to Saigon were crazy busy. The whole route was also lined with either houses or industry. Vietnam had 83M people in 2004, the 13th most populous in the world. 65% of the population are under 30 and the country now has a 2-child policy in urban areas! Some locals mentioned this policy only applies to government employees who will lose some salary if they break this limit!
This time we stayed in the Hong Hoa, unfortunately Hotel 127 was fully booked. We reserved tickets for the open bus tour for the next day. $31US for the 1,100km trip with an open on off policy at about 5 major tourist points along the way - what a bargain!
We had spend about $800 so far in the first week and was definitely more than we though we would spend based on the guide book prices from 2004. We were paying double what the book said in most places.
I had 2 pints of a draught beer at the Bi Saigon next door to our hotel with our dinner that night. It tasted decent enough, but I thing it was really some sort of home brew and I did have a bit of a aching head the next morning!
