We had a choice, see the Mekong and stay on land, see the Mekong and stay on a public boat where you had to keep getting on smaller boats to see the “real” countryside and river, or flashpack again on a private sampan with a crew to passenger ratio of 4 to 2, i.e. 4 of them and two of us. What do you think we chose? Right again, the private sampan, and Mum, we have discovered that the IOW ferry is not the most expensive boat journey in the world! But what a journey it was. To get there, we rattled for two hours in an albeit private, huge, luxurious aircon bus, leaving the huge, bustling heaving metropolis that is HCMC through the country side to a tiny dock at Cai Be. Our private, elegantly appointed, teak and bamboo sampan and crew clad in rather fetching black pyjamas (and one had the most amazing bambi brown eyes) was awaiting our arrival. We embarked on the Song Xnah Sampan. We were so excited to start our private journey of discovery – Gill especially loved it as there was a proper shower, a proper loo and a locked door to the bathroom – heaven! We spent the afternoon sailing between various delta industrial efforts from paper making, sweet making, fishing, fruit and veg growing and orchards. We also went to the most amazing brick works where the girls expressed a desire to meet us – but what an awful job. The works were Dickensian in their brutality – the heat and dust from the kilns and the physicality of the womens’ work in minimum 100 degree heat, covered with clothing from head to foot, loading the fired bricks onto the worn wooden barges. The kilns are fed with the husks of Mekong rice – the ashes produced are returned to the earth as fertiliser for the next season. It takes you back to the industrial revolution – and despite the harshness of their sweat producing, sheer hard work, they were genuinely pleased to see us. We weren’t going to see them, but they asked our guide if they could meet us. We felt like Brad and Angelina, as they laid down their tools to embrace us, we did think life in Clapham and Swanley ain’t so bad after all. We took time out of their working day for photos and huge smiles. The kids that had made the brickyard their home were just as appealing, but we still were not temped to adopt. Our papooses were empty as we returned as the sun set over the Western Mekong. Having done poverty for the day, we return to jasmine tea and ice cold towels on the bow of our sampan to see the greenery around the delta. We were just 10 degrees north of the equator, so everything grew in abundance. We visit a beautiful ancient Mekong Delta house where the jackfruits, breadfruit, papaya and oranges were just hanging ready to be picked. Earlier on we had lunch at a French Colonial era villa called Le Longanier, perfectly preserved in the middle of nowhere. We were served Vietnamese rice paper rolls filled with Elephant Ear fish (see pic) amongst many other delicacies – including a bottle of the local fino sherry style variety Dalat wine. We continued to wend down small channels where the Vietnamese rural landscape unfurled in the full view of Ant’s 300mm lens, every domestic scene was photographed from every angle, yet we were greeted all the way along with cheery waves from the bank as we glided past. That was the beauty (apart from the luxury and the private bathroom ) of what we were doing – we had left behind the 30 seater tourist boats. We realised that we had become a part of the Mekong , experiencing life in deepest, poorest Vietnam that other tourists never see (albeit 30 yards from the bank reposing on silk daybeds with a refreshing breeze and a crew responding to almost our every whim! ) After the adventures of the afternoon, we arrive, the only Western faces, at Sa Dec, a busting market town that we explore, unaware that in our absence our boat was being transformed into a 2 bed, muslin draped suite with a candlelit dining room on the back where dinner awaited. Dinner was served. Pumpkin soup, herb marinated snake (they claimed it was chicken but was nothing like any chicken bones we had seen before…) with fragrant rice. We move to the bow for a desert of fresh mango, dragon fruit and banana and more wine. We called for our day beds to be reinstated on the outside front deck, and we became the focal point of the town as we ate desert and sipped on wine. We continue to lay on these daybeds for the next 4 hours as the boat made its way to its midnight mooring, getting increasingly sozzled on the local wine – it was only at this point we realised that we were probably relaxing on what should have been the crews’ beds. Hey ho – we were paying. There is very little that can beat sailing through the Mekong delta in the pitch dark with some cold white wine gazing into the inky blackness and the distant milky way – this really was a million star hotel – they were all above us. The next morning we awake early to see sunrise over the Mekong from our beds. Breakfast is laid out for us on the rear deck and we feast on cotton wool bread and jam that had never even seen a strawberry! Like magic, our bedrooms were rapidly changed back to a day room as we ate, and as we started our morning journey to Can Tho we were served tea and biscuits as the Mekong again flowed past our bows. Our guide, Fee, told us of his history – he was a South Vietnamese soldier during the American War and sustained a gunshot wound to his stomach, which he proudly displayed. We sailed through small villages starting their day, fisherman, ferry women taking children across to school, women collecting water hyacinth – all human life was here, lived out in public. We finally come out of the small tributaries where we hadn’t seen another Western face since lunchtime the previous day, and then we start to live our life in public as we entered the “tourist” waters of Can Tho and the floating market. There may be a lot of tourist boats taking a look, but the market itself is genuine – people coming in from the villages selling all sorts of fruit and vegetables from their boats. You know what each boat is selling, as they attach their vegetable of the day to a pole on the front of their boat as their advert! But our rather spectacular sampan created interest all of its own as Ant and I tried to do our best Brangelina impression as we are “papped” repeatedly by every video and instamatic that went past in the crowded tourist boats. We are bound to be in Hello! soon! Arriving back in Saigon after this amazing trip, we spend late afternoon visiting the garish Chinese pagodas of Cholon (Saigon’s Chinatown), and then take respite from the steamy heat of Saigon City with tea on the roof of the Grand Dame hotel, the Majestic. That night we dine on Vietnamese fine cuisine at the Temple Club, a beautiful old restored villa, a perfect end to a perfectly amazing experience.
