Crossing the Border into Cambodia

Today we shall cross the border into Cambodia, and surprisingly it is all going to be done for us. We shall just lounge around o the ship while poor Hung the leader will deal with all the red tape and our passports and our money for visas etc. He said they very rarely ever come over to the ship to check anything, but on this occasion they did. Not much of a problem, they didn't stay long, maybe just wanted to get out of the office for a while. We all get our visa and are through safe and sound.

Before we had the big excitement of the border crossing there was another  big excursion for us .We are to visit Tan Chau, still in Vietnam.




We go there by small boats,past lots of shanty type houses along the river built on stilts, when we land there are rickshaws awaiting us, nice we all enjoy going places by rickshaw, its so leisurely only just above walking pace so you see everything. i took a photo of the local barber at work as we past by and a lovely garden at another place.






A rooster seller in another place

Today we are visiting a family run Silk weaving factory, and boy is it noisy in there and dangerous all the big looms are working flat-out making a big order of heavy patterned material for what looks like curtains, very pretty all in a deep cream colour.

I had said to Erle before we went that we should  buy a silk shirt each as we would never get silk cheaper than at the weavers, however they are not making shirts today, but out the back is a shop selling shirts and blouses and scarves and lots of other stuff, so we select a nice one each 100% silk and only $10US each, it did come out as more like $15US by time exchange is  added but that's an amazing price for a nice silk blouse.
Back in the rickshaw which were not a comfortable as most rickshaws are, along the street to a Sleeping Mat factory. We go past many rattan mats on side of the road with the families rice crop drying in the sun.



 The sleeping mats  are made of  rattan type material all died bright colours, Woven on big nosy looms on site  Erle has some of the bright greet on his shirt to remind him of the visit, as he brushed against a newly dyed bundle of strips of rattan, or long leaves of some kind. They also have a shop selling things but none of us fancy sleeping on a thin rattan mat thank you!








We leave the factory out the back door and walk through houses on poles to lift them above the flood level of the Mekong River, children run after us to say Hello and hope for sweets from us, which we gave freely. Then we walked through rice paddy fields along the narrow raised walking tracks, dodging the inevitable scooters that race towards us. Just as we get back to the boats a sudden gust of wind hit and the guide said hurry, it is about to rain hard, and so it did, but by then we were all under the shelter of the boat.
Still one more stop before the morning is over. It is on to an Evergreen Island in the river, there is a bridge for access too, our long boat docks beside it and we all go for a walk on the island amid the rice feilds and small houses we are taken to the village shop, one of those places that sell everything you can think of. Some og our party buy sweets for the children, insuring our visit is remembered for quite a while. We are told to go talk to people so I went to a house up the street that had 2 full size pool tables in the ground level, which would have to be lifted when the river floods as it does every year. I am invited to sit down in the soft chair and offered a drink, had my own drink bottle which I drank from while I chatted with the few words we know and hand signals. I was made very welcome. The pool tables were their source of income. You can see them under the lean-to beside the green and white house.


A mobile fruit seller soon came to see us hopefully.

Back to the ship for lunch and to rest while Hung does he thing getting us all a visa to Cambodia.
After lunch we can just laze or take cooking lessons or learn fruit carving. I chose to carve fruit and it turned out I was quite good at this. All those years of hand work went I was a book binder helped me make the delicate cuts and slices so to turn an apple into a beautiful bird and a tomato into a pretty rose with cucumber leaves and stalks.
Then we are treated to an Ice Cream Party, yum we are all there for this, about a dozen dif ice creams many yum sauces and another dozen different sprinkles and fancy toppings. I can tell you Coconut Ice cream with choc sauce and star cacheau sprinkles is extremely nice. Pity we can't get coconut flavour at home.
There an important briefing
 with Hung tonight before dinner to tell us what is planned for the next few days and after dinner we are to learn a little about Pol Pot the maniac who killed so many of his country men.
After dinner it is movie night but as the movie is about Pol Pot and his regime we decide to skip it and instead got out the DVD of the movie made around here called the Lovers. it was sexy but ok, not a lot of dialogue.

Visiting Cai Be and Sa Dec Vietnam

Our day starts early as has every day so far, at just after 7am, time to get ourselves ready for our usual big beautiful breakfast before meeting in the lounge at 8.30am put on our lifejackets and board the tender for our trip to Cai Be a small city on the Mekong River where the market is a floating one on a small side shoot of the river. Lots of boats are on the water to sell their wares and they do so by advertising what they are selling by hanging samples of their fruit or vegetables on the end of a long poles and customers use boats to come our and buy from them.
We sail through the edge of this market and land right beside a Gothic Cathedral, all rather colourful and interesting.







Next we we visit a family business where Coconut candy is made. It is very hot inside because there are very hot little furnaces going to cook the candy, it requires high heat and must be stirred frequently. Smells lovely and we can't wait to try some of the goodies. We watch girls handling the freshly made coconut toffee/caramel which is now set is soft blocks, it is cut up into tiny pieces and the girls wrap it so quickly. We have a try but are not very successful.. Then we are served with  green tea and ginger pieces and ofcause coconut candy. Yum it is lovely smooth and sweet. But I decide to buy the ginger Jam pieces, mainly because my tummy is a bit upset and I am sure the ginger will help settle it.
The men then take us aside and show us their special Snake Bite Whisky, it looks revolting with a snake floating in the bottle, The men all try it and survive so the ladies also had a try..... its very strong rough liquor but it goes down ok.
Time to head back to the ship for lunch on the small boat tenders. After a nice lunch we are off again in the small boat, this time we head for Sa Dec this time we visit a brick works, it has been on the same site for many years, decade I would say as there are 2 or 3 old now unused kilns. The kiln are heated by rice husks that are shovelled in through a tiny opening, they burn fiercely and cook the clay bricks and tiles. The burnt remains are dumped beside the river where it will be swept away the next flood.


We watch ladies dragging hand carts full of heavy wet clay tiles to load into the kiln they do so very easily so I had a try lifting 3 at a time like they do and my fingers could not hold the tiles let alone lift them on to the conveyer belt into the kiln. Very hard working women.
Back on the small boat again and we head to Sadec town where there is a huge local market going, selling all the usual fruit and vege and also frog, rats, chicken,snakes, fish of all kinds and sizes.




 In front of us the sell skinned the frog alive, much to our distress and hacked the fish to pieces while still alive, all this offended us greatly and we moved quickly on only to watch chickens having their throats hacked open and left to die in a drum! Such cruelty didn't go down too well with us, but it is their way so just walk away.






This market is in a narrow street still used by cars and scooters as well as all the on foot shoppers and us, it was quite a dangerous place to wander, had to keep your eyes and ears open or you would be mowed down.

We are on route to a special old house that was used to make a movie called the Lovers a true story of the area, a French girl and a high ranking local prince that ofcause was ill fated, very nice well kept old home.
One of the others took my photo in the doorway.

Still we are on the move, next it is to Cao Dai Temple a sacred site for the Vietnamese people. By now we are all tired and hot and bothered, it has been threatening to rain all day but no rain fell, it was just oppressively hot. It was pleasant to be inside the very interesting.Temple






It is still not the end of this busy day, we head back to the ship and prepare for Cocktails hour and a briefing from our tour manager, before dinner on board ship while listening to a talented pianist playing all kinds of music for us. Before finally its time to fall into bed. No worries about whether we sleep or not!

First night on the Amalotus cruise

Our first night on the Amalotus cruise included a big welcome dinner that we are to dress up for, so we did.
A wonderful banquet it turned out to be too, we all enjoyed a wonderful meal with delicious cocktails and good company.
After the beautiful meal we meet the big Tour Manager Hong who gives us a breifing of what we shall be doing over the next few days, he shows us slides of various things along the way. Then he tells us to relax and enjoy a traditional folkloric performance from Vietnam dancers and musicians all dressed in beautiful costumes . It is very good too there was a monkey dancing around among the lady dancers wearing a fancy pottery mask carrying a sharp looking dagger.
 We all linger to watch and some are kind of dragged up to give it a go doing some of the dances.... fortunately not me or Erle!
Was a lovely evening a good start to our Mekong cruse. But quite a late one, for us, plus plenty of wine and cocktails, we shall sleep well tonight.

Our Mekong River Cruise begins.

Today our big river cruise up the Mekong River will start on the 'Amalotus' We have all been looking forward to this, but before we leave for the ship we get to enjoy another big breakfast and then we have one of our freedom of choice activities, for today Erle and I have chosen a nice simple walk around Saigon with a guide who knows the city. At least we shan't get lost!

Quite a few of us have chosen this guided walk, first stop is the Central  Post Office a huge building, with little shops and stalls inside of it, very handy we all have a good look at the wares. I am wishing we had our post cards all written out  ready to send home, but no they are still waiting for us to get a few spare moments, but we enjoyed having a look in this vast Post Office.



Next stop in right across the road the Catholic Notre Dame Cathedral, another amazingly huge building, built by the French as was the PO, in a French style, Church is open and we have a good look inside, its nice and cool inside too.

We see lots of street sellers setting up their wares and small shops that look interesting. Orange ducks hang waiting customers in many cabinets, wonder what they taste like?

To get to the buildings we have to cross streets that are very busy with traffic so it is a great chance to practice our crossing roads in Vietnam  act., like sticky rice we stay together and walk at a slowish measured pace and let the traffic all go around us. It is scarer y but it works.

We are shown the tallest building with a helipad built into the side of it, very modern. No sign of any helicopters today.

We were meant to see the Opera House but we took too long in our wandering so its back to hotel get our suitcases down ready to leave on the buses, 4 of them now, our group has grown from 46 people to 115 a huge number, not going to be able to get to know many of that big crowd, besides they have all been travelling together around China also with APT so they know each other well just as our group does.
Off on the bus and it doesnt take long to get to the 'Amalotus' docked right beside the road, we board and find we have a lovely cabin on the dining deck, we have a nice balcony but it is so hot outside that maybe we shall not is outside for long. This cabin is a lot larger than on the previous ship.
As I am going past the reception I hear Virginia making a booking for a foot massage, so I stop and ask if I can have the next appointment. Such a great idea and I really enjoyed it. My poor sore aching feet relaxed and came alive again. Money well spent, and I have no idea how much cause I didn't bother to ask!
We have to have the manditory Safety drill, so we all had to don our life jackets and race up to the top deck, where we have a safety talk then  return to our cabins take off the jackets and it lunch time our first on board and its a lovely 4 course meal! The food is very nice and tasty, there is a very nice cold fruit flavoured soup that I really enjoyed, never tasted anything quite like it before.

We look out out balcony and see a small long boat with several people preparing masses of food while sheltering under the wharf out of the rain, we were intrigued, they didn't eat it just prepared the vegies and cooked it and then left, so we imagine they must be some of the street sellers, surprising where the food is actually cooked!

Cu Chi Tunnels from the Vietnamese War.

We don't have to be up particularly early today but still we wake and get up for our lovely breakfast of which we squirreled a few bananas and pastry's for lunch. Afterwards we are free for a short while, Erle ventured out on to the street and bought himself a nice Polo shirt for a couple of dollars, a good buy he needed some new shirts.
I then joined him on a wander around some of the streets  looking for the big market we had been told was close at hand, however we never did find it, asking directions from people who can't speak your language is not all that easy and doesnt work too well.. I did get some fridge magnets I wanted but not much else., returned to Hotel and nibbled our meagre rations,  Then we went down and got on the bus to Cu Chi Tunnels. We had the choice of going to the big Australian War Memorial and laying a wreath, but as we are not Auzzies and plenty of Kiwi soldiers fought and died, without a wreath to lay for them we chose to visit the Tunnels where the Viet Cong lived and fought against our men.
As we drove towards the tunnels I couldn't help thinking about the men both Auzzie and Kiwi who forght side by side and struggled through the very wet area of paddy fields and Rubber tree plantations, it couldn't have been easy or comfortable in this extreme heat; 40 degrees and 100% humidity, and it must of been difficult spotting who was for them and who was against. A deadly war.

There are tanks and coppers parked outside around the walk to the Tunnels.
The forest is sparse and quite young trees, because the Americans sprayed everything with Agent Orange to defoliate all the tress and it killed them, they are slowly regenerating. Within the forest there are some small groups of statues, tableau's, of dressed Viet Cong and nurses and wounded people  and animals. As well as many different tunnels some are able to be crawled down and some not. I chose not to actually go down into the earth,as I am a bit claustrophobic so I just pretended to have been down there, 

Erle crawled through and some were pretty tight, others opened up into rooms. Way back then there were virtually cities under ground where hundreds of whole families lived for long periods of time in the dark airless cells and tunnels deep within the earth. There were 3 levels of tunnels some ran for miles!

The entry to these tunnels was so tiny just about 12 inches square, we though no man could get in or out of the tiny opening, but a Vietnamese man came running through and jumped down the tiny hole and pulled the lid over the top of his head and the hole just vanished as it was covered with leaves and rubbish off the forest floor. Then just a quickly he leapt back out and ran back into the forest.
Entrances have been much enlarged to allow our much larger fatter bodies to get into the tunnels at all.

We were also shown man-traps that were specially dug and built to kill and injure our men, and did indeed do just that, these were nasty torture chambers that would impale a man many times extremely painfully. There were many varieties of them.

We actually stopped for a meal on way back, the only time it really rained on us, great big heavy rain drops as is the case in the WET season in Vietnam. The meal was not particularly memorable in fact many of us felt we picked up a tummy bug here. I was ok but others were not.

We disembark Au Co

Today we have to disembark from the Au Co Cruise ship and end the lovely cruise around Ha Long Bay, I am so sad to be leaving, I could have so easiely have spent our whole time drifting around this beautiful Bay and all its small mountains, just soaking in the peace and beauty. I am also sad because Winnifred and Dorothy have not returned and will not be going on to Saigon with us and maybe not even continuing at all with us.
We all enjoyed a Tea ceremony on the deck before departing, I really like the ginger tea and plan to continue drinking it when I get home. Its very good for settling upset tummies.


Also it is the final day with our 2 lovely tour Guides Quang and Lilli, we have all got quite close to them as they shared their lives with us on bus trips, APT travel company certainly has employed some very good

people who work hard organizing everything and keeping us safe and happy. We shall all miss them.
We take the long bus ride back to Hanoi to the airport, where we had lunch with the two guides before catching the plane to Saigon, it was equally sad parting for the young guides, they had tears in their eyes as they farewelled us and wished us well. Quang quickly gave me his email address so I shall write to him when I get back home.
We arrive in Saigon and are settled into the  lovely Sheraton Saigon Hotel, very comfortable and luxurious as the Hanoi hotel had been.
We are just in time for a really extravagant dinner buffet, quite the best I have ever seen, We all had our fill and more!
There was a quick Group meeting to meet up with a further 60 who are joining our party of 46, its going to be crowded, we shall now require 4 buses to get around.