Mekong River

Life on the Mekong River

Kate and I explored some of the Mekong River on a cruise aboard the RV Mekong Prestige II in February, 2017. We were on an 8 day/7 night guided trip from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in the former South Vietnam. We have a large photo album from the trip if you are interested in following that link. Here I'll try to document the day to day adventures.

The cruise travelled with a sister ship the Mekong Pestige I (both are flagged out of Vietnam). The older ship had only French speaking travellers while ours had 41 German speakers and 14 English speakers with a bilingual German guide Matthias and excellent helpful staff who all had a good command of our two languages. Each day there would be some interesting town and sights to explore. Some days there were morning and afternoon excursions; some days we were travelling the river. Every night there was a lecture, film, or some other event on board. And it was a cruise so they take care of you and when all else fails there’s always food and drink to keep you entertained.

Thursday, February 16

We met our cruise at the Sokha Angkor Resort on the morning of Thursday, February 16. This very large and posh resort was a short Tuk Tuk ride from our much smaller and more modest digs at the Green Leaf Boutique hotel where we had stayed while exploring the Angkor Wat (and several others). During high water rainy season, when the Mekong floods Tonle Sap Lake,  it’s a short bus ride to meet up with the ship at the pier in Phnom Krom on Tonle Sap Lake. That’s nice as you get a day to explore life on the lake. It's the largest fresh water lake in all of South East Asia and in many ways the life blood of the Cambodian economy – the rice fields and fishing being the obvious.

We were travelling at the start of the dry season at low water when Tonle Sap drains back into the Mekong and unfortunately low water levels meant the ships could not navigate into the lake so our first day involved a bus trip to meet the ship down river at a town called Prek K'Dam. I think high water would be interesting as the flooding is extensive and crucial to the rice farming.

The bus trip did make a couple of stops. Once for a box lunch at a modest lakeside dining room, another at a village market where you could try (but not recommended by our guide) fried bugs of various sorts, tarantulas, spiders and other such "local" cuisine. Both had crappy crappers which required a coin to enter (who carries Cambodian coins?). Kate was not at all keen about the porcelain hole in the floor. How can you squat over these and keep your clothes clean. Men had it much easier -- they'd just piss discretely against an outside wall and not pay anything.

From Prek K'Dam, where we met our ship around 3:00 pm that afternoon, we navigated up the Tonle Sap river and anchored overnight near the town of Kampong Chhang which is very near the lake. 

Along the way we saw  lots of the daily life along the river: fishing with nets from narrow long boats, floating homes, livestock (like oxen and water buffalo), water pumps hammering away to flood rice fields, homes on stilts, homes on boats, homes on bamboo rafts, lots of little ferries that cross the Mekong (bridges are few and far between) and the daily rituals of bathing, cooking, etc. for those who live on the river. And there are lots who live along the river.

Friday, February 17

Friday morning breakfast we sit with a German couple at one of the tables by the window of the dining room. We ask "Do you mind if we join you?" and are met with silence. Hmm... this doesn't bode well. Was it something we said?

In Kampong Chhnang City, on the morning of Friday, February 17, we explored by our narrow long tender boats the very large floating Vietnamese fishing villages that populate the river. The town itself was very busy with crowded active streets, overloaded vehicles with passengers precariously perched on top, street vendors hawking food, farm workers winnowing rice and Buddhist monks out begging for their daily meal. Kate had the misfortune of yet another hole in the floor pissoir. We used to see these a lot in parts of Europe, they're still common in Cambodia.

Down river at Kampong Tralach the afternoon excursion involved an Ox cart ride to Wat Kampong Leu (one of the oldest temples in Cambodia that was abused by the Khmer Rouge) where a monk blessed those who wished to be blessed. We then had a bus ride to to Oudong (the former capitol) and visited the hilltop complex of the Vihara of Vipassana Center for another temple (this one far grander) and more blessings by monks. There's a reclining Buddha at that site that's comparable to the one in Bangkok (but not gilt with gold leaf).

Kate, who was still recovering from her cold that she brought with her from home and had already seen far too many Buddha’s in Thailand, stayed on board and missed the afternoon excursion.

Saturday-Sunday, February 18-19

At Phnom Penh, where the Tonle Sap River meets the Mekong Kate explored the Silk Island and the city while Reg nursed the cold that he had got from her. Back on board the staff insisted on nursing me back to health with hot ginger tea.

Kate tells me of a distressing encounter with on of the Germans at breakfast (I'm too sick to get out of bed). She's gone back to the buffet and picks up a piece of bread. A German fellow scolds her "Nicht mit der hande!" Hmm... this doesn't bode well either! Do you think we're children in need of etiquette lessons?

On the Silk Island: Kate and the rest of our troup visited a small grade school and met young children who were keen to practice their English; a silk weaving factory where the weavers worked manual looms (unlike the card-punch jacquard loom silk factory we visited later); road in rickshaws and enjoyed the scenary. In Phnom Penh that afternoon they had a free day to explore the city. The next day they visited the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda; toured the National Museum and visited the art-deco Central Market. Back on board we were entertained with some traditional Cambodian music and dance while at dinner Reg celebrated his 65^th birthday and the staff surprised him with a birthday cake. Matthias, the tour director, has everyone’s passport so birthday celebrations can’t be kept secret!

One of the not so nice things about Phnom Penh was the docking. Our two ships were lashed together at a floating dock. That meant that our balcony was right up against the balcony of the other ship and hence not very useful.

Monday, February 20

On our last day in Phnom Penh Reg felt well enough for a brief morning walk in the city (so he could really say that he had been there).  We didn’t see much and were almost run over by a Tuk Tuk driving on the wrong side of the road – you need to look both ways when you cross the street! Traffic in Phnom Penh was pretty wild but nothing compared to what we later found on the streets of Saigon.

Back on the sun deck we're on a pair of lounge chairs talking when a couple of chairs down a German woman scolds me (in German) for my snorking and snivelling (I guess she's never had a cold). I don't understand German but it's clear that she's telling me I'm "disgusting", ruining her day and to go get a Kleenex or better yet that I should go back to my room. This doesn't bode well at all! As the ever polite Canadian I apologize but I am pissed off. This won't do.

So, I write to my German speaking friends back home (we have a spotty internet connection on the ship) to learn how to politely tell a German to "Fuck off!" in preparation for the next encounter. They encourage me to not venture there, or, if I do, to stick to my native language. We decide that an informal "Maginot Line" is required and prepare our trenches. Fortunately we find comfort with our English speaking allies and no further hostilities are worthy of reporting.

Another struggle in Phnom Penh concerned our visas to enter Vietnam. Reg had purchased these on line and got the dates wrong by one day!  The staff on the ship handled this problem at the embassy in the city. It ended up that we had to pay for new visas. That ate up some of our American cash (I recall it cost around $75 each for the visas).

The rest of that day was a leisurely travel adventure down on the river into Vietnam with a stop anchored at the border while some of the ship’s staff went into a small port to deal with Vietnam’s customs and immigration.

Along the way we saw lots of fishing villages, fishermen in small narrow long boats, dredging for sand, modern boats laden with sand and older wooden boats laden with rice. Reg and a few others had a tour of the ship’s bridge – it’s quite a modern ship and well equipped with all the navigational aids one might need but navigation is largely by sight. Interestingly the bridge uses a joy stick rather than a wheel to steer the ship!  Others went to a chef’s carving lesson in the dining room but most of us spent the day on the sun deck enjoying the view and drinks from the bar. Kate and I played a lot of Scrabble on the sun deck.

We crossed under one of the very few bridges on the Mekong and anchored that night near the Vietnamese town of Tan Chau which we toured the next day.

Tuesday, February 21

Tan Chau is a large town on the Mekong in Vietnam with many ferries busy shuttling people back and forth across the river – there are no bridges. Morning finds us taking a tender into town where we meet up with bicycle powered rickshaws that take us on a long, but fairly quick, drive along the river to a silk factory where we have a lesson on silk production and the industrial weaving on mechanical jacquard looms where the pattern is controlled by punch cards. These are noisy old machines that clatter and bang away (you really need ear plugs) as the silk is weaved into lovely patterns controlled by the punched cards (they’d be about 2’x3’ big).  Jacquard looms are famous in the history of computing – there’s the story of the Luddites who rebelled and destroyed the looms back in the 19^th century.

At the store of this silk factory we bought some silk shirts for our men friends and some silk kimonos for our women friends back home.

After the silk factory another rickshaw rides takes us to a sedge mat weaving factory – the mats are used as sleeping mats. The weaving is mechanical but a person is manually inserting strips of sedge as the loom hammers away – a tedious job for sure. From there we walk through backyards and green gardens to the river where we meet up with our tender. The tender takes us to one of the many floating fish farms on the Mekong where we have a good look at our dinner – Kate is not keen about fish farming and even less so now.

The rest of the day is a leisurely trip south on the river to the Mekong delta town of Sa Dec. Along the way we now recognize the many fish farms we see on the river.

Wednesday, February 22

At the Mekong delta town of Sa Dec, the morning excursion by tender takes us to a Cao Dai temple. It’s low tide and more than a little awkward getting off the tender as there is no dock or pier at the temple. Some of our group could not manage the rough, rocky shore and waited while the rest toured the temple.

Cao Dai (literally the "Highest Lord" or "Highest Power") is the supreme deity, believed by Caodaists to have created the universe. The symbol of the faith is the Left Eye of God which looks very much like the symbol over the pyramid on the American dollar bill. This uniquely Franco-Vietnamese monotheistic religion sees itself as a merger of everything that’s gone before. One of the oddities is they consider Victor Hugo (the French author) as one of their three founding saints. The religion was founded in South Vietnam in 1926 and, not too surprisingly, was persecuted (perhaps it still is). Currently it’s an accepted religion in Vietnam and recognized by the government since 1997.

The temple is colorful, very garish with lots of neon – a bit of Las Vegas meets Buddha at a Chinese Temple with a Hindu fruit offering thrown in to keep it real. There’s a very FALSE story that Charlie Chaplin is revered as well – that’s simply not true! ... or if true it's only partly true. The Wikipedia article on Caodaism says:

"Reports that Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin were also "saints" are based on an inaccurate 1956  Time magazine article, since both of them were still alive at the time (and lived for several more decades)".

Afterwards we walked some of the downtown streets of Sa Dec including the busy market area and then visited the “Lover’s House”. This is an ornate home from the French colonial period where the French writer Marguerite Duras lived between 1928 and 1932. Duras as a 15-year-old schoolgirl met Huynh Thuy Le, 27, the son of a wealthy Chinese family and a love affair followed. Neither family approved of the relationship. She later wrote about it and the story was made into a film.

Downriver that day at Cai Be we passed through a floating market and visited a Catholic Cathedral  – a reminder of the French Colonial past. From there we walked a short distance on village streets and visited a candy factory where they were making popped rice candy squares and coconut toffees.  This was a busy family affair with everyone involved from toddlers through to adults. Along with the candies, they were also brewing and distilling rice liquor and selling the ubiquitous snake wine -- we men sampled some (apparently it’s a good tonic for men).  Reg was reluctant to try it but did.  The snakes are supposed to be venomous but we understand that many of them are in fact just plastic toys.  We also saw a lady making rice paper (the kind you soak in water to make spring rolls). After our tour we had some time to sample the candies and tea ... to help wash the snake liquor away!

That evening was the last night on the ship. We had a lovely dinner with our Norwegian friends. The dinner was plated inside the typical straw hats you see so often in pictures of Vietnam (our friend Inger had bought one from a street peddler when we visited the cathedral that morning). Dessert was a “Baked Alaskan” with a chocolate “Thank You” written across the plate.

The evening entertainment was a final goodbye from all the staff and crew on the boat who had taken such good care of us.

Thursday, February 23

The last day of the tour, February 23, had us disembarking at My Tho on the Mekong delta for a morning bus tour to Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon), Vietnam. This part of the tour had a couple of stops along the way.

The first stop was an ornate Chinese temple with colorful , huge and interesting incense burning away (some were huge smoldering sticks, others where large hanging spirals and of course lots of the smaller incense stick we see here). We took a group photo there of our English speaking friends.

The last stop, before being dropped at a downtown hotel, was a lacquer factory where they make that highly polished furniture and art work with inlays of egg shell, mother of pearl, etc. There were several “Picasso” inspired pieces that really impressed me.

The bus tour ended shortly after noon at the Sofitel Plaza in the central district of Ho Chi Minh  City – another posh resort well beyond our means. We took a taxi from there to the “I am Vietnam” hotel (now renamed the “Lief”) not far from the central city.