Adventuring in the Wild Blue Yonder: Log 31: Trip across the border to Vietnam via bus, boat and Chau Doc

There were many options for buses to across the border into Vietnam, the regular bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) or tours galore. Having had quite a few typical drive through the countryside local buses, we thought we’d shake things up and go by mini-tour that took us to the border, on a boat down the Mekong river, a night in Chau Doc, then a bus ride to HCMC the next day, all for $30USD. This was actually quite a deal, as we would have paid this just in bus fairs and day trips to see the Mekong, and as it turned out we got more out of our tour than we should have.

We took a van from Phnom Penh to the border with a lovely older German couple that we chatted to the whole way. Upon arriving at the border crossing our strange trip went into full swing. We turned off onto a very narrow bumpy dirt road only to find an official passport stamping station, after our stamping and official ‘leaving of Cambodia’ we were shuttled back into the van where we came to the border patrolman. He was fast asleep in his hammock next to the red-stripped lift gate that looked into Vietnam. Our van driver, sighed, got out of the van and lifted the gate, we drove through, then he dropped it again, all without the ‘guard’ so much as stirring. We were taken to the official line, where we had to walk across with our packs, and onto a floating dock where we would take the boat from. We were escorted into a restaurant and told to wait while our passports were stamped and our boat.

After saving our German friend, Sabine, from a dodgy picture card that wouldn’t work in her camera, we loaded onto our Mekong river boat that took us up the scenic river past villages built on stilts for the rainy season, when the river floods meters above where it sits in the dry season. The people seemed poor, but simple and happy in their ways with much of their income and food from the river itself, along with rice farming vegetables beyond the houses. The Mekong is used for just everything too, fishing, washing people clothes and dishes, toilets, watering and bathing water buffalo, etc. With overpopulation along the river, over fishing, and all the excess nutrients going into it, it is not hard to see why there is concern over this river’s sustainability. There is a real worry that the river will be killed and millions of people’s source of food and income will be at stake.

Our boat dropped us at the harbor of Chau Doc, and we were immediately offered rides to our hotel from no less than 3 different cart drivers. This was all included in our ticket, but of course our drivers wanted a large tip for taking us the 1km that we insisted we could walk which made our ‘tip’ price go down by half. So Sabine, George, Matt, and I all packed our butts and bags onto two very small cycle carts that were not built for 2 people, let along 2 western sized butts. But we made it there with only a few new bruises from sitting on the edges.

As it turned out, our friends Mike and Maya, that we met in Indonesia had e-mailed a few days earlier and were going to be in Chau Doc for a days on their way to Cambodia. Thrilled to meet up again with people we knew already, we found their hotel and we all headed out into the city of Chau Doc to find a few beers and some dinner. We exchanged stories and tips of sites to see in Vietnam and Cambodia over a warm beer in a street market, while mixing in stories of the scams and ways to avoid them. Speaking of scams, even with bartering our beer was still more expensive than most of the locals would have paid for a meal, but was still just over $1USD for us so hard to argue with. We went to the one restaurant in town that wasn’t a street stall, and indulged on some fish hotpots, spring rolls, and noodles. Feeling crazy, Mike, Matt and I shared a bottle of banana wine that would be more properly described as a banana liqueur. For a few days we swore we were still burping the taste of the banana wine as well as the fish sauce but one MUST give these things a try. The Vietnamese fish sauce wasn’t subtle and tasty like the Thai fish sauce, the fish are fermented in a goo for 3 years and it takes on a very unique smell of rotting Mekong river. Its then used in many of the traditional dishes, and more commonly as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or noodles. I do eat anything and will try anything once, but once was enough for this sauce.

The next day we boarded a tour bus that took us to the dock once again where we went down the Mekong on Vietnamese row boats, rowed by some of the tiniest women, in size and stature, I had seen yet. I felt incredibly guilty and lazy being rowed out to the floating villages by these women, but their strength and ability to maneuver those boats was well beyond their size. They took us aboard one of the floating fish farms that are the main source of economy for the floating villages. They grow catfish in the cages attached to the bottom of their sheds and make the fish food themselves from rice and left over fish parts. They fed them some pellets to show us and the fish all but jumped out of the water and splashed everywhere on the surface! They make about $2USD a kilo of fish, that gets shipped all over Asia, to the UK, and the US.

Our next stop was to a Cham village, a Muslim group within Vietnam, to see their Mosque. The Cham people originally inhabited the whole south portion of Vietnam, and the Vietnamese were just in the north. Several hundred years ago the Vietnamese people came through and annihilated them and almost destroyed the culture. It still survives today and is recognized by the government so the children go to school with Vietnamese and the people now integrate with society. Our visit brought children selling little cakes that we were warned would give us diarrhea and not to buy, and handicrafts made by the people.

Back on the river our rowers took us back to the dock and we were loaded back on the bus to go to some Buddhist temples near Sam Mountain. This wasn’t supposed to be in our tour but the guide had no other way to get us to the bus so we went along. After the temple he took us to our ‘local bus’ that was to take us to Ho Chi Minh City, and a heap of directions to get us from bus to car, to taxi, to hotel. We wrote down directions, went over them 4 times with us, told us we looked smart enough to handle them, and also a letter to give a cab driver that he would pay for if he couldn’t arrange a car to pick us up at the bus station. Our guide found us our bus and introduced us to the bus assistant, who I’m pretty certain was threatened with death if he lost the two westerners because he stuck to us like glue even though he didn’t know much English. At a lunch stop, he had us wait on the bus then guided us to the depot to show us specifically where the toilets were, waited for us outside, then onto the lunch area and ordered for us. When we were finished eating it was THEN time for the bus to leave again so he shuttled us back to the bus door. Arriving in HCMC, the assistant then took us personally to the transfer car that would take us into the city, put us on, then peeked back in the door before the car left to make sure we were on it. As promised there was a car waiting for us, name tag sign in all, at the bus station to take us to our hotel, even though we didn’t have one booked.

It was nice to not have to worry about getting from place to place, and this was all included in our original $30USD, but if this is the way all tours for tourists go, I’m glad this was our first go of it. I felt like a 10 year old being put on an airplane to meet a parent in another city. No post-it note pinned to our shirts, but our white skin was as good as a post-it.

Finally in the backpacker district of HCMC, but still called Saigon by the locals and everyone else, we wandered down a few alley’s and booked a hotel that was fairly cheap for the city and the air-con, then headed out for a much needed drink. We met a German guy traveling on his own and chatted with him for a few hours about Vietnam since he had been in the country for 4 weeks already. The Lonely Planet is great, but first-hand experience and tips when you get to a place is always better.