Day One in the Mekong Delta (A Day Behind)
Trip Start
Nov 12, 2008
1
7
17
Trip End
Dec 02, 2008
Can Tho,
Vietnam
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Yesterday morning we woke up and had breakfast when Lei (sp?) and Long (sp?) our guides for the trip came to pick us up. Lei is our guide, Long is our driver. Only Lei speaks English, although Long busted out with something about the ferry and a few other words this afternoon. So they picked us up and drove us through HCMC which looked completely different in sunlight. The day before it had been overcast all day but yesterday (Saturday) it was sunny and everyone was out. We all wanted another day to see the city like this but loved it as they drove us to the tour office so we could settle the bill, etc. There was some confusion over the amount of bags we have even though each person has one bag and a smallish backpack - since we're not going back to HCMC we had to take everything and I don't think they were used to it. "That van normally sits 16 people!" they tried to tell us. We couldn't figure out how that was since it had five bikes in the back but whatever. We only needed it to sit seven and it did that quite easily.
I keep digressing because there's so much and Jen has the notes from yesterday. I forgot to pack my notebook in the rush to get everything ready. See, after they picked us up, we drove for about two hours stopping once for coffee (woohoo coffee!!!). During that time we saw just about everything you can imagine (and a few things you can't) being caried by moped - a family of five, a large glass pane, plants, my personal favorite was the guy carrying the fish on a string off to the side of the moped. "Is that a FISH in front of us?" Yes, yes it was. When we finally stopped it was at a harbor where we left the van and hopped onto a private boat called the "Southern Peace" which I'm sure somehow was fitting for us. There were five recliners set up for us and recline we did, after the immediate photo session of each other, the woman and her husband who were steering the boat and of the Mekong Delta itself.
I know I'm missing things about the day but I realized that there was so much that I'm trying to capture the highlights in a day bursting with highlights. The boat took us to an island where we walked through to the middle of it where there was a home that served us exotic fresh fruit and tea. The fruit was good although all of us were distracted by the fact that not far from the table there was a squirrel in a green cage - apparently put there to keep the squirrles from eating their fruit trees. We couldn't figure out if it was meant to act as a kind of scarecrow squirrel or if it was that squirrel that was the culprit. Who knows. It was still a little distracting.
From there we left a different route and were put into cut-out boats that guided us through waterways until we eventually made it back to the larger part of the Delta and to the Southern Peace. Each thing is so amazing I know I'm not doing any of it justice in an effort to get it all in. I'll be coming back to edit and add as I have time. Right now I'm just trying to help myself remember as well. Back onto the Southern Peace we went where we rode for a while until stopping for lunch. At lunch they presented us with this large fish that was covered with cone shaped scales. The woman serving us dove the spoon into the fish and put it into spring rolls. All while the fried fish eyes stared at us from it's stand. The food was all good - noodle broths, pork, spring rolls, etc. and afterwards we wandered around where we found snakes in cages, crocadiles!, ostrages, (forgive my spelling I'm trying to go fast) etc. I'm just glad they were all in cages and not running free like the roosters and cows we seem to see everywhere in this area.
After lunch brought us back to the boat and then back to the harbor where we jumped into the van until we were told to get out and pack bags for the night. What? We had about 10 minutes to sort our stuff for what we'd need for the night and the next morning and to get our bike fitted to us. Awesome, no pressure. Then we jumped on our bikes and headed along the road. Until from the road we turned down a dirt road which quickly turned into a red mud road. Which was fine except that it was also a single-trail road that everyone who lived on the island used to get around. So we're biking 17km through mud (a good part of it) while motorbikes piled with people and whatever they were carrying went around us - or us around them. People coming from the left, from the right at first we were on the road and we were all biking with water (or a beer) in hand. But then we hit the mud and had to hang on and focus. Oh and then there were the kids. Every place we passed where there were kids, they would run out to greet us, "hello! hello! hello!" narrated our trek around the island. At one point we took a ferry and the people on the ferry were giggling at us because we were absolutely covered in mud. But that was before the torrential downpoor that started when we were biking and only got worse as it became dark. After the ferry we met up with the van, grabbed our packs, washed our face and then waded onto the small boat that would take all of us to the island and the guest house where we stayed the night.
But it was still raining. And the wind picked up. And the sun set over us. At one point in the middle of the wide channel, Lei grabbed a few life jackets and thrust them at us, "Put these on!" Broken English or not, we all understood what he meant and if the guy who grew up in the area was worried that was reason for us all to worry. Although I think what happened was a few rounds of singing Safety Dance but I could just be making that up. We did make it the long way across the Delta to the guesthouse where we found our cots and mosquito nets. The place was very cool and despite the early to bed (8:30?), and the roosters crowing throughout the night, we all enjoyed the dinner (except maybe Kathrine who isn't a fan of the food here) and the general ambiance. None of us enjoyed the lack of hot water though as we took cold showers to wash off all the dirt.
That mostly takes me to this morning. And I haven't even gotten to today at all. I can safely say that the tour we signed up for and the tour company that is actually doing the tour are two different things and that we chose the other one because it was less actual biking. We got out of some of it today but tomorrow will be a very long day (60 km if we do all of it). It has been an absolutely adventure and we are all having a blast.
Cheryl, we do wish you were here with us though but thanks for the email (we also think you're crazy to run the 1/2 marathon). Everyone else, there's so much more - whether it is us making the guide stop so we can buy beer right after he said there was no place to stop for the next three hours and when Marie went to get the beer he said, "four?" and she said, "no, 24 and pointed to the whole case" or all of the little moments that surprise us around each corner - even as we go through the guided tours with everything picked out for us. That all ends tomorrow as we head to Cambodia in two days. Until then, I'll continue trying to play catch up with the stories. Enjoy!
