Vinh Long and Ben Tre, Vietnam's Mekong Delta

Leaving the luxury of Holiday One Hotel in Can Tho, we took the local bus to Vinh Long, about 45km east. For once, the bus dropped us in the central bus station. Usually we get dropped in the middle of nowhere, without a map, and have to rely on over-charging moto-taxi drivers to take us to the centre (we ask for the market which tends to be the central hub of any town). It made a nice change to be able to walk away from the bus station and find our way around but the downside of walking to your own choice of hotel is that the heat of the day is unforgiving when you're carrying 15kg on your back. 

Eventually we found a hotel, showered and explored the small riverside town. The market was a chaotic hive of activity with stalls spilling out down the narrow lanes surrounding it, selling everything from roast duck heads to rice tacos. To cool down we stopped for an ice coffee at a riverside cafe.

No other country in the world (that I have visited) has such a coffee culture as Vietnam. From road side stalls to expansive elegant gardens, Vietnamese coffee is everywhere. Coffee cafes (selling only coffee, as the name suggests) are everywhere, they outnumber restaurants by at least ten to one and are always packed with people no matter what the time of day. Vietnam is the second biggest exporter of coffee after Brasil and its brew is served strong, sweet and black. It comes in a metal filter, hot, along with a tankard of ice so you can cool it down once it has completely filtered through. If you ask for milk you get a dense slug of condensed milk at the bottom of your glass. The combination of strong coffee and sickly sweet milk is as delicious as it is addictive.

Ca Phe Sua - Vietnamese coffee with sweet milk.

 We booked on to a tour of the river islands and floating market for the next day. Private boats were $25 or a group tour was $6 per person. We went for the cheap option but when it came to get on the boat in the morning we found we were the only people booked on the tour! We got a private tour for the price of a group tour. We set off along the river and stopped at a local market for breakfast where for about 40p we got a meat baguette and some coconut milk rice cakes. 

The produce at the local market couldn't get much fresher!

We crossed the Mekong and passed floating excavators that were removing sand from the bottom of the river. The sand is used for building and even for cooking as a substitute for oil.

Next, we went around Cai Be floating market. It wasn't as busy or as touristy as Cai Rang floating market in Can Tho and felt more authentic. The boats sold wholesale fruit and vegetables which are sold on at the local markets in the surrounding towns.

Boat selling a variety of fruit.

Cai Be floating market, Vinh Long.

After the market we stopped at some factories to learn about the production of local products including coconut caramels, rice paper, rice wine and popped rice crackers. It was interesting to see how no material is wasted; even the flesh from the coconuts and the husks from the rice are dried and burned as fuel. At the factory we saw the rice wine that Ric got drunk on at Mui Nai beach in Ha Tien. It's made from dried sticky rice and bananas and is flavoured with different fruits or snakes! We tried some rice wine with fermented poisonous snakes, yummy! 

Snake wine.

 We made the most of the free samples of all the delicacies, walked through the village and then boarded our boat once again for a relaxing cruise through the canals to a river island where we stopped to have lunch at a homestay set in tropical gardens and fruit orchards.

Ric enjoying the boat trip.

 The people at the homestay dropped us off at the local bus stop and we caught a local bus to the next town in the delta, Ben Tre.

Arriving in Ben Tre was a little bit more complicated than our arrival in Vinh Long. The bus took us to an intercity bus station in the middle of nowhere, they must have thought we were catching the bus straight to Saigon as no tourists ever visit Ben Tre, least of all on the local bus! Following quite a kerfuffle in the bus station, where nobody spoke English, we eventually got back on another bus and got off in the middle of town. Our problems didn't end there; once we got to the centre we couldn't find a hotel anywhere and the only person we could find who spoke English was a very pushy tout for a local homestay, who wanted to charge us the equivalent of two days budget for a one night stay. 

One hour and several litres of sweat later, we found a bed for the night and set off to explore the town. The waterfront was alive with a vibrant night market selling clothes, shoes and accessories. It really felt like we were off the tourist trail as people in the streets would stop and stare at us. 

We later found out that there are several hotels around a small lake just two blocks back from the river, too bad there wasn't anybody around able to tell us that when we were roaming the streets asking for a hotel!

Ben Tre's small lake, fringed with hotels and coffee cafes.

After nine nights in the Mekong Delta region we were ready to move on to the bright lights of Saigon. We'd crossed into Vietnam at Ha Tien, then stopped at Chau Doc, Can Tho, Vinh Long and Ben Tre. In some places we felt like we were the only tourists in town, in the last two places I'm certain that we were. It's been nice meandering slowly through the rivers and canals of the delta, we've enjoyed the laid back pace of life in the small towns and have been blown away by the kindness and welcoming attitude of the locals, even in the absence of a common language to communicate in. We've traveled on local transport as the high-priced tourist buses don't run much further south than Ho Chi Min City (Saigon). It's been a fun, cheap, sweaty, uncomfortable and interesting experience. On the bus between Chau Doc and Can Tho, for example, the driver and several of the passengers chain smoked for most of the three hour journey, whilst incense burned en masse on the dash; and we shared the back seat of the bus to Ben Tre with a drunk man asleep between us, who flopped alternately onto our shoulders every time we rounded a bend.

Ric's Luxurious Birthday in Can Tho

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RIC STOPHER!!!

We celebrated Ric's 28th birthday in Can Tho, the biggest town in the Mekong Delta region. We started the day at 5am with a sunrise river cruise to Cai Rang floating market where countless boats of all shapes and sizes zig-zagged between one another selling their wares. We bought coffees from one boat and noodle soup from another, before crashing into an old lady's boat and crushing her pan of rice!

Sunrise on the Mekong.

After breakfast at the market our boat 'captain', a middle aged lady in a conical hat, took us around the backwater canals where we witnessed real Delta life; women washing their pans in the river, children bathing, men fishing. The truth is that the water is smelly, dirty and full of rubbish. The waterways and rivers in the Mekong Delta region are all tributaries and channels of the Mekong River that has its source in Tibet. The river runs through China, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia before flowing into the South China Sea in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. Washing your pans/children in a river that has picked up waste and pollution in six different countries has got to be pretty unhealthy. 

Pineapple boat-stalls.

Boats at Cai Rang floating market.

By 9am we were hungry again and ready for a second breakfast of yet more noodle soup (Vietnam's national dish). Then we checked into Can Tho's four star Holiday One Hotel, where we spent the rest of the day in the ice-cold, roof-top swimming pool overlooking the city. It was great to have a bit of luxury after spending the past seven weeks on a serious budget. We had air conditioning, cable TV, a bath tub, the comfiest bed in the world - I enjoyed Ric's birthday just as much as he did! 

We watched the sunset drinking beers in the Sky ar, then after a fancy dinner in the hotel's restaurant we crossed the road to the karaoke bar. Like in Korea, we got our own private room and spent three hours singing everything from Britney Spears to Puff Daddy to Bette Midler.

Ric chilling by the pool at dusk.

Sunset from Holiday One.

No, we're not in France, it's just the Paris Karaoke Bar.

Karaoke is back in our lives again, happy times.

Making Friends in Chau Doc

From Ha Tien we followed the Vietnam-Cambodia border to Chau Doc, a small transit town that serves as an over night stop for tourists taking the Phnom Penh - Saigon boat. We were happy to find that a least a couple of people in Chau Doc spoke reasonable English but once again we felt like the only foreigners in the small dusty town.

After an afternoon scoping out travel agencies we were feeling quite downtrodden as the prices were astronomical and it seemed we wouldn't be able to afford to do anything we wanted to do.

We drank ice coffees in a shady cafe and then walked along the busy riverside that burst into life as the sun went down. There we met a Vietnamese man called Trung, who stopped to chat to us and invited us to join him for breakfast in a local restaurant the following morning. Another example of the wonderful Vietnamese hospitality.

A Vietnamese breakfast of meat, eggs and bread.

We had a very pleasant breakfast with our new friend and then set about trying to see the sights on our shoestring budget. By chance we came across two awesome moto-taxi drivers called Van and Duc, who saved us a ton of money and took us everywhere we wanted to go for a very reasonable price. 

First we visited the river islands where an ethnic minority of Muslim 'Cham' people live. We visited the mosques and saw women weaving scarves on old wooden looms. It strikes me as strange that no matter where you are in the world, the tourist shops are always full of scarves, even in hot, tropical climates like Vietnam, Thailand and India. That said, I still managed to buy one!

Wooden walkway leading to a Cham floating village on one of the river islands.

Ric with our super tour guides for the day, Van (left) and Duc (right).

We mentioned to Van and Duc that we were disappointed by the prices of the river tours, at $20 each from all the agencies in town, there was no way we could afford to take a boat out to the Cambodian border. But our guides came through for us again, calling on a friend with a boat they arranged for us to go out on the river for a two hour tour for just $5 per person! That's more like it. We saw floating villages, fish farms, floating petrol stations, local fishermen using ancient techniques and we went all the way up to the border in our own private boat. It was fantastic.

Fishing on the river at Chau Doc. The woman rows while the man operates the net.

House boat.

Fish are farmed under the floating house boats.

To end our day we zoomed up Sam Mountain on the back of the motorbikes, speeding around the corners at an exhilarating speed. At the top we sat in hammocks admiring the miles and miles of rice fields that surrounded us, and watched the sunset over Cambodia to the west. 

View from Sam Mountain. The tree line on the far left marks the border between Cambodia and Vietnam. 

Sunset over flooded rice fields from Sam Mountain.

We had such a great day zipping around with Van and Duc, they were friendly, knowledgeable and spoke good English. 

They can be contacted for tours:

    Van: 0918 308 460

    Duc: 0944 765 258

After saying goodbye to them and arranging for them to take us to the bus station the following morning, Ric and I returned to the river for an evening stroll. Unbelievably, sitting on a bench, we bumped into a couple that Ric had met on the Galapagos Islands three and a half years earlier. What a small world. Gabby and Yogi were staying in Chau Doc for one evening before continuing on to Phnom Penh by boat in the morning. Having spent the entire day thinking we were the only foreigners in town, we meet a German couple and they turn out to be friends from another trip many years ago. It really is remarkable. We spent a lovely evening having drinks and catching up with them.

Ric reminissing with old friends, Gabby and Yogi.

What The Pho...!?

After crossing into Vietnam at the most southerly boarder crossing (Prek Chak/Xi Xia) we continued on a ten minute bus journey to the small riverside town of Ha Tien, our introduction to Vietnam and the Mekong Delta.

At first everything was going swimmingly; we got moto taxis from the bus station and they didn't try to rip us off, and we found a fantastic hotel with a huge balcony overlooking the river for just $10/night (Hotel Gia Phuk). Once we ventured out into the town, however, life got more difficult. Nobody in Ha Tien speaks English, even the tour agents and hotel staff barely speak the basics. We were trying to hire bicycles, which our guide book recommended, but it was impossible; people shook their heads, covered their ears, jabbered at us in Vietnamese and sent us on wild goose chases around the town. There are only so many times you can mine riding a bike before you call it a day.

Ha Tien riverfront, view from floating cafe.

Instead, we walked along the riverfront and stopped at a floating boat-cafe for a refreshing iced lemon juice, and then walked around the huge central market where more miming and unsuccessful haggling eventually enabled me to buy an umbrella. 

Our first meal in Vietnam was Pho, the national dish comprising noodles, meat, broth and herbs. It was delicious, which is more than I can say about the watery, flavourless Saigon beer.

After more exploring of the town we sat down in a dimly lit, roadside bar where the waitress laughed nervously at us and didn't understand anything we said. As there was no menu, we sat for a while watching the locals and realised that we ought to order coffee. Two shots of good, strong espresso arrived, along with two glasses of iced tea, a tea pot full of hot jasmine tea and two more additional glasses of ice. All but the espressos was free. After a little while we met Denise, from Ireland, and we bonded over being the only tourists in town and having nobody understand us. Once thoroughly hydrated with all the free tea, we hit the night market together and drank beers at a shabby plastic table amid prostitutes, cross dressers and pissed up locals.

 

So many fluids.

Ric with his new friends.

The next day the three of us took a local taxi to Mui Nai beach where we were welcomed by the locals like long lost friends. The sand at Mui Nai is just a blackish strip and behind it were bars and cafes where families and groups of friends sat eating fresh seafood picnics, washing it all down with an impressive amount of alcohol considering it was 10:30 in the morning. We were offered crab legs, quail eggs and shots of local rice whiskey. In Asian culture it's seriously disrespectful to refuse something that is offered to you as a gift, so we tucked into our crab and downed our shots with a smile. The local men adored Ric, posing with him for pictures and plying him with so much alcohol that we had to strategically move on before he got too pissed. What a great welcome to Vietnam!

The highlight of the day was the self-controlled rollercoaster! We were towed uphill to a stunning viewpoint with views all the way back to Bokor Mountain in Kampot. Then we got back in our karts and sped around twists and turns back to the bottom of the mountain, it was great fun. 

Towards Cambodia.

From the hill above Mui Nai beach.

Ha Tien is a small boarder town with very few tourists and but it's got a lot of atmosphere and we had a great time, definitely worth a night or two.

Here's Ric on the rollercoaster: 

Cambodia: Random Facts, Thoughts and Observations

People

Cambodian people are by far and wide some of the loveliest people I have ever met, anywhere in the world. From tiny children to elderly couples, everyone wants to greet us and welcome us to Cambodia. Teenagers wave and shout hello as the drive past on their scooters, little children pause their games to grin at us and say hello. From our first impression at Koh Kong and Sihanoukville where we felt everybody was out to con or rob us, our opinion of the Khmer people has changed entirely. They are such a warm, friendly lot. It’s amazing when you think about all they’ve been through. The Cambodians we've met have been very open with us about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge period; they've shared their stories with us of the relatives they lost, or how they managed to escape. We've been astounded by how gentle and loving the people are, when they could so easily be bitter with resentment and grief.

Food 

Khmer food isn’t as good as Thai food, but it’s nice: rice, noodles, soups and curries. Some of the more exotic delicacies we’ve come across include: fried snake, embryo egg (boiled with a partially developed chicken inside), fried frog and ice cream baguettes. The less touristy places always provide you with a pot a jasmine tea and a glass of ice – for free.

Money 

There’s a two tiered pricing system in Cambodia which means tourists pay a premium. Restaurants often have two menus, one in Khmer and one in English, the English prices twice as high as the Khmer prices. The same goes for bus tickets, hotel rates and the rest. There are no coins in Cambodia. Dollars are used down to the one dollar bill, any smaller change is given in riel.

Post

There is no real postal service in Cambodia, mail is delivered by the intercity buses in a complicated web of drop-offs and pick-ups. People wait with their parcels along the main roads where the buses pass, they flag down a bus going to their desired destination and for a small fee the bus driver will drop off their package along the roadside further down the way, where the recipient is waiting. If the recipient is unaware, the package will be dropped off at the local post office, or with a helpful villager who hopefully won’t steal the goods! We discovered this after leaving our homestay in Lvea village, when we realised it would be near impossible to keep in touch with our kind host, Wanah. The post is also the reason that any journey in Cambodia takes a hell of a lot longer than it should. For example, these deliveries are the reason why it took us over five hours to cover the 170km from Phnom Penh to Kampot.

Clothes

Cambodian women are crazy about pyjamas. Brightly coloured, matching two pieces pyjama sets are the norm on the street throughout Cambodia (although less so in Phnom Penh.) It’s as if somebody imported pyjamas for the first time but never passed on the message that elsewhere they’re worn for bed. Waitresses, chefs, shopkeepers and school children go about their business in their pyjamas. I even saw one lady wearing a dressing gown as a coat. Strangely, the men don’t seem to share this love of pyjamas, maybe they know the truth about them being made for bedtime and are having a secret laugh at the women?!

The Patriarchy 

Which brings me on to…sexism! Despite Cambodians being so friendly and polite, I have become invisible again here. It’s not as bad as India, and I’m sure solo female travellers wouldn’t notice it, but walking down the street with Ric I am invisible to vendors, hawkers and tuk-tuk drivers. I should consider myself lucky to not get “tuk-tuk sir?” shouted at me every two minutes, but every now and then I’d like to be offered. 

Kep Crabs

Kep is a small coastal town half way between Kampot and the Vietnam boarder. It was once a prosperous place full of mansions and grandeur, frequented by rich French expatriates. Now, many of those mansions lie derelict and abandoned, and local people have reclaimed the land, setting up shanty houses in the grounds or converting the shells of the buildings into make shift shelters.

Abandoned overgrown mansion, Kep. 

Kep is famous for its crab market, where you can eat some of the cheapest, freshest crab in Cambodia. At the market, women dressed in rain coats and big hats wade out into the ocean to collect submerged woven baskets full of newly caught crabs. We picked out our crabs, still live, and the lady boiled them in front of us on a wood burning stove. A couple of minutes later we (and by ‘we’ I mean Ric) were eating crabs and homemade chilli sauce next to the ocean. Can’t get much fresher than that.

Catching crabs.

Cooking crabs.

Eating crab.

Kep crab market, all sorts of barbecued fish and seafood are available.

From our guest house (Rega Guest House) we hiked uphill towards the National Park. On the way we discovered Jasmine Valley Eco Village, an abandoned resort set in the jungle, high above the town. Once one of Kep’s most renowned resorts, Jasmine Valley is now a ghost town. There’s still toilet paper in the tree house suites and books still stand on the shelves in the library, their pages curling in the damp. It has only been abandoned for six weeks, since the owner ran up too many debts and fled the country, and it really felt like everyone had just disappeared. The jungle is slowly taking over the resort, covering the foot paths and taking over the restaurant. The swimming pool is overflowing from the heavy rains and fish swim in the murky water. From the top of the resort there was a wonderful view of the ocean. Although we were tempted to stay and claim the place as our own, we carried on up a steep incline and joined the National Park road, which winds around a mountain affording some good views out to Kampot and the area around Kep. It was a pleasant shady walk and we spotted a few monkeys along the way.

Deserted tree house at Jasmine Valley Eco Village.

Overflowing pool at Jasmine Valley.

View out to Kampot, from Kep National Park.

Kep has a good beach, small but with fine white sand. After three days of heavy rain we were finally able to top up our tans and enjoy the sun.

Kep beach.

We’re enjoying our last few nights in Cambodia before our visas expire on 8^th August and we cross over into Vietnam. We’ll be sad to leave.

Kampot

After five nights in Phnom Penh we took the bus to Kampot. The 170km journey took a tedious five hours and we were relieved to finally have a bed for the night in Kapot Pepper Guest House. Kampot is a small town close to the South coast of Cambodia, surrounded by salt flats, pepper plantations and the locally named elephant mountain range.

Ric at Kampot's Durian Monument. Durians are an asian fruit that taste like gone off melons. They also stink and can be smelt from several meters away.

Lilly pond in Kampot.

Kampot’s main attraction is Bokor Hillstation 1080m above sea level. The hill station has been a much disputed area since its construction in 1920. It was first occupied by the French who built luxurious mansions and a casino that still stand today, abandoned and supposedly haunted. During the Asia-Pacific war the Japanese took over the hill station but where defeated by the Khmer Rouge in the early seventies. By the end of the seventies the Vietnamese took over the mountain and finally, left it to the Cambodians. We took a tour up to Bokor on possibly the most miserable morning we’ve had so far. The entire mountain was shrouded in a mist that hid the dilapidated buildings until we’d walked right up to them. The abandoned casino and Catholic Church looked spectacularly spooky in the swirling mist, with the wind howling through the doorways. Unfortunately we didn’t have any sort of view over the surrounding land but we did stop at a nice waterfall.

Spooky Bokor Casion.

The Catholic Church built by the French.

At the waterfall.

Included in the tour was a sunset river cruise. After the weather we’d had in the morning we had no expectations of a sunset but boarded the wooden catamaran and settled in for a relaxing cruise up the river. As we travelled further out of Kampot we passed fishermen on their way out to sea, they didn’t look particularly thrill to be spending the night on their old wooden fishing boats in the open sea. After an hours boat ride we stopped and some of the more daring passengers (Ric) jumped into the river and splashed about with rubber rings whilst the captain and his family ate their dinner. To our surprise the monsoon clouds parted and we were rewarded with the most stunning sunset we’ve seen during this trip. The river cruise was really a highlight of the day for us; it was wonderfully relaxing and we sat comparing travel stories with two English girls off the tour.

Beautiful sunset.

It’s easy to walk around Kampot and take in all the sights (of which there are few), but it’s really worth getting out into the countryside and seeing some of the surrounding area. We took a tuk-tuk to Phnom Ch’nork caves where a local nine year old girl asserted herself as our tour guide and directed us around. It really wasn’t necessary to have a guide, the area and the cave are very small, but she was a cool kid; she spoke brilliant English and made some witty jokes.

Our cute little guide, overlooking rice fields outside of Kampot.

Children in the village by Phnom Ch'nork cave.

One night we ordered food in our hotel restaurant, deciding to treat ourselves to a rather expensive burger instead of the usual fare of rice of noodles. I went for a bacon cheese burger and Ric ordered a maxi burger. When the burgers arrived I had bacon, cheese and bread but no burger. Ric’s maxi burger was two fried eggs on a bun. He was furious and stormed into the kitchen to find his burger, after all $5.50 for an egg butty is extortionate. After a confusing exchange with the manager, the chef was able to resolve the problem; she held up a burger bun and said “yes, burger”. Something had been lost in translation somewhere along the line.

Phnom Penh Breakdown

Aside from the dark tourism in Phnom Penh (the Killing Fields and the Genocide Museum), we found the city to be a quaint, relaxing capital. The main sights are all within walking distance of each other and it's easy to find your way from one place to the next. 

Of course the main attraction is the Palace, located on the riverfront at Sisowat Quay, a two minute walk from our hotel. A blue flag flies when the king is in residence (he wasn't). We passed an enjoyable afternoon wandering around the buildings within the palace walls: temples, ceremonial halls, ballrooms, etc.

In the evening after the heat of the sun has died down, the gardens in front of the palace are crowded with local families and groups of friends having picnics and drinking beers on the grass. The men stand in circles kicking a jaegi and children feed the pigeons with seeds bought from street vendors. It was a nice place for an evening stroll.

Outside the 'Victory Gate' at the Palace.

Within the Palace grounds.

One of my favourite experiences in Phnom Penh was Dine in the Dark. The concept of the restaurant is that you experience a meal as a blind person would; you're led into a pitch black restaurant where all the waiters are blind and you're served a mystery set meal which you eat in complete darkness. The food was amazing, even though we weren't entirely sure what we were eating, and having our sight removed was an unique experience that provided us with lots of nervous laughter. Once I felt comfortable at the table I had fun moving Ric's plate and wine glass about in the dark. After the meal we were led back into the light and we were shown photos of our food. The restaurant supports an organisation for the blind where they are trained to work as waiters, providing them with a vocation in a country that otherwise ignores disabled people, leaving them to beg on the streets.

The Central Market in Phnom Penh is one of the best we've visited so far; the building is big, light and airy and the vendors don't hassle you much at all. After kitting myself out with a new outfit we walked along Sisowat Quay and took in the sights: the red-tiled National Museum which we didn't fancy after our museum overload in Siem Reap, the Independence monument, the temples, the numerous fancy riverside hotels and restaurants. At the end of the quay we found ourselves at the very posh Himawari Hotel, and we decided to sneak in and see how the other half live. Inside we found a microbrewery! Sitting in the five star gardens overlooking the river we enjoyed a flowery pale ale called Gem and Jade, it was $5 for half a pint but it was worth it.

Gem stalls at Central Market.

Independence Monument, Phnom Penh.

Like a kid a Christmas.

National Museum.