Vietnam, Part 1

Haley and I left Phnom Penh early Sunday morning (we got only a few hours of sleep since we were up till 2am packing) and took a van, and then a boat to the Cambodia-Vietnam border. Then we switched to another boat and cruised the Mekong Delta for a few hours.  The Mekong may be one of my new favorite places.  As you go down the river, everyone, young and old, waves and smiles at you.  We had a great tour guide, a woman named San, and she took us to the best seafood place in town once we reached Chau Doc, the border town where we spent the night.  After a dinner of shrimp, crab, and squid roasted on a mini-barbecue on our table, I rode home on the back of her bicycle.  When we arrived back to the hotel at midnight, we found the doors locked and the streets deserted.  After 15 minutes outside banging on the door, ringing the bell, and phoning the guard, we finally get inside and crash, exhausted.  


On Monday morning we took another boat (really more of a dingy) to see a fish farm and a Cham (ethnic Vietnamese Muslims) village.  The fish farm was creepy but the village was beautiful.  We stopped to see a girl weaving a scarf in the traditional style and to play "kick the sandal" with a group of little boys.  We had a bit of scare when Haley fell down the stairs (it was raining pretty badly) but amazingly she was fine.  (Knock on wood, we think the Curse of the Black Panther is over.)  After that we took a minibus to Can Tho, another Mekong town, for lunch, then transfered to yet another bus for the ride to Saigon, which took about 4 hours and involved a ferry ride and yet another change of bus, as well as a stop at an alligator farm.  We also stopped to see how incense is made and to check out a pagoda.  


We arrived in Saigon in the late afternoon.  Saigon (also known as Ho Chi Minh City) is a sprawling, chaotic place.  Once there we booked some stuff at the travel agent, found a guest house, went to dinner and walked around a little bit.  Saigon is HUGE and moves at a much faster pace than PP, which is more like a charming big small town.  


Tuesday we went to the Cu Chi tunnels, which was a system of 200km of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong in the war.  Our tour guide was a Vietnamese man (who looked strangely like Johnny Cash) who had served as a translator for the US Navy during the war, then was sent to a re-education camp for three years after Saigon fell.  We climbed through some of the tunnels which even I found claustrophobically small.  For 26 years (1949-1975) about 16,000 people lived in these tunnels- its remarkable.  Outside the tunnel complex we stopped to try some liquor with contains cobra, scorpion and gecko parts (and tastes like really cheap vodka).


Anyway, we got back from that around 4pm, grabbed some lunch and then headed to the market, which was filled with just about every clothing, electronic, or food item you could imagine.  We had dinner from a street vendor (noodle soup, the Vietnamese staple, which we also had for breakfast).  Street food never disappoints me, I love it.  Now its time to relax and repack our bags because tomorrow afternoon we are flying to Da Nang, where we will then catch a short bus to Hoi An, supposedly one of the most charming cities in Vietnam.