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Follow the Mekong – Vietnam Travel Guide
I look from the riverbank in this amazingly vast and vibrant world of water. Here in the charming town of Can Tho Province in the heart of South Vietnam's Mekong Delta, it is as if the earth is not just a afterthought. Everything is on the river and the road sustaining life.
Cai Rang floating market, Mekong Delta, Vietnam
It is a world of color and movement, a spray refreshing cold water on his face as he rowed back to his hotel at night in a thin stick of a ship, the gleam of twilight sleep and trace your finger the surface of the river, coughing and sputtering of a small passenger ferry across the river to Vinh Long, the throaty gurgle of a vessel of rice, and little by little Ho Chi Minh engines or Cambodia.
The Mekong starts its 4500-km journey to the sea in Tibet and winds its way through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and, finally, in the Mekong Delta. The Vietnamese call the Cuu Long River, nine or dragons, and is easy to see why, because here lies the great Mekong tentacles in nine of the sea.
Can Tho is located near one of these tributaries, the river Ala Giang, also known as the Bassac, an extension impossible broad and bustling of brown water. It is a pleasant capital of 300,000 people, with avenues, squares of fresh grass and 19th century buildings that are remnants of the colonial era French.
One of the great pleasures of the cities of province, Viet Nam Hoi An, Nha Trang is like or the local market and Can Tho is no exception.
Sale vegetables, fruits and seafood, great market spreads over an entire block on one side and follows the curve of the river on the other. There is much to do here and is a good place to organize a stay at home with a family of farmers. It is also a good place to do nothing at all. Looking from the promenade, I see boats of all shapes and sizes, one of which my friends and me early next morning to the famous Cai Rang floating market. Boats of the whole region – from Bac Lieu, Vinh Long and Camau – come here to sell what they appear to be growing fruits and vegetables imagined: jackfruit, oranges, rambutan, bananas, longans, pineapples and sweet potatoes.
A, 30, is our guide. It is the boat of her father and her husband safely navigate through the changing mass in the river craft. "It's a good husband," says smiling. "He is happy to cook and wash with me at night." We nodded. A good husband can be hard to find.
I explain we want to travel to Cambodia by boat from Chau Doc to Can Tho through the border to Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and from there to Siem Reap, home to one of the great wonders of the world, the temple complex of Angkor Wat. We have six days to travel over 400 kilometers. An offer to organize the trip and a few phone calls later agree to meet in the spring of Can Tho at 2 pm the next day.
I say that I have visited these places before, but always by road or air. This time I want a softer, more romantic mode of transport along the mighty Mekong and its tributaries. I hear the gentle tap of water against the boat, feel the tropical breeze on my skin and watch people live their lives on the banks. I want to be part of the landscape. I want to make the journey as important as the arrival.
Can Tho has several restaurants along the waterfront and that night we decided on the Thien Hoa. We settled into a happy pavement table in the balm of the evening, show no system restraint and order a party – snake fried with onion, sea bass with tamarind soup, shrimp steamed in beer, catfish stew and coconut ice cream. It is a meal for remember and a harbinger of culinary experiences to come.
Loaded with fruits and snacks that we take from the buffet breakfast at the Hotel Victoria, we board the boat "Fast" to Chau Doc, An says a trip will take about three hours. She says the slow boat that leaves at 6:30, takes about eight hours.
The fast boat is a long and relatively smooth, metal-hulled craft that is not going particularly fast, which is a mixed blessing, given the pleasure of being in the water and rest on the terrace and watch the world go. Most passengers are part of a package led by Delta Adventure Tours, which includes one night in the company's floating hotel Chau Doc As you travel independently, each pays $ 20 ($ 23) for the trip.
The boat seats about 30 people on more or less similar to comfort. Sitting on the terrace eating a bag of rambutan, it becomes clear to me that this is a working river. Large ships, washing flapping in the breeze and overload of bananas, bring products to market. Other ships dredging the riverbed silt for use in the construction industry. The weight of his burden as low puts the Water is like a grain more could tip into the muddy bottom.
The river banks go to the activity. A line of brick kilns smoke puffs several kilometers and the families of freshly baked bricks stack or loaded onto waiting ships, children under load stress. The smell of fermentation burst fish sauce factories on land. Much of the river is filled with sandbags to protect houses in the artificial river, which swells dramatically during the wet season.
There are so many interesting things to observe on the water and banks of the river that runs through the journey quickly and before we know it Chau Doc are approaching, a trip of 5 hours. The river seems to be setting in twilight and acquires a kind of dreamy indolence, as if it has enough work to the day. Meanwhile, I have been lulled into a sense of well being I've ever experienced in transport by road or by air.
Impressed with our stay at the Hotel Victoria in Can Tho, we decided to spend a few nights at the Victoria Chau Doc is another stylish, well located, colonial-style building, located on the banks of the Bassac. The view from our room on the other side of the river spread takes my breath away.
Chau Doc closes early and we are lucky to reach the Bay restaurant Bong while still serving dinner. The restaurant decor resignation interesting cuisine of the Mekong. This is another feast. Canh chua begin with, fish soup sweet and sour, and follow this with steamed fish and prawns, including ca Kho, stewed fish in a clay pot. It's so nice to come back the next night.
Chau Doc is another attractive and charming provincial town of about 100,000 people with a huge market that snakes along the river bank. The section of single fish – which no fresh fish, but only nuts, spices, marinated and salted – is wonderful.
We are near the Cambodian border here and people are more obvious red with full features, darker skin and a preference for a checkered scarf on the ubiquitous Vietnamese conical hat. It is also home to a important community Chams, a Muslim minority living in Malaysia looks across the Bassac River.
We hired a boat and motor through Cham people. In the main street, dotted with stalls selling fruit and vegetables and snacks, women chatting in the shade of the porches of their houses of wood. Little girls Simple waffles and cakes to sell to visitors. I met the caretaker of one of the two mosques. It shows a short film about the history of the Cham in Vietnam but it is well to leave without knowing.
This part of the Bassac River, where he meets the Mekong, is home to an extraordinary concentration of floating houses, each is an independent fish farm. In the center of each house is a large cage submerged in the river, in which families raise local catfish Bassa, thousands of tons of which are exported to Australia each year. The fish are fed a type of flour of cereals, fish and plant remains in boilers rumble and shake. The smell is a challenge.
At eight o'clock the following, we will embark on another fast boat for the trip to the Cambodian capital. In another steamer, incredibly hot days, we are willing to spend cover travel, enjoying the breeze. However, a gang of young American backpackers with voices newsreader storm the ship and secure outdoor area as his headquarters. It's your world. We just live in it.
As we travel to Cambodia, the river begins to change. Gone is the frenetic activity Boat and life becomes a river less industrialized, more pastoral attitude. When meeting with the Mekong, the river widens and soon the factories on the shore are replaced by maize fields, banana such changes and that the flap in the breeze and ragged palm leaf huts. Families bathe in the shallows and scrub children buffalo wallowing and splashing. A year and a half hour later, when we reached the border at Vinh Xuong, Vietnam and Samnor Kaam, Cambodia, we are in a different lusher, more languid world.
We landed at the border and after a hour or so filling in various forms and questionnaires, we goodbye to the Vietnamese boat aboard the less healthy full of Cambodia for the rest of the trip. But in the end the state of the boat matters little uneven deterioration and most people spend the afternoon sitting on the back deck or sitting in the bow and alter the driver's vision.
It is too idyllic, as this is, too good to last. Low water levels in the Tonle Sap river means we have to complete the last leg of the trip by bus. But even this is fascinating, but close, and rushed through the countryside and the outskirts of Phnom Penh sedate. As we arrived in the bustling heart of the capital, I can check my watch. It was a little over seven hours that we boarded the ship in Chau Doc
In our hotel, the owner tells us that the water level in the Tonle Sap are too low for us to go by boat to Siem Reap that we must take the bus or fly. Rejects our disappointment, saying the boat has a karaoke machine on board. "Very loud."
But we will not decide what to do until after dinner – maybe a little fish steamed in coconut milk or fried squid with green peppers. When you jump into a tuk-tuk to take us shoreline, a young girl, brown as a nut and cute as a button, implores us to buy some bottled water.
"How your name? "I ask.
"Cosmic", she replies, smiling. "Where are you from?"
"Australia."
"You know, Kevin Rudd?" Wonder.
"Of course."
"Well, he's my father."
I look puzzled and she laughs. We are hurt and is bottled water throughout the year. As they putter away, she screams at us: "Tell Kevin to his daughter says hello. "
I wave and a promise that I will.
Source: brisbanetimes.com.au
Related the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
– Explore Delta Mekong and the river turns
– Mekong cycling
– Family in Vietnam
– Mekong Delta and Angkor Wat tours
About the Author
ACTIVETRAVEL ASIA (ATA) offers a wide selection of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar adventure tours, including hiking and trekking, biking, motorcycling, overland touring and family travel packages.
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