Through the Mekong Delta

Sorry for the lack of photos but the computer is having trouble with loading them from the camera.


We left Phnom Penh on the 29th but not before visiting the Killing fields at Choeung Ek where more than 17,000 were killed by the Khmer Rouge and buried in mass graves. I wonder if in thirty years people will visit Darfur. Foolish humans...
The guesthouse in Phnom Penh had a happening commons and good food. We spent our evening amongst the backpackers and travellers there- mostly Europeans and Australians. People of the empire are not as common here.
When we left it was by bus south of the city where we boarded a 10m boat. The boat floated down the Mekong a broad muddy river. On the banks were rice fields, vegetable farms and an occasional village. At the border we stopped to be checked out of Cambodia. There was a rickety dock with two narrow boards to cross. Then we landed directly on the muddy bank to go to the Vietnamese border crossing. After looking through the papers they gave us the stamp stamp and we got on another bigger boat.
Further down the river divides into smaller channels where we were much closer to the shore and could see the people fishing and working. Once into Vietnam the better economic opportunity was obvious- people had more. Were they happier? I could not tell. The boat kept going and going, the trip totaling eight hours. We arrived in Chau Doc in the afternoon. There was no map in our book leaving us at the mercy of the drivers- we hired a pedal powered taxi to take us to a hotel. The trip turned out to be a few blocks. Once set up with lodging we walked the town and bought a large durian. At the docks a young man offered to take us to the floating village. We went with him in his row boat to houses where they raised catfish and carp below the floor boards. There were even pigs, chickens, dogs and cats floating on their own rafts. Then we went to a village of Cham people, an ethnic minority in Vietnam. They were weaving cloth on a loom but selling manufactured cloth for tourists.
The next day we headed down the delta to Can Tho. On the bus we met an Israeli traveller who works in China as a tour guide. He provided interesting conversation for the trip. Can Tho is a large trading city in the center of the delta but we found the people unfriendly so we carried in to My Tho where we stayed the night. The hotel had a beautiful view of the river so we relaxed near docks and went to have Hu tieu the local speciality- a pork noodle soup. We took a public bus to Saigon the next day.