From Chau Doc to Cantho

Well up and atom at 6am for our free bread and jam, that wasn’t really free because I had to pay ten thousand dong for it. Hey you, don’t tell me I’m getting a free breakfast, make me choose between bread & jam or bread and cheese and then make me pay for it!! Jaysus.

Anywho, a big load of us were shambled down the road to the pier. Most of the heads were going to Cambodia (back the way we had just came) so they were on a different boat. Us two were on our own little boat with three weird ladies. We headed off to visit a fish farm on the Hau Giang River.

There are around 1000 fish farms around the river in Chau Doc. The fish farmers live on wooden houses that float on the river on big barrels. The fishermen collect fish eggs and breed up to 400 tonnes of fish a year underneath their gaffs. The eggs grow into small fish, which are fed lots of fish food until they are 6 months old. Once they’re bigger, they’re moved into a different tub underneath the gaff and fed fresh food (spinach and stuff) every day until they’re big enough to sell to the market. They usually breed two types of fish, a pinky one which sells for 4 dollars per kilo in the market and another white fish, which sells for 2 dollars per kilo. Because the river is so polluted, (within three minutes I saw one girl washing her hair in the water and around the corner a young fellow was doing a turd in the water) quite a few of the fish die. Twice a day, the fisher dude has to sweep the tubs to remove the dead fish before they start to float on the top of the water. It was quite interesting. (Lisa)

After the fish farm, it was back to the boat and onto a Cham minority village. To be honest, I didn’t really understand much of what the guide was saying, and her upper lip was very sweaty but she was very friendly. We docked at a small area of land at the side of the river an were immediately set upon by aboot 10 little kids. They were all selling pastry cake things and asking us for money or a pen or failing that a piece of gum. We bought one little waffley cake that was as dry as a nuns knickers but we chomped it down approvingly. The main focal point was this house on stilts under which a girl was weaving silk scarfs and had many on display for purchase or funny photos. She was a Cham girl, Chams are muslims but they don’t have to wear the head scarf and are educated with normal Vietnamese but have their own lil traditions. The house on stilts had a water line measure along the side of it showing the water lever of the Mekong from previous years. In 2003 it was about 6ft higher than normal and people lost a lot of crops.

As we were leaving, the tour woman pointed out what looked like a pink licourice allsort attached to a leaf in the water and told us it was a SLUG in its cocoon. When we got back to the port we were the only ones to get the bus onto Cantho. Not understanding the ladies instructions from earlier, and she was no longer around, we presumed we should make our way back to the hotel were our bags were left and get the bus from there. We decided to jump on one of those little carriages pulled by an old man on a bike. LOL he was about 70 and the carriage was only big enough for one and a half western ass. Soooo I (Jim) sat in the back Lisa threw her legs off the front bit and on we went…. huffing and phuffing to the hotel. But once we got there, we were told we “get bus from port”. Ah Jaysus. (our cycle guy rubbed his hands together) so a 5 minute cycle later we were on our way on a lil bus with some grumpy guide.(Jim)

Aboot half an hour later the bus was stopping for ‘five’ mins. Yahahaha right. The bus tyre needed to be changed, so we sat out in the sun for a half an hour, dangling our legs over the river in an effort to tempt some crocs up to the surface but to no avail.

After the tyre was fixed, it was back to snoozing in the bus on our way to Cantho. We were supposed to stop at an incense stick factory but we didn’t. Upon arrival at Cantho, the ‘guide’ just ran out of the bus. Not a word! Weird. So we checked in to quite a nice hotel actually. (clean, toilet paper, mozzie net, bish, bosh, bang).

We grabbed our brolly and head out to face the pouring rain. Along the way we got stopped by some lunatic named Malcolm who was selling bric-a-brac. He was speaking very fast and I dunno what the hell he was on aboot. Something about ‘white rice being poison’, ‘tomatoes are good’, ‘you don’t have this in your country’, ‘I don’t like being in Vietnam, my son is in California, with four degrees ‘(Aren't they a band??) .. etc etc.. We bought something off him and did a legger once the rain was gone. Then we set about getting lost in the streets of Cantho.

Eventually, after much hair wringing and flipping the map aboot, we found our way to a restaurant that served some western cuisine (woohoo) and promptly ordered Vietnamese food. (lol)

After lunch we crossed the road to take a picture of the Ho Chi Minh statue. The statue is a silver colour and likened to the Tin Man (from the wizard of oz) by westerners. Vietnamese, obviously, don’t like this comparison.
Then we headed up to take a look at the Ho Chi Minh Museum, but alas it was closed.

So we strolled back to our gaf to get out of the heat (I didn’t feel too well. I attributed my pains in my stomach to the fact that I had crispy noodles for lunch and beer. I reckon the beer soaked the noodles inside my belly and made them balloon. No more crispy noodles says I)
I fell asleep again! (eek) and later we went out for ‘a snack’. We ended up at this restaurant that served cow, pork, mouse, snake, mudfish, gobyfish, cuttlefish, squid, crab and basically everything else that I didn’t really want to eat. I ordered some fried rice and Jim got some beef. We also ordered some spring rolls as we hadn’t tried them yet. They were quite delicious. (although I suspect there was pork in them)

After dinner, we sauntered back to the gaff and started to get out of our sweaty clothes when I realised I had lost my Buddha Beads!!!! NOOOOOO
So we trekked back to the restaurant and there they were sitting on the floor. Phewf! They must have dropped out of my pocket when I was peering at the snakes in the glass box!

So back again and off with the sweaty t shirts. It was time for showers and cold coca cola. (Lisa)yum