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!

Day trip to Tanjung Uban, Bintan Island.

After a lovely lazy day yesterday we were out on the beach soon after breakfast for a long swim, and looking at the coloured fish in the water swimming with us. There was a wide variety of them too. We settled down under the beach umbrellas on the sun loungers and started to read our books, but soon we heard thunder crashing around in the heavens big black clouds race over us, so we made our way in-doors just before the rain started, it seems to rain most days, but just for a short burst then the sun is out again, plus it never gets cold at all, still stays hot and humid.

We ran into Rafaella and Scott and suggested that we would hire a taxi for 4 hours and all of us head off to the larger town of Tanjung Uban to have a look around, we assured them as taxi drivers ourselves that the wheel chair would be no trouble at all, we knew how to fold them up and put them in the boot of the vehicle.
After lunch we headed off in the cab with a man said to know no English, but once again after a while of listening to us he found he did know a little and told us all he could about the things we were seeing along the way. The 4 of us had great fun when we arrived in the big town and put Rafaella back into the wheelchair and wheeled he all around the narrow streets even into the shops. We were interested in the fashion in some of them, rather different, what the local Muslim ladies wear.

I took a photo of Erle beside a delivery motorbike with its big wicker basket of goods on the back, there were many of these around.

Some of the scenery as we drove around was unsusual with strange mounds with trees a top of them, we wondered about them.

We decided we should have some genuine Satay, you know chicken on a stick and asked the driver where we could get some, he told us because of Ramadan it would be difficult to find any but he took us to a small shop and order some for us. When it was all cooked and looked so nice he told us it was Bambi! Rafaella and I, said not Bambi can't eat Bambi, so Scott said no its a much older deer, Rafaella said sort of like Bambis Mother! Erle said no it was just an old random unrelated deer, so with that settled we all ate and enjoyed the venison satay which was very special we gathered since there are no deer in Bintan. Expensive too I think, but Scott paid for them as we were paying the taxi.
The driver then showed us all the seafood restaurants built out over the water on stilts,we didn't bother going into them as we have plenty of lovely fresh seafood at Club Med.
We then asked the driver where all the people lived and where they worked.He drove us to several big buildings where clothes were sewed and motor bike were assembled and electrical appliances were made, outside each were hundred of motor cycles of the workers. He then to us to masses of compounds of two and three story building that the workers lived in, rather scruffy close together not very appealing living quarters we thought.
Rafaella took this photo and some others, as my camera had ran out of power by this stage.


Next he drove us to the Temple complex, with Chinese and Buddhist temples.
We climbed the stairs dragging the wheelchair, so we could all light some inscence in the temples and place it in the sand in a big silver drum with lions carved on the sides. We were fortunate that an elderly Chinese man showed us around and showed us what to do in the Temples. They were quite large and so open. Lots of bright red colour in the Chinese one.
There was also a big Muslim Mosque near by but we didn't go into that.
Soon it was time to head back to club Med, but on the way the kind helpful driver pulled us into a small fishing village and arranged for us to all have a coconut to drink, now we travel a lot but this was only the second time we had actually drunk coconut milk straight from the fresh coconut, and as we were thirsty we all drank the lot and enjoyed it.
In the photo you can clearly see all binding on Rafaella's ankle. and how sore it still is.
When we returned we all went to our rooms for a rest before the big evening meal, we all took cocktails back to our rooms to enjoy!
We went to the other outdoor restaurant for dinner just for a change. Erle and I were not that impressed as the meal was rather small, but it was a nice tender steak. However the setting was very special overlooking the beautiful beach, a million dollar view we all reckoned, plus a million stars overhead.
What a great day, it is amazing that the four of us get on so well together, after all Erle and I are older than their parents, we both have children older than them, but age seems completely irrelevant we all just are enjoying each others company. Wonderful, such nice people.