The Mekong

• Warty007's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Chau Doc

Trip Start Sep 11, 2008 Previous
Entry Trip End Jun 05, 2009 Next
Entry

  Chau Doc, Vietnam
Sunday, October 26, 2008

We booked our Mekong tour through the hotel as it was a dollar cheaper than booking directly with the company. Every dollar counts we thought, we went and got info from the tour company first which conflicted with what the hotel said but $31 for a 2 day tour ending in Phnom Penh seemed good. We got on a small bus at 8am with a few other tourists and backpackers and drove 2 and a half hours to Cai Be where we got on a small narrow boat. We were taken to the nearby floating market where locals come from the delta in boats to sell their produce. Each boat sells one thing which they hoist up on a long bamboo pole so you can see what they sell. Alongside the bamboo pole is a huge TV aerial, as they fill up the boat with melons or potatoes or whatever, grab the dog and the kids, sail to the floating market, drop anchor and live there for 2 weeks or until they sell out of stuff. When we arrived though it was quiet as the all markets kick off about 5-5.30am and die down about 10. The guide said people around the Mekong generally get up about 5 and go to bed about 7 or 8 at night. After that we went to a place where they make coconut candy by hand by grating coconut, pressing the milk out and boiling it. It tastes great so we bought a bit before we were hurried back on the boat.
Both the market and the village were right by where we got on the boat so it was a relief to find out we were going a bit further upriver to another village for lunch. The boat came off the main Mekong into a river which got narrower and narrower with snakes and fish in the water next to the boat. We got off and walked through a jungle village to a restaurant where we had Elephant Ear fish for lunch, so called as it looks like an elephants ear when cooked. I haven't seen a real elephant for a while, but to me it looked like a cooked fish. It was great though, tasted a bit like Mekong mud but we had all the ingredients to make fresh spring rolls which were nice. The fresh spring rolls in Vietnam consist of noodles, cucumber, lettuce, fish or meat and 90% fresh mint and basil or something which makes them taste like just eating a handful of fresh grass so we all left them out. We were supposed to go for a bike ride round this little jungle village, which isn't as uncivilised as it sounds as the roads are tarmaced and everyone uses a mobile phone. I can't get reception half the time in my Mums village and theres certainly none in the Peak District between Manchester and Sheffield, but the remotest parts of Vietnam have full signal. And they pay next to nothing for it. But anyway, we had only just finished eating our giant mud fish when we were hurried back on the boat, no biking or anything. We did see a Japanese girl at another restaurant screaming and crying while the Vietnamese draped a giant Burmese python over her which made up for it.
The boat took us back to dry land where we met the bus again for a 5 hour drive to Chau Doc which they had convieniently left out the duration of when selling everyone the trip. The boat up there was slow, and we had opted for the slow boat in the morning to Phnom Penh, as had most other people. So they start saying "who wants to upgrade tomorrow for $10?" and all the tourists and flashpackers stuck their hands straight up. They had already all paid an extra $10 for a floating hotel rather than our fan room in a minihotel. So we end up just 6 of us at the minihotel, two Irish girls and an Aussie guy and his English girlfriend, in the middle of nowhere not even in Chau Doc town. It was a bit dirty and very hot, the rooms were much hotter than outside, and we decided we were all hardcore backpackers. Then we admitted we had been going for AC rooms with TV and knew the entire upcoming weeks programming for Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. Then they all admitted they did too and we decided we weren't all so hardcore after all.
We woke up the next day to a crap beakfast at the hotel and grey skies. The bus took us to the pier in Chau Doc where we got on the boat and it started to rain. There was a roof and crap plastic sheet to pull down the sides but the rain came in anyway. We went about 400 yards to a fish farm, which is a floating village where the house have nets underneath full of fish. They opened a trapdoor, threw some food in and the fish went mad flying out everywhere. Then we were hurried back on the boat and went another 400 yards where we got off again at a village on stilts  where they speak Arabic and weave. We had to walk along the most rickety jetty about a foot wide with no handrails which wobbled and moved all the time, soaked by the rain. We spent all of about 5 minutes there then back down the scary jetty to the boat. Then at 8.30am we set off for the 8 hour slow boat up the Mekong in the now pouring rain.
After about 30 seconds the guy said we could join the fast boat for 50,000 dong which is about $2.80 or under 2 quid. Immediately we all started waving money at him as it would be useless from then on anyway as we were near the Cambodian border. None of us had the heart to tell all the others who paid $10 for it yesterday we got it so cheap. There weren't enough seats though and the Irish girls had to sit on lifejackets on the floor for the first two hours to the border as the boat slowly started filling up with rainwater. The guide had just given them crap plastic ponchos and told them to sit out on deck in the rain and got really arsey when they asked for their money back. At the border we had to wait on the boat for ages while the guide disappeared on a motorbike with our passports and $22 each for Visas. Then we were ordered off the boat. Then we had to get the bags off, carry them just up the road out of Vietnam. Then we had to get on another boat which went 400 yards then we had to get off again and check into Cambodia, then get on again. None of this was explained though, it was just get off, get on, we were all soaked and very angry. Eventually we arrived in Phnom Penh at lunchtime, very wet and sick of travelling. Delta Adventure Tours of Saigon are a nightmare, it certainly was an adventure yeah but I wouldn't do it again. We did get to see some stuff and a lot of the Mekong that we wouldn't have seen if we'd got the 6 hour bus direct to Phnom Penh but everyone agreed we should have done just that.

Print this entry Share

Previous Entry Next Entry