Our Own Heart of Darkness

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  Chau Doc, Vietnam
Friday, June 3, 2011

I'm not sure why or how this has come about but for some reason we've managed to independently hack our way across the Mekong Delta - not literally hack of course - please don't get the wrong idea. We haven't actually bought machetes and sliced and diced our way through the mangrove swamps although the task and effort needed to get to Chau Doc where you currently find us feels the same to us. The Delta is Vietnams rice bowl - enough rice is grown here to feed the country and then some, and the land is criss crossed with the Mekong river and her many tributaries. Floating markets abound and you could spend all your time here on a boat crawling around fruit gardens and watching the life on the riverside.  Sounds idyllic doesn't it, and for the most part it is - it certainly looks it, everything is so alive and brightly coloured, all the piles of fruit on the boats and markets so enticing - it makes me want to become a grocer. Most get here on tours from Saigon and end up back there after a few nights.

Not us though. We like to do things differently. We like to put our faith in the Mekongs bus network in order to get us right onto the Cambodian border rather than pay for an all inclusive ticket from Saigon. This has meant that we have had to deal with the usual challenges of the independent traveller though here they appear to have been amplified some what. Rampant overcharging, tourist offices who don't know were the bus leaves from and send you 6km out of your way, a generally poor standard of hotels, restaurants that serve chicken and veg in boiling tasteless water. Now you can accept that this is south east asia and that you have to take things in your stride and smile through the hard times. I generally agree with that but sometimes it gets hard and you find yourself having to take action. Now generally you don't achieve much this way, the hotel owner doesn't really care that for 12 bucks you had wifi and a hot bath in the hotel in saigon, and it doesn't matter how far down the road Maggie chases the bus woman there's no way that she's getting her money back. But somehow it makes you feel like you're not just being taken for a ride and that you can demand better when things slip. 

Ok - So Si has had a bad day - time for me to take over  - it is not all doom and gloom. We have had a couple of bad journeys.  The 8.30 bus simply didn't exist and so instead of one bus to can tho we had to take 2 taxis, 3 buses and a ferry!!); and then after swearing that we would get our info independently from tourist information so this didn't happen again the tourist information man sent us to the wrong out of town bus station.  But the Mekong is beautiful.  The first of our 3 buses yesterday took us through the little towns and through the back streets.  Water living was alive and well and at its finest.  The people are all smiling (except that bus lady that I chased !!).  We got a little boat at 6am this morning to see the wholesale floating market which was buzzing.  As soon as our boat approached the market, a boat approached us offering cheap hot coffee  .... perfect!  We then got sold bananas by a 4 year old on a boat  - and had to haggle over the price with him (think we won, but you are never really sure here!).  As our bus pulled in today we discovered that the bus station in Chau Doc is monopolised by cyclos - meaning that there are no taxis!!!  Cyclos take one person - and are pedal powered (usually by a ridiculously wirey man).  We had to negotiate 3 cyclos - one for each of us with child and one for the bags.  But after beating them down in price (they didn't even manage to say the inflated price with any confidence), we had an amazing 3km ride into town.  Must have looked quite a site in our convoy of 3, and we got loads of stares and waves, but was loads of fun!. These are the reasons you don't do tours!!  And lets be honest, it is the hardest times that make for the best stories in the future.   We are now in a hotel opposite the main market which has aircon, wifi, comfy beds and has organised us boat tickets into cambodia for the morning.

We have loved Vietnam.  The place is beautiful in itself, but the people make it amazing (except for that ridiculous bus woman!!!).   It is with light hearts that we leave and continue the adventure in Cambodia.
    

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the luggage cyclo	on the way to the market	the floating market	loading vegies
boating boys	more boating boys	Sammy	more from the boat

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