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We got the morning off today since we’re headed to Vietnam and have to cross the border. So everyone needs to stay on the boat. We are finally on the Mekong but as it turns out we won’t be for long. A large group congregated on the sun deck and watched the last of Cambodia go by.
We got to the border, which has no identification on the water. Just a building with a Vietnamese flag on it. But I guess if you’re going back and forth, you know. And I imagine someone is watching too. We dropped anchor and waited for the border patrol. They showed up on a fishing boat with no uniforms or anything. Later during the kroma demonstration (the iconic scarf the Cambodians wear), Bros would tell us that anyone we see might be a government official or a spy and he used the border people as an example. For us, the tour took care of everything and we just happily sat enjoying the scenery while all the formalities took place.
While that was happening, some people (from the boat?) brought out some items for shopping – shirts, pants, skirts, scarves and the like. People on the boat love to shop, Marion included, and she found a skirt and a pair of pants to buy ($20 for both!)
We all started gathering on the sun deck as 10:30 approached because we were going to get a demonstration. As it turned out, everyone but us was seated around the big table in the middle. We were off to the front and the side by ourselves. Bob said it looked like we were seated at the kiddy table. It was pretty funny.
Later in the morning, the head of the tour and Bros gave us a kroma demonstration. The kroma is the scarf that is part of the traditional Cambodian garb (think about all the Khmer Rouge pictures you’ve seen where they’re wearing red checkered scarfs). The demonstration was to show us all the ways people use the kroma and there are more than you might think. There are multiple ways to create head coverings (bandana style, newspaper hat style, Arabic hijab style). You can fold and tie the sides to make a shopping bag, or in a slightly different way to be a baby carrier. There are various ways to tie it around your neck for decoration or to be available for sweating and can be tied around your waist as a cover to wear instead of pants when it’s hot, or as a protective screen when you need to ‘use the jungle’ for a bathroom, and you can even do kind of a diaper for when you need to climb up something or be able to run. It can be a belt in various ways, like to hold a knife when you climb a palm tree for palm syrup or, as Bros uses it, as kind of a fanny pack to hold his cell phone when he runs. Very creative and fun to see.
One of the last examples he mentioned was for women who were wearing dresses on important days who wanted to get a blessing from a monk. You would bow in front of the monk for this and if your dress is loose at the neck (which I guess the traditional dresses are), you can inadvertently expose your breasts to the monk. A ‘bow wow’ as Bros called it. Funny. So you can wrap the kroma in a way to keep that from happening. Too bad for the monks. But since they are celibate, it’s probably for the best.
We left the Mekong and headed down a canal that would take us to Chou Doc. Things look a bit different in Vietnam but not dramatically so far. The big difference is people wear the conical straw hats here. It’s not the custom in Cambodia. And no kromas.
We came in to Chou Doc harbor. It was a 15-minute exercise to dock the boat – back and forth and back for some reason. But we managed it. Although later on we undocked and repositioned again. I don’t know what the issue was.
In the afternoon we took an excursion into town to see some temples and the Mekong Delta. Our new Vietnamese guide is Doung (pronounced Young) who is really a woman but identifies as a man. Not that that makes any difference but Bros told us multiple times beforehand so we’d be prepared. We drove down a new road that he was very proud of. And I guess if you don’t have many roads, a new road is something to celebrate. We stopped at the edge of a village and took a quick walk through, along a canal on the edge of rice patties. Then back in the van for the drive up Sand Mountain.
Unfortunately, the road up the mountain was under construction. A good thing from Doung’s perspective, in the sense that now there will be a nice road up the hill. But that’s the longer term view. The shorter term view was a bumpy ride up a twisty-turny road. But we started to get views of the Mekong Delta and it’s pretty amazing. Unfortunately again, we didn’t stop at any of those views. We got to the top which has trees and shops and what not and a VERY limited view of one area of the delta. So it was not really worth the ride to the top.
Except for one thing. There was a guy there with a cage of little birds. We had seen cages of birds like this in Cambodia and had been reluctant to ask about them because we were afraid we’d discover they were some kind of delicacy. But it turns out it’s much nicer than that. For a dollar you are handed two birds and you set them free. It’s for good luck. Marion (and a bunch of other people) decided to do it. And it was actually quite emotional and made her feel really good. So a dollar well spent. The fact that the birds come back in the evening because they know they’ll be fed and are put in the cage to be sold again tomorrow did not lessen the feeling. It really seems like a win-win to me.
There used to be a statue at the top of the hill of what amounts to the patron saint of the area, not that they think of it in those terms. At some point a bunch of strong men carried the statue down into town and built a temple around it. This statue supposedly brings good luck to business and people from all over Vietnam come to town (especially around Tet, the New Year) to visit and donate money which supposedly brings them good luck. I don’t know if it does, but what I do know is it’s good luck for the businesses in Chou Doc. Thousands of people a year come to visit. There are huge bins in the temple for donations and in fact it’s the only temple in Vietnam where the government has provided security because so much money is donated. The government takes the money (it’s a communist country after all). I assume the people know this. But it doesn’t matter. It’s big business.
The temple itself is ok. The statue is gaudy (polished white) and is sitting in front of a set of colored lights that would not be out of place off the strip in Vegas or something. Very cheesy. The whole things smacks of a scam and is one of the things I don’t like about religion. But don’t get me started.
We walked across the street to another temple. This one was dedicated to a guy who was instrumental in bringing infrastructure (canals, bridges) to Vietnam in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, right around the start of the French era. He and his wife are buried in front of the temple and the temple itself has about all the red and gold you’d ever want in one place surrounding a large gold sculpture of this guy’s head. Subtle. But anyway, I liked it better than the ‘great lady’ temple.
We took the van back towards the boat and stopped at one more temple. This one was a Buddhist temple. It was quite beautiful on the outside — yellow and white with lots of ornamentation. Very different from the Cambodian ones. We didn’t go in because we didn’t want to have to take off our shoes (again). But I got a picture from the doorway. More of the same. Enough with the temples now.
Back to the boat but before we boarded, Marion and I and a few of the ladies decided to take a walk down the main street along the river before it got dark. There’s a nice park along the river and lots of people out using it. They have (I assume for rent) a bunch of little electric toy cars for the kids to ride. They looked like fun.
One boy, about 10 maybe, came up and said hello. Then asked my name and where I was from. Then asked what kind of food we had in the US. I told him cheeseburgers and pizza. I was waiting to find out what he was selling but it turned out he just wanted to practice his English (which was quite good). He wanted to “talk with us for 30 minutes” but unfortunately, we didn’t have the time. We needed to get back to the boat before the mosquitoes (the size of chickens according to our guide) came out. So we begged off, but not before telling him how good his English was, which he seemed to like and thanked us. A very nice polite young man. Given what Bros had said about spies being everywhere and in every disguise, we thought maybe, given all the questions about our background…, but probably not.
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