Saigon and overnight boat on the Mekong!
The morning is glorious, I receive my usual wonderful greeting from the staff and wander off in search of I don’t know what. Saigon is a city made for exploring, and I still have presents to buy. I walk up Le Loi to the Opera House, admire the wide boulevards and lovely plantings. Amble down side streets, and backtrack until I get to Parkson’s a very fancy department store. The ice cold air feels good, but there is nothing enticing about the store, at least I have now seen it.
Continue down to the Tax Department Store on the corner of Nguyen Hue and Le Loi. It was once known as the Russian Market and it has a kind of faded beauty about it. I go up to the souvenir floor where all the prices are fixed and many of them at the same or better price than at Ben Thanh Market. I purchase a few items and it is time for another Iced Coffee at the cafeteria in the store.
While I am sipping my coffee, there is a woman obviously a tourist looking out the window I can not tell if she is crying, but her demeanor is a little off. Since I am next to her I ask if she wants company, and she eagerly accepts. I have willingly let myself in for this so I listen to her story. She was not crying but suffering from jetlag, having arrived from London this morning. All the same she had a troubled tale to tell. She was divorced from her farmer husband who was very vindictive, her children who are in their 20’s have not spoken to her in years. Her father’s hand had been cut off mowing her lawn, he could not get the proper help because of all the immigrants in England had used all the available resources. After awhile I excused myself, since this was a litany that I have heard too many times in different geographic locations. When are we as people going to stop blaming the minority immigrants, for all the ills in our society? Better not go down that road or this will stop being a trip report.
I had purchased some items in Hanoi, that I thought I had lost on the way and since I wanted these same items I returned to Ben Than and haggled them down to a very reasonable price. Then it was time for lunch, which I ate at the market, what delicious foods they served. Managed to buy the tea that I had sampled the previous day and felt the day had been spent profitably.
Now it was time to plan for my trip to Cambodia as much as I was loath to leave Saigon. Before I even started this journey, I knew that I wanted to go by boat up the Mekong to Phnom Penh had also read that Delta Tours operated a trip. Went in and booked my ticket 2 days and 1 night $55 using the slow boat.
What could be nicer than drifting up the river in a leisurely pace?
The bus picks me up at 7 am the next morning, we drive around to various hotels picking up people and then we circle around for an hour because 1 couple were either lost or mis-communicated. Finally left Saigon at 8 am and arrive at Cai Be a few hours later, where we transfer to a boat. The passengers are split up depending on whether they are returning to Saigon or continuing to Cambodia. We are supposed to see the floating market, which is a joke, since the market starts at 6 am and it is now 11 am. Even if we had been there at 6 am it would not have served us, since you need a small boat to explore the market, which seemed to be wholesale anyway.
Then we proceed to a factory for making coconut candy wrapped in rice paper, lots of souvenir shops and in general a cheesy atmosphere. We finally leave and continue to An Binh Island for lunch. I share a dish of deep fried Elephant fish with Elaine. The dish was very nice, I don’t recall the price. By now we have started to make friends, I have partnered up with Stephanie from California but lives in Raleigh N.C., there are Ian and Elaine from Ireland and Charlotte and Erwan from Paris. They are all in their early to mid thirties, and continuing on, except Stephanie who is going back to Saigon.
We are back on the boat after some people played with a boa constrictor and others rode bikes. The guide is doing a very hard sell on upgrading to the fast boat, he makes the slow boat sound so uncomfortable and inconvenient that I buy the upgrade. We have been informed that we will have private cabins on the boat and Stephanie and I will share.
Back on the boat and then a bus on to Sadec where we and our luggage get off. After a fair walk, with our luggage, we get to the house which Marguerite Duras either owned or her Chinese lover owned, it was never quite clear. We wait here for the boat to arrive. Now it is time to schlep the luggage again to the boat. Surprise, there are no private cabins, we all sleep on bunk beds in one large cabin. By this time I have decided to make this a 3 day 2 night trip, and I am really glad that I did, final cost $90. The reason for my decision was mainly that on the 3 day trip you do get to see a few things, whereas the 2 day trip is mainly bus travel. We all get settled in while waiting for dinner, I discover some Vietnamese wine, my travel companions are all beer drinkers, but a German lady of my vintage is willing to share a bottle with me. I don’t recall dinner, so it couldn’t have been too bad, the wine however was less than memorable but by the time we finished the second bottle who knew.
We are awakened at 5.30 am to a glorious sunrise, breakfast and transfer to our floating hotel in Cha Doc. This time we have a private cabin and the boat/hotel is actually quite nice. It is berthed or anchored next to a small island opposite Chau Doc and Victoria Hotel. Sitting on deck watching the river traffic is everything I had imagined and more. There are fishing boats, rice barges, river taxis and general daily life passing by. I don’t know why the Mekong has such a pull on me, more so than many other rivers but it does and I am savoring it to its fullest.
Now it is time for the touted tours, we pass by what is designated a floating village which is no more than shacks on pontoons, the majority of houses seem to have fishing boats or nets attached. We proceed onto the Cham village which was one of the most distasteful visits. The Chams are a moslem minority, the purpose of the visit is ostensibly to visit the mosque, which is closed. It really is to see their sales room and be hassled by the children to buy waffles. The children were most aggressive, as we are walking back to the boat I stop by a doorway leading into a house to photograph a cat, not until I have taken the picture do I notice it had just killed a large rat. Then we proceed to a fish farm where the catfish is kept in bamboo cages in the water. The owner pours in some fish pellets and a feeding frenzy occurs, the water literally boils with the fish fighting for the food. Next door is a factory for what we were told was fish food, which I hope is correct, they were grinding up fish heads, bones and offals and mixing it with some substance, all in all so far a pretty unsavory morning. It does get better.
We are now on the way by bus to Sam Mountain and Cavern Pagoda. The bus ride goes by some very pretty landscape and interesting sculpture parks. We arrive at the mountain and start to climb the stairs until we get to the Pagoda,
Where we admire or not the various Buddhas, go into the cave and then climb up some more stairs to admire the view. We are all barefoot, I step out on the wet tiles and take a flying fall, land on my back and head all the while holding my camera high, all I can think of is saving the camera. Fortunately I am alright, have a lump on the back of my head and some soreness, otherwise I am fine.
That afternoon after lunch we head up the river again, it really is a highway, ferries crossing with scooters and their drivers, fishing boats, drifting by, cargo boats, women doing their laundry, people bathing and a few outhouses here and there. We are on the way to see a rattan mat factory and a silk factory. After a 2 hour ride up river we arrive to where they weave straw mats. If ever I thought to haggle for any of those products never again. It is a mind numbing job, dangerous as well, as the reeds are hand fed into the loom. We never did find out how many accidents there are but can imagine quite a few. Then we proceed onto the silk factory, where the silk thread is put onto commercial size spools. This is where we saw child labour, pretty skilled, but still young children, their daily wage is just over one dollar. Many of the children will work all day and if they are lucky attend school in the evening. It was a very sobering sight.
Dinner that night was not included so the 7 of us decided to go into Chau Doc, we have a boat at out disposal to ferry us across, we are given the name of a restaurant, which we realize after having trekked through the rain is not the kind of place we were looking for. We finally find a local joint that seems to please everybody. We are not sure what to order, since nobody speaks English, so I go investigate a few tables and as usual am given a few tidbits. Chicken gizzards and liver is not what we want, though very tasty. I end up with noodles and seafood as do some of the others, there is also steak and fish. While we are waiting a decision is made that spring rolls would be nice for the table. but how do we communicate that? Yours truly says no problem, and proceeds into the kitchen where I explain to the proprietress what we would like, she understands instantly, and we negotiate how many portions. Kitchen language is really universal. The table that had treated me to a food sample now decides I should have Vietnamese Vodka so a glass is sent over. I think it is some kind of Rice Wine and we end up ordering a small bottle for our table. Tomorrow we cross the border into Cambodia and more adventures.
