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I'm in Vietnam! To pick up pretty much right where I left off, I packed up my bags in Phnom Pehn and grabbed a bus headed to Vietnam, and who should I see the second I climb onboard, but Peter! The Swiss dude that I'd already run into twice! How does that happen. If we're on the same route, that's one thing, but the cities are so big, how do you keep seeing the same person over and over again? I just don't get it.
Anyway, Peter and I, plus a sweet French couple, a crazy German and London, an awesome professional photographer from Colorado, headed off to the border. We ended up on the roof of a boat with some really rude Italians and a couple of cutters for about 2 hours until we hit the border. It is so funny that my mom just mentioned the cutters in China in her blog, because London and I were just flabbergasted by the audacity of this couple. The entire group of us from the boat, maybe 25 or 30 people would be standing in line to get on the boat or get our passport stamped, and they would just walk directly to the front of the line, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the group. They didn't look like they even knew they were doing anything rude! I think they were also Italians actually. That country took a beating that day in my opinion.
Thankfully, after the border, the 6 of us got our own personal boat for the 6 of us, plus San, a funky little Vietnamese lady with a child's sense of humor. She kept tapping one of us on the shoulder and pretending she didn't, then would laugh hysterically when we looked around and would point to whoever was sitting next to her. She was still pretty cool though, she took us down a shortcut through some narrow canals where we all obsessed over our cameras trying to take 50 shots a minutes. I think only London succeeded there. I was just so excited that Vietnamese people wear those conical hats! I thought that was an old stereotype that I'd gotten from the movies or something, but no, it's true, you'll have to check out the pictures I put on here to see for yourself.
When we arrived in Chau Doc, London and I grabbed a room together then hit the streets in search of Vietnamese food. We found some immediately and just started pointing at things as the woman behind the cart piled them onto plates. I grabbed my chopsticks and prepared to dig into the heaps of noodles, spring rolls and fried pork, but the woman stopped me, grabbed a lettuce leaf and threw all of the above items into it, rolled it up, dipped it in sauce and hand fed me the first bite. Oh I am obviously such an ignorant traveller that I definitely needed to be fed by a local. I could hardly chew for laughing, and London was cracking up as well. We ate very well that day and walked away very full and satisfied with our first local meal. Sadly though, I think it was a combination of light sunburn, dehydration and unfamiliar food, but that night was the first I'd been travel sick this trip. And that is just never a pleasant experience, no matter where you are or who you're with.
In the evening however, we sallied forth once again, because San had told us she would take us and the French couple out to karaoke! A bar with a real live Vietnamese person! How very Asian. We listened to the singers, some good, some bad, and it cracked me up because if you like the singer, you can go up to them while they are singing and hand them a paper flower from the basket next to the stage. So by the end, some people have a handful of fake flowers in one hand, which I believe makes them sing all the harder, but when they finish, they just dump the flowers back in the bucket for the next person to (hopefully) receive.
The next day, London and I took off for our first real tourist destination of the country, Can Tho. We checked out the city a bit, there isn't much of it, and signed us up for a tour of the Delta. The next morning we woke up at 530am to see the sunrise. Our boat driver, Hang, took us to his own house for that, where his wife made us tea and his dog jumped around excitedly. Soon we were out on the river, Hang, his wife Ha, the dog DoLa, London and I, and we were happily snapping pictures of the life along the banks. We checked out two floating markets too, which were very cool. I had thought that floating markets were something like flotillas lashed together where you get out and wander around looking at their wares, but it was actually just everybody in their little boats with produce piled in front of them. If there was a mast on the boat, they would tie an example of what they were selling high up on one to advertise what fruits and vegetables they were selling. So the boats just float around bumping into each other until someone sees what they want and begin purchasing. It was a totally cool experience.
Hang also took us to see a rice noodle factory, (he said factory and I thought of a big building. It was actually one family in their barn making noodles for the whole city), a crocodile farm and a rice wine factory (one person alone) before heading back home again, where he and Ha invited us to eat lunch with them in their home! Wow, that was cool. We ate on the floor, and Hang kept serving up little thimblefulls of banana wine (ich) and we spent the afternoon eating noodles and fish. Meanwhile their 16 year-old son kept coming through the room. First he was like "gee look, there are foreigners here." The second time he'd taken his shirt off. The third time, he'd apparently just finished oiling himself up and fixed his hair. London and I had to contain our laughter as he kept looking to see if we were watching him. We were, but probably not for the reason he was going for.
That was a great day and a perfect intro to Vietnam. We will probably do something similar in Vinh Long, the next city on our itinerary. :)
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