A house of fish
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
1
144
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
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Chau Doc,
Vietnam
Thursday, March 27, 2008
We clambered into a low, longtail boat and set off for those floating houses across the river. I'd forgotten at the time, but we were going to see a floating fish farm. It was nothing like I'd ever in my wildest dreams imagined. We pulled up to a house that rather smelled. It was floating in the middle of the Mekong River. But on the patio we really found out why the house smelled. Rather than having the farm about the house in nets like we'd seen in Lake Titicaca, the farm for this house was actually underneath it. We looked through a trapdoor on the porch and saw loads of writing fish bodies. Then our guide told us that we were going to feed the fish. Apparently fish eat dog food. Who knew?
She took a plate-full of the dog food and tossed it into the hole. Immediately the slithery bodies began thrashing in competition for the food, many of them coming fully out of the water in the melee. Travis took his turn feeding them while I took pictures. It's very difficult to take a sensible photograph of things that are moving quickly in a dark hole. I don't think I was terribly successful. Before the excitement had a chance to pall we were back on the boat and making our way to a Cham village.
Chams were once a powerful dynastic race in the south of Vietnam, but now they're a minority.
stilt houses
The village we were visiting was a Muslim Cham village on the shore of the Mekong. As we approached we saw young girls racing toward us with baskets of goodies to sell, but when we arrived they didn't seem interesting in selling. Hm, we thought to ourselves, that's new. We stopped for a moment by a loom where a young Cham woman was weaving. One man had the courtesy to ask if he could take her picture, to which she consented, and that broke the ice. We watched her weave for a moment while our guide offered to tie on traditional sarongs for anyone who wanted to take a photo in them, assuring us all that it was free and we didn't have to buy the sarongs if we wanted just a picture. Being as I am a lover of scarves I had to flee temptation, which took us out to a crying baby and the girls with baskets. By this time they were no longer shy and persisted in trying to sell us baked goods. I told two of them that I would buy from them when we returned from the mosque. The mosque was brilliantly colored, but not open to foreigners or to women, so that was that. There were a bunch of children being rambunctious outside the mosque, and next door we peeked in to watch young women learn to sew on old singer sewing machines. A couple of the baked goods girls had followed us down the road and were persistently tailing (though half-heartedly selling) a few foreigners.
Apparently the day was to consist of short stints, so again we were back at the village and two girls in addition to the girls I had promised to buy things from attached themselves to me.
life on the river
I said I would buy something from everyone if they would all pose for a picture for Travis. They did, but the two I'd promised who would now have to share their spoils were pouting and only the late-comer was really smiling. Oh well. The little waffles and muffins were good when we were on the boat later, so I was glad we bought them, even if it did cause a little distress. As we crawled back into the boat a couple of impish children were poking their feet into it. One boy was roaming with the most despondent look on his face asking for a pen. These kids seemed to belong to the river and not to the Cham village. The man who had been sitting in his boat meditating with a cigarette in his mouth next to a rack of drying fish was now just smoking a cigarette. What an interesting life it must be to live on the river.
Some of the group was dropped back at the pier to be bussed back to Saigon, and then the rest of us were off on the three hour ride to the border. Most of us took a nap. At the border we had the option of eating lunch at one place while our guide got our visas and passports stamped. And as is always the case when you've got only one choice, the food was absurdly expensive for almost nothing. This is particularly irritating when you've been in a country three weeks and know how much stuff is meant to cost. Had we crossed the border at least we could have been glum about the expense but claimed ignorance of the new country's prices. So if you're crossing the border by boat you might want to stock something to bring along for a less expensive lunch.
No time was to be wasted after lunch, and we were hurried into no man's land before standing around waiting for someone to appear at the Cambodian immigration office. When my passport was stamped I said "thank you" in Vietnamese. I mentally slapped my head and the officer said, "Wrong country." I asked how to say it in Khmer, repeated it twice, and promptly forgot, which always happens if I don't read it. And I never learned it again, since we were only in Cambodia for a week.
For several more hours we meandered down the Mekong, sometimes passing next to the shore where clusters of naked children were gleefully splashing about. When they saw us they always stopped to wave with way too much enthusiasm - more splashing. It was an excellent way to be welcomed to Cambodia. Ox carts and swimming kids made for an idyllic scene and a welcoming country.
Erin
