Wandering the World: Mekong Delta

We`ll we arrived safe and sound in Cambodia yesterday. The boat ride here was not as nice comfortwise as I thought it might be but it did the trick. So far Phnom Penh has been very nice. At night it is lit up like a Christmas tree and the streets are full of people, this is probably do to Independence day and the Water Festival. The Water Festival was technically cancelled so while the boat races aren`t happening there are still some concerts going on and I guess there are less people here than there would have been. What is interesting is how different the Cambodians look from the Vietnamese. The Cambodians have much rounder eyes and look more India where as the Vietnamese have more slanted eye and look more Chinese. It`s amazing how much people can change over a few hundred kilometers.

Nov 9 – The Mekong to Cambodia

We were up early again this morning, we breakfasted and met up with a new group of people who were taking the slow boat to Cambodia. After talking to a few people it seemed that one of the fast boats had been cancelled but some people hadn't been informed they were now taking the slow boat. I felt bad for these people because they had paid extra but hadn't even been told what was happening. We walked down to the river and prepared to board the boat. We had to wait around for a bit while the guide collected our passports, counted them, fretted that it wasn't the right number, than gave them back. We finally got on the boats, which were fairly small although reasonably comfortable. We went to a fish farm, which was essentially an enclosure below a floating house that raised fish to sell to the fisheries. Next we went to a Cham Minority house. The walk way from the boat was very sketchy, just pieces of wood nailed together, supported by some bamboo now and then. Our guide informed us that we should spread ourselves out over the walkway but not until one girl (smaller than me) had broken through the walk way and fell into the water. The two girls after her got very wet as well. This information would have been much more useful before we got off the boat. The home we went to was really just a scarf shop and had a loom to “show” us how scarfs are made. It was a little lame. We got back on the boat and continued on for awhile. While on the boat our guide had us fill out our visa information cards and collected our passports, pictures and fees to get Cambodian visas. It was $20 for the visa, $2 for paper work and $0.50 for the guide to take care of it all. We gave everything to the guide and he disappeared off the boat to take care of things while we continued along. We reached the Vietnamese boarder where we stopped for a bit to have lunch and wait for our guide to complete the visa process. Lunch was very over priced so Beau and I stuck to noodles and vegetables. After lunch and waiting around we got on a different boat to take us into Cambodia. This new boat sucked. We had wooden benches to sit on, barely enough room for everyone and the motor made the whole boat vibrate something fierce. Also it sat very low in the water. We stopped shortly after to go through the Cambodian boarder check point, while there Beau picked up a beer for the boat ride and I got some Winter Melon pop, it was weird, not bad but not necessarily good. We spent about an hour total on this boat but it seemed an eternity. My teeth were rattling around it vibrated so badly. We pulled up on the ground and there were mini buses waiting for us. We didn't understand how we would all fit in these buses but there were some seats in the back that folded down. The “trunk” space was used for seating not storage. All the bags were some how crammed into a space between the driver and the first set of seats which were rear facing. There were 13 of us crammed in the back of the bus. We had to keep an eye on the bags to make sure they didn't come crashing down on us! We had to stop shortly after we had gotten underway and get off the bus to walk a little ways. A large section of the road had been completely washed out and the driving area was quite muddy so the driver didn't want us to get stuck. Fortunately the Mekong has receded and there were no other section like this, the road was surprisingly good. We arrived at a bus station in the south of Phnom Penh and our next step was to get a tuk tuk, a motorcycle pulling a 4 seat carriage. We shared a tuk tuk with a dutch couple and the driver said he knew a cheap hotel so he took us there and the hotel seemed reasonable so we stayed. Our tuk tuk driver wanted our business for our stay in the city so he gave us a free ride to a no fee ATM. Right next to where this ATM was was a night market so we found some cheap noodle bowls for dinner with the Dutch couple, Bob and Rianna. While eating we heard some loud noises which we attributed to fireworks. It is Cambodian Independence day and the Water Festival. We headed back towards our hotel, there was a park near by that was done up for the Independence Day and had a live concert going on. We turned in after a little while for an early bed time, we were pretty wiped after our travel day.

Floating Shanty House

Me on the sketchy walk way

Our crammed vibrating boat

The washed our road

Nov 10 – Phom Penh

Thankfully we were able to sleep in this morning...sort of. I woke up at 6:20 but went back to sleep for about an hour. By that time we were both awake. This was perfect timing to skype Mom and Dad though! We had a nice chat for about an hour and then Beau and I got on with our day. We had it in our head to check out the Royal Palace and the Central Market. We were informed though that the Palace would be closing for lunch at 11-2:30pm, so we headed to the market first. We had a nice walk along the river which is lined with all the world flags or at least most of them. From there we headed to the Central Market. This market is huge! It in a big building with stalls surrounding it outside. Beau and I both picked up some new clothes. I bought a turquoise quick dry t-shirt for $4 and a pair of comfy jersey cotton capris for $3 and Beau got another quick dry t-shirt for $4. It's tempting to restock our whole wardrobe but not necessary. We had lunch here which consisted of fresh shrimp spring rolls (would have been better if the shrimp had been shelled) and some shrimp, pork filled crepe which was yummy. We headed back to the hotel so I could put on pants to go to the Royal Palace. By the time we were going to head out again it was 3:15 and our receptionist informed us that you really needed 3hrs to explore it properly, it closed at 5, and it cost $6 for entry. We decided against the palace after that and head to find some cheap beers. We found a place that had draft beer for $0.50 so we had a couple and then headed to the market from last night to have some cheap food. We finished dinner right as the fireworks started so we hurried back to the water front to watch them. Afterwards we grabbed another beer then headed back to the hotel. While in the restaurant we were approached by some guys looking for donations to help a primary school. We didn't want to just give them money in case it was a scam but we got the guys info and will pick up some school supplies and donate them instead. On the way back Beau tried one of the dumpling type things, we think it was filled with bean sprouts, and I bought some popcorn which is more like Kettle corn so it was sweet but good. We are going to the killing fields tomorrow but hopefully we'll get to sleep in a little before we head out.

A pretty traffic circle in Phnom Penh

A temple

Fireworks over the river

So far our tour has been a success! Yay :) We've seen a lot more things than we would have on our own. Our group hasn't been too big either although we did miss out on a crocodile farm today because there were only 4 of us. I wasn't all that interested in it though so no biggy. We head to Cambodia tomorrow and will likely stay there for about two weeks. We are most likely going to try to get our dive certification while there but we have some research to do still. Wish us luck at the boarder tomorrow!

Nov 7 – The Mekong

It was raining lightly when we awoke this morning. Even after breakfast and boarding the bus it was still drizzling. At least it wasn't pouring this time. We stopped at a pagoda on our way to My Tho which was quite lovely and had two big Buddhas, one happy Buddha and one lady Buddha. It was still raining slightly but when we eventually got to the boat it seemed to have stopped. YAY! Our boat, however, had some wet seats due to the rain the night before. You were lucky if you got away with a dry bum. We went down the river a little ways and stopped at Turtle Island where we were fed lunch. Lunch wasn't half bad with grilled pork, egg, vegetables on steamed rice. After lunch we headed towards another island, before reaching it we briefly met up with another boat to transfer two passengers who had been left at the dock. On the next island we got to see the making of some coconut candy, it was soooo good, and try some coconut wine, banana wine and some lemon honey tea. While there it started pouring again although it eased off some before we took a row boat through some canals. Our next destination included fruit sampling and traditional music. I'm not sure I'm a fan of Vietnamese traditional music, it's a little cacophonous. From here we met up with the bus and then were transferred onto a minibus as there were only about 8 of us staying for a longer tour. Most people only had done a day trip. We were driven to Can Tho and deposited at our hotel. We have to be up at 6am so we can be on the river for 7am to check out the floating markets. The room isn't too bad and it has A/C, it looks like a room we would have picked to stay in anyways. We headed down to the river for some dinner. We got a little grill on our table and grilled some shrimp, squid and some sort of vegetable, YUM. We were still feeling tired so it was an early night especially with our 6am wake up tomorrow.

Happy Buddha and Lady Buddha

Beau being an Asian tourist on the canal

The canal in the rain

Nov 8 – The Floating Market

Our lovely wake-up call along with two alarms woke us up at 6am. We were out of the hotel a little after 7 and on a boat towards the Cai Rang floating market. The floating market was super cool. Bigger boats would sell to smaller boats and then the smaller boats pull up along side trying to get you to buy coffee, drinks, beer, and fruit. We pulled up alongside one boat that was selling pineapples. It was very cool to see such a different way of life. After we had finished at the floating market we went to a rice paper factory where they make rice paper and rice noodles. Apparently these are made of some sort of mixture of rice and tapioca. The mixture is poured on a hot plate where it is cooked and then transferred onto bamboo mats which are then placed in the sun to dry for 5 hours. Afterwards it can be cut down for rice paper or shredded to make rice noodles. Next we took our boat to another area where there were fish and fruit farms. For the fish farms there were little ponds, not sure if they were man made or not, that held several different kinds of fish. Our guide threw some fish food in and the fish went wild. There was also a “monkey bridge” across the pond, which was a piece of bamboo to walk on with pieces on either side for support. The fruit farm lay behind the fish pond. They were growing durian, mango, papaya, dragon fruit and a weird fruit called soursoc which we got to try. It was sour close to the sink but sweeter near the middle. It had stringy/spiny bits around the pit like that of a mango. It was good and weird. This concluded our tour around the Mekong at Can Tho. We were taken back to shore and had some time for lunch before getting on a bus to Chau Doc. There were only 4 of us total headed to Chau Doc so we were put on a local mini bus. We stopped lots to let people on and off and didn't get to go see the crocodile farms. There were two “monks” who got on the bus who had obviously been begging, they started counting a big stack on money. I'm not sure they were real monks because I've heard monks aren't supposed to beg for money, also one of them tried to start smoking on the bus. It was a non-smoking bus and the bus operator had actually had someone put out their cigarette before getting on the bus so we put a stop to it. I'm not sitting beside a smoker if I don't have to. After all the locals were dropped in Chau Doc we continued on briefly to a pagoda on the side of Sam Mountain. It was an interesting place, there were alters built into the mountain in caves. The view from the pagoda was quite pretty and you could see the Cambodian border. We headed to our hotel and were released for the day. We get up at 6am again and have a few stops before we head to Cambodia. We are excited to see our next country!