Mekong Delta

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  Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Up early this morning; alarm set for 6.20. As it happened, another guest in the hotel mistakenly called our room at 5.30am with a wake-up call. She was apologetic, but it didn't help matters. Luckily it was Catherine that had answered the phone, or the caller would have been exposed to some brand new expletives.

So, early breakfast and round the corner to get the bus. Our next port of call is Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia. We also wanted to see the Mekong Delta in Southern Vietnam at some point. As luck would have it a few companies do tours of the Mekong Delta which finish up in Phnom Penh, so killing two birds with one stone.

The guide on the mid-sized bus was a nice bloke in his twenties. He spoke good English and had even mastered being funny in a foreign language; he was genuinely witty and had the whole bus laughing. We drove for about three hours, covering only 110km in that time due to the road quality, before reaching a floating market. We boarded a boat and drove around the market for about 30 minutes before going for lunch.

The floating market was actually pretty interesting. It was a large collection of boats laden with fruit and veg and so on, but it only dealt with wholesale selling, in minimum quantities of 10kg per sale. This meant that although it was visited by tourists it was in no way set up for us, in that it wasn't full of tat and there was no hassle. It allowed us to get an idea of what life for the people of the region is really like.

Back on a different boat after lunch, and a bit more of a tour through the delta. Then back on land, and back to the bus. About to leave when it became apparent that one of our group, a Cambodian man in his fifties with a suspiciously young girl on his arm (that's suspicious as in far too young for him, not illegally young) had left his mobile phone on the first boat, before lunch. The guide said it would be put on another boat and would be with us in 25 minutes.

1 hour 15 minutes later the phone arrived and we headed off again. Patience had worn a little thin at the length of time this had taken, and the man's lack of gratitude or apology when it had arrived. We had a new guide for this leg of the trip. He stood at the front of the bus,speaking to us in broken English. He asked us what time it was. When someone answered with the time, he cried "NO! It's 2am..." and burst into some kind of love song that, as far as I could tell, was in English. It went on and on. It was very unusual. Embarrassing doesn't begin to describe it. Halfway through he gestured for the bus to start clapping in rhythm. Most of the passengers did. I'm ashamed to say that I did too. It was a futile effort to somehow make this bizarre scenario marginally more comfortable. He ended after what seemed like an hour or two.

"The bus was late so I have to make you happy again with a song" he explained. We were behind schedule, it was 3.30pm. We would be at our hotel at sunset in three hours time.

When we arrived at 7.45pm it was pitch black. We'd chosen the upgrade to a "floating hotel" which means a boat. To be fair it was better than either of us expected (although our expectations were pretty low), but an even more pleasant surprise was that the restaurant, which is catering to a captive audience, wasn't a complete rip-off.

We had an early night. Up at 6am tomorrow.

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