The Mekong Delta
Trip Start
Nov 26, 2007
1
18
44
Trip End
Apr 17, 2008
Can Tho,
Vietnam
Thursday, February 14, 2008
One has to ask why the Lonely Planet doesn't have decent travel advice in it telling you to get off at the ferry rather than being full of scare stories about places. I am really beginning to go off that book - in Can Tho there is one restaurant that's queued up every night with people waiting for a table -why? Cause its great...No cause its mentioned in the Lonely Planet...
Can Tho itself is a funny little town. It is the provincial capital with a lot going on (especially if you happen to want to buy massive speakers or a hardcore amplifier unit - there must be a hundred shops selling them!!). There is a nice riverfront area that seems to be largely populated by retired tourists paying $100/night for hotels/tours and walking around and young Vietnamese with their birds. The whole time I was in Can Tho there were celebrations going on for either the tail end of the new year celebrations or valentines day. On valentines itself there was just a procession of motorbike couples going backwards and forwards along the road with girls at the side of the road everywhere selling roses etc. Very strange. It does seem to be the prerogative of every boy here to have himself a wife as soon as possible so she can accompany him fishing etc. Its kind of weird looking at the courting couples in the evening and the looking at the fishing couple on the river the next morning.
Around the centre of town there are a lot of old Vietnamese ladies looking to get you onto a boat ride to the floating markets - I guess you have to give them credit since most tourists are going on big boats recommended in the lonely planet...Anyway, the constant hassling of me by one of them eventually got my attention - basically she seemed to be waiting for me every time I came out of the hotel; morning, day or night to tell me $2 for one hour on boat. We talked a view times, viewed her boat and eventually agreed on a 5 hour trip to the floating markets and then up some small canals. She assured me that she would be driving the boat as she spoke good English so we arranged to meet at 6am the following morning.
I was out of bed fresh as a daisy at 6am raring to go. She was there waiting for me and took me down to the boat. The 1st signs of something going wayward were when she asked me for payment up from so she 'could pay some other tourists'...what she was paying tourists for beat me so I told her firmly no. Then she explained that she wouldn't be driving the boat as she had a sore throat (no bloody wonder the amount of talking she had done to me over the past 3 days) and that instead her husband would be driving. I asked if he spoke English and she said, yes very good as she jumped off the boat and we drifted into the middle of the river. He started off very well with 'How are you?' and 'What's your name?' but then I threw the cat amongst the pigeons by asking 'Do you have any children?' (like he wouldn't as every family here has at least 5!!) to which I got the reply 'small canal' repeated about 5 times. Anyway, I wasn't to flustered, at 6am in the morning its probably best just to sit in silence.
The floating market was amazing. Its just a sea of boats, all bumping into each other and people buying and selling, throwing and catching etc. They even have coffee boats where you can grab a coffee on your way past. I bought a coffee and a mango (even got to sample the mango before I bought it, all while drifting past). It was totally alive despite the fact the sun was just rising; apparently its all over by 9am. I thought we were going to get crushed at one point but my man just revved up his little engine (the engines on the longtails they have here are more like little lawn mower engines compared to the 2 litre V*'s you see in Thailand) and pushed this big junk out of the way.
After the market we went to a fairly uneventful rice paper making factory, some English explanation would probably have helped here so we just had a coffee instead. We then got to the highlight of the trip - the 'small canals'!! They indeed were small canals, especially as the tide had gone out. Never being cynical I would never suggest that the small canals were designed to slow the trip down to a snails pace and save petrol as we could no longer use the engine and my man had to row instead but it cross my mind...Anyway, we went to a little 'tourist fruit farm' where a kind old man took us round and proudly showed me his fruit tree collection...I was wondering the whole way round what the catch was in this lovely tour (with him holding my hand)..I thought it had revealed itself when he offered me a plate of 5 fruits for 50p at the end. I took him up on this as it didn't sound too bad and I had never seen some of the fruits before. They were all lovely - things like lychee's and something called a 'milk apple' were the highlights. Anyway, as I was tucking into this feast the real catch revealed itself in the form of fruit mans daughter. I then proceeded to get asked by every member of the family (daughter included) whether I was married and was told that his lovely daughter was also single...when it was apparent my interest wasn't really there they resorted to pulling out the guest book and showing me a previous comment by a 69 year old visitor who had proposed on paper and left his number. Apparently her sister was already married and living in Germany using this approach to seduction!! And when I attempted to run away my boat man told me I had to wait another 20 minutes for the tide (I am pretty sure his wife told him not to bring me back before 11am so she got her $10). I escaped in the end and the tide had indeed come in substantially and the engine fired back into life, albeit going very slowly to make the time deadline...
And that was Can Tho really.
Can Tho Pictures
Well, that was Can Tho...until I turned up for my fast boat out to Saigon and found out they had canceled it...I sort of knew something was amiss when she kept asking if I had a Cambodia contact number 'in case it was canceled' and looked very worried when I booked it. They offered to get me a taxi or I could have got a bus but in the end my heart was on this fast boat so I took a 40,000 Dong discount (nowhere near the 150,000 for another night in a hotel but the new Simon does not raise his voice or get annoyed at anything).
So instead of me boat journey I decided a haircut was the next best thing...I stopped at this little bloke with a mirror on a street corner. Not a word of English but we established that a trim would cost 10,000 Dong (less than 40p). He then set off on the biggest masterpiece of a haircut that I have ever had, we trimmed ear hairs, nose hairs, shaved the ears the lot!! And then he pulled out the cut throat razer, at first I was hesitant but you've gotta try these things. It was proper weird having some foreign bloke shaving my neck with a blade while there are cars and people walking by. He had to sort of given up on the hard as nails Scottish sandpaper stubble though in the end - after going through 2 blades I think I'll still have a go with my Gillette sensor later (do you know I have only used 2 razor blades since setting off; now that's tight).
And then I did leave Can Tho the following day...
