Day 6 - The Mekong Delta

"Herro!" little Vietnamese children would call out as as we walked through their village in the Mekong Delta. The people in the Mekong region are incredible and welcoming, even when walking through a slum-like village, in a place that I certainly have never been and clearly didn't fit in, I felt welcome.

"Herro!"

 The way these people live is admirable. They have next to nothing, yet seem content with life. Happy to spend time with their families, to laze about in hammocks throughout the day between their labors. And labors they do. Every imaginable type of job was being carried out in plain sight as our boat passed the very active, very poor villagers. People would be fishing, carrying rice, cooking, cleaning, bathing, bargaining, and repairing their ram shackled huts. It was like taking a step back in time, into a time where people worked for the sake of working, for putting food on the table for their famlies, not caring whether they were 'enjoying' their job or not.

The Mekong Delta. Town of Chau Doc. 

We slept in a floating hotel in Chau Doc while in the Mekong, complete with mosquito nets and crappy springy beds. I am also fairly sure the showers were river water as I was very itchy afterwards. Nonetheless it was an experience not to forget.

The next day we were on a riverboat to Cambodia and it's capital Phenom Penh. During the riverboat ride we had a chance to see the river from a unique perspective. Everywhere people were living off of it, bathing in it, fishing in it. Using it as their life-blood.

When we crossed over into Cambodia things changed, starting at the boarder. Now I have never been to a water boarder-crossing before, but this has to be considered crap. When we got to the boarder, our guide asked us to trust him, and give him 25 dollars for the Visa. He claimed it was his "heart" his integrity as a person that should allow us to trust him. We did, and got off the boat on the most rickety river ramp I have ever seen, complete with wooden handrails, and bouncy and degrading driftwood making up the ramp. Once we got to customs, one of the more curious travelers we were with asked what the charge for a Visa was - the answer was $20. We got duped for 5 bucks each and our guide can prob feed his family for a month. Oh well, all is well that ends well, we were safely across the boarder back on the riverboat.

Our Luxurious and Safe Boarder Crossing

When we got to Cambodia the scenery changed a bit. No longer was every single spot on the side of the river taken by a hut. Now the huts were more sparingly dispersed. There was also no seawall in Cambodia and the river was wide and vast. We were on our way to Phenom Penh.

A typical Cambodian village on the side of the Mekong River.