Hello!
We crossed from Cambodia to Vietnam yesterday. It was a nice border crossing, a boat rather than a dusty bus for a change. From Phnom Penh it took about 4 hours to get to Chau Doc including dealing with border issues. Chau Doc is a nice town near the border and for most of the way there (on the Vietnam side of the border) the river is lined with homes both on stilts and floating. Immediately on crossing you begin to see women wearing the triangular shaped straw hat that you associate with Vietnam. There is also a marked increase of two wheeled vehicles both bikes and motor bikes. Not unlike the majority of places we have been, kids are shrewd business people here. The young girls at the border carrying buckets of cold drinks had an uncanny way of getting pretty well everyone to buy. No Vietnam dong yet? No worries as a 12 year old girl carrying a stack of money is the foreign exchange pro! Dong is 16,000 to 1USD... meaning that I will be carrying a calculator everywhere I go.
Today we took a minibus to Can Tho, another town along the river in the Mekong Delta. We have arranged to take an 8 hour tour tomorrow with a woman on her boat. From Can Tho you can explore the biggest floating market in the Mekong Delta. Things start early in Vietnam. We are meeting her at 5:30 a.m. and heading to the river. Apparently by 9 a.m. the market has pretty well fizzled for the day. From the market we will head through a mangrove forest and some very narrow canals, and visit a fruit orchard as well. I am looking forward to that. We are both hoping to sample durian (a scary looking and smelling fruit that supposedly tastes like custard), as well as some other unidentifiable fruits that we have seen in the markets. Fruit markets here are like paint pallets.
So far we have a great impression of Vietnam. We've had some beautiful food including prawns in mango sauce, awesome spring rolls, chicken steamed in beer, and hot pot. The people here are super friendly. Not since Tanzania have so many people (kids especially) said hello, smiled, waved, etc. The heat is rather oppressive so far, though I think that our tolerance to heat has gone up. It feels like it could rain at any moment as the humidity is very high and it has been overcast. Vietnam is green, green, green and water is everywhere. We have been surprised to see stores stocking so much Christmassy stuff - in particular Santa suits, which seem to be on sale in every third store you pass. It is 10% Catholic in this country so obviously there are locals celebrating, though I do wonder how much is driven by tourists.
Thats all I have to report for now.
Hope that all is well at home.
xoxo
Paula
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