From Vietnam to Cambodia over the Mekong Delta

My return to Ho Chi Minh City was really just to sign up for a tour into the Mekong Delta that would also end up taking me into Cambodia. I figure that it would be easier to do the border as a group than on my own. Plus, if I did it on my own, I still wanted to do the Mekong Delta and that would require coming back into Ho Chi Minh City anyways.

My time in HCMC was pretty laid back. I spent much of my time kicking back in the Vietnam version of Starbucks, Highlands Coffee. Iced coffee was amazing there and I ended up getting lots done on my Geocaching KMZ file(still not done but it’s building slowly). I was in the city when Vietnam beat Laos to win their Grouping in the Southeast Asia Games for football. I also took in a traditional Vietnamese Water Puppet show. I had no idea what was happening but it was still cute and fun.

Vietnamese Water Puppet Theater

The trip into the Mekong Delta started early from HCMC, with me catching a bus from the Sinh Tourist office. After a few hours, it stopped in the small city of My Tho where we piled off and were placed onto a small boat to cruise the waterways around the city. There are thousands of rivers and canals in the Mekong Delta, so exploring it can be a bit daunting.

The boat took us down the river and stopped off at a brick making plant. It was quite interesting to see exactly how the bricks were made, with mud and straw, and how they are fired(large brick oven with constantly burning chafe from the grain seeds. The numerous chickens around the place was quite amusing, watching them dig through the mounds of chafe, pecking out the random pieces of seed that happened to still be there.

Brick firing oven

The next stop though was not something for me. Of everything in the world, I am most terrified of bees/wasps/hornets. And go figure, we went to a bee farm on the banks of the river. I was impressed that I managed to get close to one hive to get a picture of it, but I was certainly getting to the point of fainting the more we sat near them, sipping on honey wine, and having the little bees flying around. I couldn’t get back on the boat fast enough.

Yup, I’m insane. I got this close to the hive.

A quick little lunch with a fried fish speared onto some sticks(or nails) and we were cruising back to the bus that would take us off to the city of Can Tho for the night. I didn’t do much in the way of exploring the city as I was actually pretty tired from the boat rides. I found a cheap place for some dinner and crashed for the rest of the evening.

Day 2 of the trip in the Mekong Delta was pretty dull in all honesty. After waking up early, we were loaded back onto a boat to cruise through the floating market. The sun was already out, bright and hot, and I somehow was unlucky enough to be in direct contact with the sun the entire time. The floating market itself wasn’t too impressive, certainly not as impressive as pictures of similar markets in Bangkok. Boats like ours filled with tourists cruised through “avenues” created by the market boats. Our boat didn’t stop anywhere for us to buy anything, though from the looks of it, it was mostly fruits and other food for sale.

 

The highlight of the day, by far, was the short stop at a large fruit tree farm. Durum, Dragon Fruit, Lotus Flowers, Bananas, Coconut, and Mango trees were in great abundance.

Dragon Fruit blossom

After a bit of lunch, we piled back on the bus for a bit before we arrived in a small city where the group split up. Half stayed on the bus to continue back to Ho Chi Minh City, while those of us that were moving on to Cambodia were ushered onto a new bus. We were taken to the city of Chao Doc for the night where we enjoyed a cheap meal together, played Never Have I Ever, and generally got to know each other.

The journey over the border to Cambodia was quite painless actually. We began quite early in the morning and after a quick canoe ride through a floating fishing village we were on the motorboat along the river and across the border. The guide handled all the visa application forms and everything for us(for a $2/person fee of course). A very easy border crossing. It was definitely worth it to go with a group.

At one point, we had crossed the border without showing passports.

Welcome to Cambodia . . .

. . . Our roads are a bit messed up at the moment. Please Stand By.