I was picked up from my hotel and I and a number of other passengers were deposited at a dock on Sisowath Quay. In total 9 of us boarded a low slung river boat with capacity of about 50. We had plenty of room. Our passports were gathered, which concerned me a bit, but as we had a border crossing ahead of us it was a reasonable thing to do. The boat left the Quayside and after a quick return for some left luggage we were off. We soon entered the Mekong river. Phnom Penh is built at the convergence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong and I think the Bassac.
I was sailing down the Mekong! A river of myth and legend and explorers and impending environmental disasters. The mighty Mekong!
The current flows quite fast and soon the skyline of Phnom Penh was shrinking behind us and then dissapearing into the rain that came down. We cruised at a fair pace to the border, a trip of about 4 hours. On the way we passed small villages, flooded land, fishermen and large clumps of floating vegetation carried along in the current. At times you could see the river boiling as it encountered objects underneath. This would not be a safe river to swim in.
Our passports were returned and we stopped at the Cambodian border post for exit procedures. At this stage we had a change of boat as our boat would return to PP with passengers travelling up river from Vietnam. A short trip and then we disembarked again to have our Visas checked and passports stamped to enter Vietnam. On this side of the river, large dredging operations were going on and shortly the buildings on the bank became more city looking and we entered a channel leading away from the Mekong.
This channel was relatively narrow and afforded lots of photo opportunities of the houses on the banks and passing boats. After an hour and a half along here we came to Chau Doc itself.
My home for the night was the Mekong floating Hotel run by Delta Adventures. I was talked into paying an extra $5 for airconditioning, I had already paid an extra single supplement. As it was pretty empty I would have had the room to myself anyway. Suffice to say that this is budget accommodation, while clean the heads (the nautical term for toilet) still smelt and the cabin was small. My room had a fan, aircon and a mosquito net covering the bed. I also had a little private balcony with views of the river and nearby ferry. I took some lovely sunrise photos from here the next morning.
It was now about 3:30pm so I ventured out for a walk around the town. At one point I was talked into an hour long boat ride around the far bank of the river. This is a local "Cham" community. The people are Muslims and live on floating houses on the river banks. They breed fish for a living in pens that are built under their houses. Anyway for the $5 that it was going to cost me I took the offer up.
I was sculled across the river in a small open boat, barely more than a floating platform, whereupon an old man came aboard and took over the sculling duties. He spoke no english. I was taken through the "back waters" of the villages and could look into the houses and see people leading their daily lives. Young children would shout hello and wave. I waved back. We came to one of the fish farms and I boarded. The guide showed me an open pen in the house and then fed the fish from a sack of fish meal. This caused a feeding frenzy with lots of splashing, at one stage even the guide stood back to avoid being splashed. I could not work out how the fish are restrained as the houses truly are afloat and a marker that I saw indicated large rises and falls in river level.
Becoming bored with that we moved on and I was taken through more houses. I saw racks of filleted fish drying in the sun. I also saw the remaining bones being ground up and fed into what looked like boilers. Finally it dawned on me that they were making fish sauce with the remains.
We came ashore and visited a temple. As I have no knowledge of the Muslim religion it made no sense to me. On the way back to the boat I had to run a gauntlet of souvenir shops where I bought 2 more scarves, made from a combination of silk and cotton. I was assured that these were made in the village and I was shown the weaving loom to prove it. I have my doubts and I also now have a collection of scarves that i won't wear and are pretty useless to me. Add those to the sarongs at home.
Not content with that I continued my walk and strolled through the local street markets. It was typical of what I had seen to date and had the usual fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, fish and household goods. I bought some peanuts, not out of need but a desire to at least have some interaction with locals.
Chau Doc does not get much of a mention in the travel guides, but it did look like it was a thriving city with somethings to offer for a day or two for a tourist. One thing that I noticed here is that the kids are really anxious to say hello to a white stranger. Generally they did that from the safety of their parents arms, but I got lots of hellos, a few handshakes and some high fives. I could tell by the looks that I received that a person of European decent is still a novelty here.
I made my way back to the hotel with a cooling beer and dinner in mind.
Nick Smith
Nick@nicksmith.info
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