Through the Delta to Ho Chi Minh City

Early in the morning, I got up to get ready to meet Mai for my short tour of Chau Doc. I headed out to the balcony of the place where I was staying, and had a look out on the street. And you know what? The Vietnamese do wear those hats. It's not just a thing that is done for the tourists.

Mai was there when I headed downstairs and we headed out. We stopped for breakfast, beef noodle soup. Then we headed out of town towards a small hill. On the way, we passed what looked like it was going to be a new subdivision. So far only the streets were completed. But the locals seemed to think they weren't streets, but drying areas for rice.

We reached the base of the hill and headed up to a Buddhist monastery partway up. From there it was easy to see the entire area around Chau Doc. It was also possible to see across the river area. On the other side was Cambodia. There is a bridge in town that crosses over to the Cambodian side. In between the two countries at that point, just as at the Cambodia-Thai border, there is a casino. Mai lamented the number of people who have been hooked on the casino life because of the proximity of it to the city. She also told me that, although there are lots of river police patrolling the area, they can't be everywhere. And just like in North America with our long unguarded borders smuggling of contraband, cigarettes in particular, is rampant.

What happens when Buddhism brings itself into the 21^st century?

Next it was on to see the statue of a woman who had been discovered on the mountain. She apparently just sprung into existence. She needed to be carried down the mountain. Ordinary people couldn't move her. Eventually the found that a group of virginal boys and girls were able to bring her down to a temple where she eventually turned to stone. Now people come to visit her and pray for their family or friends or other people in need.

A large temple area was on the way back to town. It was dedicated to the goddess of the seas. I have seen her in other places, most notably Hong Kong, but she had a different name here. She is the protectress of those who work on the sea.

From that temple we headed across the bridge I had visited the night before with Tsao. This time we went right across to the village of an ethnic minority. Long ago, there was a Muslim empire along the coast of what is now southern Vietnam. They were called the Cham. They controlled varying amounts of the area depending on who had more power at a given time, the Khmer or the Cham. When the Vietnamese pushed their way south, the Cham empire was swept away and now only survives in small communities. Mai told me that in general the people live peacefully with the Vietnamese. We got into their little town, with its 500 or so houses and maybe 2000 inhabitants. She took me into one section of the village, where I saw how high the water of the Mekong is right now. Currently the waters are high and lapping around the area under the houses.

They have to paddle boats up to the doors. In the dry season, the river is half a kilometer or more away.

There is a marker on one of the houses that shows how high the water gets each year. In the year 2000 the water came up over the floors of the houses. That is a huge amount of water. Clearly life in this area is dominated by the whims of the water.

Down the street from there is the community's mosque.

And that was pretty much it for things to experience in Chau Doc, at least according to Mai. After that, she took me for a bit of lunch, pho. Pho is a noodle soup with rice noodles and vegetables and some kind of meat. I was actually told by someone I met that the Vietnamese wouldn't serve me the soup because it's so cheap that it doesn't make them enough money. And here I was eating it. Clearly things have changed.

After lunch, Mai took me to the bus station where I got a seat on a bus for Ho Chi Minh City. Actually it was a bed as, for some reason they put a sleeper bus into service for a daytime trip. I don't really like the sleeper buses. They aren't very comfortable. But I guess there wasn't much choice. The trip took about 6 hours and during the trip, we passed through many of the towns of the Mekong delta. We also passed by, over and along numerous rivers and tributaries and canals along the way. It was quite amazing to watch life in the delta going by outside the bus. It must be an interesting lifestyle, so dependent on the moods of the water.

What struck me the most though was how easy my move from Phnom Penh to Vietnam had been. I had had no hassles. Nobody had been overly pushy to try and get me to buy something. I hadn't felt threatened. And whether I would have faced any kind of stuff snatching, I don't know. It is drilled into travellers in various ways to always protect one's stuff. I had eaten food I wasn't “supposed” to be able to get. Mai had taken me around for a price that she had quoted. She honoured that price and she had even paid for tolls and my lunch. The guesthouse didn't try anything either. I had been reading a bunch of warnings online about guesthouse using bait and switch scams. A visitor is quoted one price at check-in, but then at pay time, they claim the visitor was in a higher priced room and get the extra money. Didn't happen. I'm sure I it does happen. I'm sure all the bad things that I read warnings about do happen. But I also believe that it is possibly all fear-mongering. There is nothing any more or less dangerous about anywhere, and it is always dependent on how vigilant the traveller is. This all sure did ease my mind about travelling in Vietnam, however.

Once I got to Ho Chi Minh City, I walked to a nearby hotel and checked in. It had been a great trip up and I was looking forward to getting to know the city.

Vietnam

I had found a company that offered a number of options to get to Vietnam. There were bus options to go straight to Ho Chi Minh City (what used to be known as Saigon), but there were also boat options to go to a place in the Mekong river delta called Chau Doc. I have never been in a river delta before, so I thought that would be an interesting trip. This company had boat trips that would be at 8:30 in the morning. There were also two options around noon. One was a bit cheaper, while the other option included a tour guide. I opted for the tour guide tour, since I figured I could learn about the delta area on the way. That settled, I waited for my visa. The morning of my trip to Vietnam, I checked out and headed down to the quay to get the boat. When it arrived, I was the only one going. Long trip to make for only one passenger, but good for me.

We set off and I noticed that the river was flowing now in the other direction. The previous day, as I walked along the riverfront, I had noticed the river flowing up toward the Tonle Sap Lake. Today, as we boated along, the river was flowing the opposite direction. I couldn't figure out whether we had entered the Mekong's flow, thus it was flowing towards the sea, or whether the change in flow had begun for the Tonle Sap River and now the lake was emptying. The boat captain told me that we were still in the Tonle Sap River, but I couldn't be sure. I wasn't sure she knew what I was talking about.

And I had no guide, despite paying the higher ticket price for it. Sigh!! Ripped off again. But Mai, the boat captain, talked to me along the way. She talked a fair amount about what I could do in Chau Doc once I got there. She told me that she could take me around the next day if I wanted. It seemed a fairly hefty price to pay, at 20 dollars, for a couple of hours of toodling around, but I couldn't be sure. In any case, I decided to give it some thought, and I told her I would decide later. Meanwhile we headed downriver and saw sights of river life. I had seen such things before in Cambodia, but it was still quite interesting.

It's hard to tell, but the bottoms of these trees are under water. They should be above water, and will be in a month or so when the waters recede.

At length, we reached the Cambodia/Vietnam border. The Cambodian side is just a little post with a small dock. We pulled up, I entered the little compound and got stamped out of the country.

Vietnamese immigration was even easier. I didn't even have to go in and appear before the immigration officer. Mai took my passport in and got it all done for me. I thought that was a bit weird, but that's now it was.

Then we headed into a canal and up to Chau Doc. There was lots more activity on the river on the Vietnamese side. Boats cruising around everywhere and people and towns all over.

And water. Water was everywhere. There were big channels and canals. There were smaller tributaries joining them every few hundred meters. There were large areas that must be flood plains that would be dry in other parts of the year. This was clearly an area where they have to deal with the vagaries of water, and water is intimately connected to how people live their lives here. Mai told me the waters were quite high this year. And with still another month to go, it was going to get higher yet. I could see that I was going to want to spend a bit of time in the delta to see how life goes there.

I told Mai that I would like to accept her guiding services for the next morning. She told me that we could see what there was to see in Chau Doc in the morning and then I could catch a bus to Ho Chi Minh City in the afternoon. That sounded fine, although I still thought I would want to find a way to see more of delta life. I could figure that out later, I supposed. When we reached the dock and got off the boat, Mai put me in a pedicab and directed the driver to take me to a nearby guesthouse. She said she would pick me up there at 8. I got there safely, got a room for the stunning sum of 6 dollars, including aircon and wifi. Vietnam was going to be quite cheap, I could see.

Then I set out to get some money from an ATM. My pedicab driver was waiting for me, but I decided to walk. He seemed worried about that and called up Mai to find out what I was doing. I told her I was just going to an ATM to get some money. She knew where it was, only a couple of minutes from the guesthouse, and calmed the pedicab driver's worries. He headed off to find some other fare, as I really was only going to the bank and then back to the guesthouse. But...

Another pedicab driver had come around as well, and he spoke some English. He wanted to take me around for a while. I really wasn't sure about that, but he said he could take me around for an hour for 4 dollars. He would show me the city by night. I thought it might be an enjoyable way to spend an hour, and he was so persistent that I eventually agreed. I went back and had some dinner and then Tsao (that was the young man's name), came by and off we went. It is quite a pretty city at night, as I found when Tsao took me to a bridge over the river and I could see the little city spreading away in the distance, its lights shining on the water of the canal/river.

Through the whole of this day, I never once came up against what I have always heard about Vietnam, that it is difficult. The people are hounding you all the time. There are thieves around every corner. The Vietnamese are quick to anger and will fight and try to take advantage of the traveller at every turn. And I found none of that. Mai made my entry in the country very easy. She helped me find a guesthouse that was, in my opinion very reasonably priced. Tsao was very persistent, but not in a way that was offensive. He just wanted to make money and, truthfully, I was amenable to taking that ride. The people at the guesthouse were friendly and helpful. It was a very nice introduction to the country. I hope the whole of my time here is as nice. I really need to stop listening to what other people say about the negatives of places. I need to stop necessarily believing what Wikitravel tells me about places. Sure, there will likely be people trying to take advantage of travellers. There are people like that everywhere. But I don't think it will be any more in evidence than it is anywhere either.