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Noyelles Travels
Wednesday 23rd March
Although the bed is big & comfortable d*** only slept fitfully. Jane diagnosed his problem as dehydration & insisted on getting him water with electrolytes etc & of course it worked well.
After breakfast we set off in Sampans to Cai Be to see a floating market before landing at a local RC church & then a sweet or candy factory where they made coconut lollies & rice paper. It was a break but we had been to a similar one previously & could have done without it again. We are all issued with radio receivers to listen to the guide but since his pronunciation is difficult to understand we only hear about 30% of the commentary if we concentrate hard.
Returning to the ship we had a lecture on the Mekong River but again it was hard to understand & d*** quit after an hour as he was too cold.
After lunch during which we moved on to Sa Dec & once again left in sampans to visit a street food market with masses of fresh, often live fish & shell fish meat & vegetables of all descriptions. Eventually we came to the house of a wealthy Chinese merchant who had been famous as a lover of Marguerite Duras a, well known French author, born in Vietnam. It is a bit rundown but showed its mixed architecture with a European exterior & a Chinese interior. Moving on we passed a shop selling about 20-30 varieties of rice & visited a garden of a
rich bonsai tree collector.
Finally we visited a Cao Dao church/temple complex. The religion started in 1924 by a South Vietnamese man, apparently has 3 million followers in Vietnam. As a religion it tries to combine the best features of its predecessors, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity & Muslim but the architecture can best be described as eclectic & garish.
The boat moved on to Tan Chau about 15km east of the Cambodian border. After dinner we sat up on the sun deck & watched as we passed several barges carrying dredging excavators & the continuous river traffic, from large self propelled barges to tiny sampans with a lone fisherman.
Although the bed is big & comfortable d*** only slept fitfully. Jane diagnosed his problem as dehydration & insisted on getting him water with electrolytes etc & of course it worked well.
After breakfast we set off in Sampans to Cai Be to see a floating market before landing at a local RC church & then a sweet or candy factory where they made coconut lollies & rice paper. It was a break but we had been to a similar one previously & could have done without it again. We are all issued with radio receivers to listen to the guide but since his pronunciation is difficult to understand we only hear about 30% of the commentary if we concentrate hard.
Returning to the ship we had a lecture on the Mekong River but again it was hard to understand & d*** quit after an hour as he was too cold.
After lunch during which we moved on to Sa Dec & once again left in sampans to visit a street food market with masses of fresh, often live fish & shell fish meat & vegetables of all descriptions. Eventually we came to the house of a wealthy Chinese merchant who had been famous as a lover of Marguerite Duras a, well known French author, born in Vietnam. It is a bit rundown but showed its mixed architecture with a European exterior & a Chinese interior. Moving on we passed a shop selling about 20-30 varieties of rice & visited a garden of a
rich bonsai tree collector.
Finally we visited a Cao Dao church/temple complex. The religion started in 1924 by a South Vietnamese man, apparently has 3 million followers in Vietnam. As a religion it tries to combine the best features of its predecessors, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity & Muslim but the architecture can best be described as eclectic & garish.
The boat moved on to Tan Chau about 15km east of the Cambodian border. After dinner we sat up on the sun deck & watched as we passed several barges carrying dredging excavators & the continuous river traffic, from large self propelled barges to tiny sampans with a lone fisherman.
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