After a 2 hour bus trip (involving one moto and two buses) to a village outside of Phnom Penh we stopped as a house on the water and were we where transferred to a
'ferry.' Which is little more than a long wooden boats with some seats for about 12 on it. From there we started the 3hour journey down the mighty Mekong river. For such a big and important river I expected there to be more activity, however there were few boats and all you saw onshore was small villages and crops. On the whole and uneventful journey, until the border crossing. Border crossings seem on the whole to be reasonably hectic places. This however was gentile, peaceful and relaxed. 
You pull up on the side of the river and go to the immigration office to get stamped out of Cambodia. Surrounded to by trees and clean cut lawns the only people there are other tourists taking a similar boat trip. I even managed to take a photo which I wouldn't dare at other immigration stations.After the stamping we got back on the boat and traveled another 15minutes to the Vietnam immigration. Here we collected our baggage and walked to the border crossing. With some others on the boat making use of local children to carry their bags for them. (For a fee of course, child slavery? You decide?) At the border we payed a
mysterious $2000 dong fee got a piece of paper place in our passports and moved on, this time with a new Vietnamese tour guide. She took our passports and sent us further on to get something to eat. Mmmn, noodle soup and interesting spring rolls!10 minutes later she returned with passports with all the necessary stamps. We made our way down onto out new boat, very much the same as the other and headed further down the mekong.It was only 2 min further that we took a right turn of the Mekong itself and into the delta. This was much more interesting as you go close to the people who work in the delta. Growing crops, transporting goods, planing wood and even the occasional floating petrol station. After a slight scare, when the engine stopped functioning properly; a plastic bag caught in the propeller which a young lad jumped in the water to remove we headed off further through the delta while I had a nap at the back of the boat.
I woke up a while later when we were back on one of the main rivers of the delta. Here it was apparent that the Vietnamese are more industrious and busier than the Cambodian as there were many more ships going up and down the river and many fish farms and other industries operating on the river. We headed gently into Chau doc where we were taken to our hotel for the night. After which I went for a walk to the
river and watched the families fly kites over the river while the older generation went for the daily loop walk. Chau doc seems like a student city as there are many students riding around on push bikes. I chatted with two people from Sweden and a local Vietnamese who in a very cheerful manner told us how Vietnam implements the death penalty. Then to bed to prepare for the journey to Saigon, whoops, sorry; Ho Chi Min City.
Given Vietnamese industriousness I was expecting a reasonably smooth trip. However through some strange design the planners for redevelopment of a road had decided to rip up the whole road and then fix it bit by bit. So we ended up with what felt like more than 100km of bumpy dirt road. You could even see the foundations of all the bridges that were being replaced but not a single one of the 20 odd were actually finished. Odd! After driving for 4 hours and having not eaten for more than 6, we in the bus were getting rather annoyed with the bus driver who could not give us a staight answer as to when we would stop. So I decided that the next time the bus stopped I would step out of the bus and get food regardless of what the bus driver wanted. Finally the bus driver pulled up and I got out; my assertiveness proved futile as this was where we were to have lunch anyway. We all sat down for a meal and ordered according to the menu. Food was ordinary and when the waiter doubled the prices on us claiming that the menu we saw was an 'old' menu the Swedish girls lost it and refused to pay the additional money and walked off. It was lucky there was a Vietnamese there to help translate after after much discussion it became apparent that there was no 'new' menu and that they wanted to scam us out of our money. We left paying the rates as stated in the menu, leaving behind and irate manager. I am still not sure who she was irate at. Us or the waiter who even falsified and invoice! All in all this was the worst bus trip of my travels, so much so that I almost wrote to the lonely planet about the tour company.
Arriving in Saigon we where left at a bus station 10km from the centre of the city, after much hassle from taxi and moto drivers we thought we got ourselves a metered taxi to the city. However the taxi driver refused to turn on the meter, claiming it would coast twice as much (which would surely be in his benefit)and with none of us willing to step out of the taxi we ended up paying the rate we wanted. Not a particularly happy introduction to Vietnam! We arrived in the tourist area and I arranged accommodation in a small alleyway, 1.5 meters wide with 4 storey houses on each side. In this alleyway there were businesses and restaurants of all kinds as well as hotels. Here we stayed inside someones home (the family slept on the ground floor in about 12square meter, including kitchen and living room, while renting out the other 3 floors) for a reasonable rate. Following this I wandered aimlessly around the city, awaiting the impending arrival of my mother the following day.
After nervous moments as mum took her time getting out of the airport, I finally had some company for my travels. We made our way to our temporary home via metered taxi, who switched it on after we threatened to step out of the taxi, saving us $2. The follwing day we spent seeing the sights including the Independence palace, which has been left largely intact as it was the day the Viet Cong entered the palace at the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Very interesting as you can see where the military planner sat and lived during those days. Even all the old radio equipment still sit in the war rooms underneath the building. From there we walked to the War Memorial which gives a Vietnamese account of the American and south Vietnamese atrocities committed during the war, with a particular focus on the effects of Agent Orange, Napalm and Land Mines. It just goes to show that no matter which side you are on, war brings out the worst in people and technology only increases your options, but doesn't change you sentiment. You can hear the echoes from Iraq in the back of your head. This account is biased no doubt, but many would say the same of American accounts. The whole museum has many interesting photos, artifacts and documents relating to the war. For me it raised the question, when will Americans realise the way their righteousness clouds their vision and understanding in the same way that the communists suffer from.Weary from jet lag and walking, we returned to the hotel for one of many early nights. the next morning we traveled successfully from our hotel to Vinh Long, by arranging it ourselves. We could have taken a tour but that is no fun. After catching two local buses and then an intercity bus to Vinh Long, none of which had air conditioning we were dropped off at a petrol station 3km out of the city. From here we picked a direction to talk on some vague guidance of some local moto drivers. After some uncertainty it turned out we picked right and ended up in the center of the city. Form there we realised that our options were limited without a tour company. So we booked a one day 2 night trip through the Mekong delta, jumped on a boat to our home stay for the night. There are homestays and homestays, and this homestay was more a hotel stay, which was a little disappointing but the small amount of people with us made it quite relaxing. Sunset beers on the river bank with orchard on either side and a fresh home cooked meal. I think we bore it quite well.
the next day was a day tour through the mekong delta, along with visiting the Cai Be
floating market (2hrs to late) by boat and bicycle we also visited some placed that made coconut flavoured ricepaper and popping corn. Again very interesting to see how these products were made but these days it is only for tourists as mass production for the general market is done elsewhere.But the people that work there make a healthy profit from tourists purchasing their homemade wares, which were nice! From there we took the boat back into the delta and then transferred onto some row boat for a 1 hour before lunch. It is surprising how much more peaceful boat travel is when you get rid of the engine! The rest of the day was spent in a hammock waiting for the boat to take us back to the homestay for a home cooked meal. This time entirely on our own. Which was nice but uneventful, before waking up the next day, with no boat arriving. We waited before making some phone calls to get a boat o come. We had told the tour guide that we wanted to leave at 9am, but that message clearly hadn't got through to management and so no boat was sent out. So we waited and at about 11am a boat finally meandered up the river to take us back to Vinh Long. There mum haggled over some bread, eventually buying of two different sellers before hopping on the bus back to Ho Chi Min City.The Following day was spent on another day tour this time to the Cu Chi tunnels which were made and used by the Viet cong and succeeded in keeping the American's a bay despite only being 100km of so from the then Saigon.
This intricate array of tunnel over 200km long and up to four levels deep was accessible through very small hole in the surface which had to be widened to allow us tourists to try them out. Once inside you can crawl around in the dark, dank tunnels which would never have provided a comfortable resting place. and claustrophobia was not an option. Crawl through them occasionally you go into pitch black and you are only soother by the distant voice of other tourists. I everyone went silent I would have come closer to panicking than I already was. A testament to what people can do and what happened in the war you can finish of the tour by shooting an AK47 at the local gun club. While it adds to the atmsphere hearing gunshots as you walk around, I have mixed feelings about shooting weapons at memorial sights to wars.Another side trek on the tour was a visit to a factory making goods, staffed by disabled people. The Vietnam government seems to take the plight of victims of Agent Orange and Napalm (which caused ongoing genetic birth defects) reasonably seriously and there are quite a few of these institutions setup around Vietnam. Admittedly they are not payed a lot, and the sales staff who are not disabled no doubt get paid more. But this is how business is all over the world and if they weren't working in these factories earning a livable wage, they would likely have no work at all. I would like to go back and buy some goods from there in the future, unfortunately the only way I know how to get there is to take the tour again!
That's about it for now. Next, Dalat and the motorcycle trip of a lifetime. (well, almost!)
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