Mekong boat trip

Seems like I've been a few days behind lately on the blog -but each entry takes time and we've been on the move. Finished second day in Siem Reap Cambodia but will save that for next entry. So we left Saigon Sunday and drove to Cai Be a port on the Mekong river. The Mekong for those of you not up on your southeast asian geography starts in the mountains in southern China and runs through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam where it forms its delta(?). This results in an incredibly fertile area which yields two rice crops a year , plus innumerable tropical fruits and fish. My warped view of the Mekong was based on war movies Apocalypse Now) and reports I had read during the war on the area. I had pictured something akin to the amazon with choked vegetation and multitudes of animals. What we saw was a fairly wide, modern river system with fairly developed modern towns (for the most part) with people utilizing all possible space to live and the river to both trade and travel on. So we left Saigon and headed southwest. Leaving didn't prove to be too difficult in the beginning we were scheduled to be there in 2 1/2 hours and were making good time so we took a detour to see the "Happy Buddha temple.

Typical small truck that we saw on the road headed somewhere

Three on a cycle actually there were fours (2 children,husband and wife and different variations

Notice the face gear -this is widespread and worn for several reasons (theories)

 Facewear theories:1-they are worried about becoming too dark from the sun (light skin considered beautiful);2-pollution (really doesn't seem that bad; 3-In the south of the country it was dusty;4 -In the north it was cold. They come in all different styles (whereas in cambodia they are less used and all hospital issue.

Water lilies at a rest stop

You guessed it "Happy Buddha"

Pagoda of Happy Buddha

Unfortunately or as they say in our car malheureusement we hit a huge traffic jam leaving Happy Buddha and our trip took over four hours. Seems that we chose the day that everyone was leaving Saigon to visit their families in the mekong delta for New Years.
We finally made it and were shuttled to our boat Le Cochincine-this time we were not the only occupants and met a couple from the Netherlands, followed by a family from Hanoi -father German, mother Vietnamese and two children Mai and Johann 11 and 9 there was also a french couple.

Here's our driver to the boat-one of the multitalented crew who also stepped in to steer the boat, serve us meals and gave us a foot massage.

Our Cabin

Mekong River

Guide pointing out our route

Boat traffic bringing food to market or vice versa- notice the outboard moter that is connected to a long propeller

One of two modern bridges we saw built with japanese help

Bringing sand or rice downstream

Home along the Mekong many are on stilts

Floating market-trade from boat to boat

Brick factory

Hand loading the clay (prebricks) which are baked in kilns

Floating market

Apricot flowers-traditional New Years plant

Our tourguide with a python-I got to taste Snake wine-a rice wine which ferments with snakes in the jar

One of the tour group with python

Beehive

Occupants

 We made several stops along the river and were taken to various tourist stops which included the snakes and beehive. We were given tea with bee honey as well as nectar  and royal jelly and told  the health benefits of them all.

Largest suspension bridge in Asia

Loading fruit

Shorefront homes

Melon boat

Soda delivery boy (boat to boat)

I'll trade you a melon for whats in the basket

Gas station on the river

We also stopped at a "game farm"where we were served tea with these friends

Porcupine with baby

Baby chicks

This was a 21/2 day trip which was hard to encapsulate in the photos. We got a brief snapshot of life along the river-As in all of Vietnam we noted a hardworking people -most seemed engaged in multiple jobs, although there was evidence of significant poverty (living conditions) people seemed happy , almost all smiled and gave us a greeting and had no bad episodes. We went back to Saigon experienced a little bit of New Year eve festivities and headed to Siem Reap, Cambodia-site of Angkor Wat and more than 200 other temples most dating from 1100.