Everything started in Saigon where after early breakfast we boarded a boat and headed to see a floating market. It is truly an intelligent idea to have a market on the water in Vietnam as there seems to be more water than dry land.
After a quick tour around we were taken to a nearby village where we saw hand crafted production of rice paper and coconut candies. Oh my god those candies where so great that we had to buy them, imagine a coconut caramel candy with a nut in it's heart and everything wrapped in edible rice paper hmmmm... Delicious... Thanks god we still have some as we only allow ourselves to bite one or two per day...
After our visit to the "goodies village" we hopped back on the board and traveled down the river to our next destination, a small island where we were welcomed with a simple but nutritcious lunch and a concert of the local traditional music afterwards. Then after few more hours on the boat and one extra bus ride we made it to our overnight destination - Chau Doc - a total hole; nothing interesting can be said about it, okay maybe except a big fish statue found in the center of this forgotten by civilization place.
Day 2 started with a trip by a small local boats, 2 people plus 1 crew to the river district where were floating houses. Once again you could see how Vietnamese took advantage of vast areas covered by water and built their houses on boats or anything that floats on the water and works as a relatively stable base for a house. Inside those floating houses you can basically find: TV, small Budha corner and a hammock working as a bed. Bathroom and kitchen are to be found outside of the dwelling. Suprisingly people inhabiting those water residences seemed to be far more happy than Montreal's Hampstead residents, but maybe it was only an impression of the traveller.
Later on we visited ethnic minority Cham village and from there we took a bigger boat to Cambodia border with another 4 fellow travellers. At the border we grabbed a quick snack at the local bistro and caught another boat, this time far more crowded. Despite the large number of travellers we managed to secure the two best spots on the boat where throughout the full length of our trip, about 4 hr, we comfortably lied on the wooden deck and observed the beauty of the Cambodian landscape. We felt a bit like two GI as it reminded us of a few movies about American soldiers travelling on small cruisers through the jungle of south Vietnam and Cambodia.
The final stretch of our trip consisted of a minibus trip from the boat pickup spot to Phnom Penh. On the way our Mercedes minibus broke and our driver, without any concern or even surprise glaze on his face, removed the radio console of dashboard that covered the engine and engaged in process of fixing the broken clutch. It was really impressive to observe him doing a $500 job according to Montreal's pricing standards in 10 min using basically only his hands and a small piece of metal.
By the late evening, getting through a traffic jam caused by massive inflow of Cambodians arriving from different parts of the country to Capital city to celebrate the birthday of the King's father, we finally arrived at Phnom Penh. After a quick shower at our hotel we went for a short tour around the city before we submerged in long and quiet sleep at our hotel.
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