Day Five: Vinh Long

We woke up very early when its still super cold and dark. I didn't sleep much the night before because it was freezing! After our coffee, we took our boat to Cai Be floating market. The boat ride took 1h and its freezing cold on the waters too..


Gradually, the sun rose...

The floating market is not as busy as I thought it is. Even truyen thought its odd. Anyway, we spend sometime roaming around there, then went on to visit some handicrafts village, coconut candy factory, pop rice factory. We spend some time drinking tea, sampling the products and buying stuff. It was quite amazing how they could gauge the temperature of the fire from burning twigs, rice husks, longan husks etc. They can manufacture their products very fast! Really very 'pro'.

some kind of biscuits

netted rice paper (for their popiah)

pop rice

The two ladies 'threading' through the leaves to make the roof of houses.

We went on to visit rice paper factory, fish sauce factory, brick and pottery factory. At the brick and pottery factory, I'm kind of fascinated that the raw material is from the river bed! no wonder there are several cranes on the river. We had a very informative session when truyen explains to us the procedures etc.

So concludes our tour with Mekong Travel when we reached Vinh Long town. Truyen recommended us a cheap hotel to stay for the night and gave us directions to the night market so we can explore tonight. The hotel, Van Tram, is just beside Mekong Travel office! The room is very big with two queen size bed, and with AC, hot water, fridge. The lady charged us $200,000 dong for a night :)

I think i've mentioned before that the local market is near to Mekong Travel office. Even at night, there are many stalls selling fruits, food and many other stuff. We explored the surroundings and went to the bus station to buy our bus tickets to HCMC. There's a staff who can speak some english, so we bought our ticket at $65,000 dong per pax. Buses to HCMC are regularly departing every hour. We bought the 8am bus for the next day. However, the bus only goes to district 5 at HCMC. The uncle pointed to a big map in his office to show us. Well, it doesn't seems that far to walk to district 1 (where the backpackers district is). Luckily, M promptly took a photo of that big map. Back at our hotel, I drew out a map based on her photo and worked out where we should walk to go to district 1 =p kind of exciting ya?

We went to explore the night market too. Its' something like our pasar malam back in Singapore, but minus the food part. They are selling a lot of bags, clothes, shoes, caps, toys, etc etc etc. The area is quite packed with locals too. Think they enjoy shopping here :)

Its a fun experience trying to shop here, especially when they don't speak english and we are trying to bargain. The stall-owners are pretty clever, they took out their stack of cash and pulled out a note to indicate the price for the item i'm inquiring. Then i pointed to another smaller note in order to bargain! :D hahaha. Frankly, I should have brought a notebook + pen to write OR a big calculator! that'll be easier.

In any case, we packed our bags for our journey back to HCMC tomorrow.

Day Four: Chau Doc to Vinh Long

We woke up at 5am i think. We got to be at the bus station to catch our bus to Vinh Long. The journey took about 3h. The local buses always try to call out and see whoever wants to hop on so they can earn more. By about 1h away fr Chau Doc, my bus is packed. This bus has no AC and some passengers smoke in the bus. Luckily it was very early morning so the air is very fresh and cooling.

From ReidOn Travel.com, I know I need to look for Mekong Travel to get my accommodation, boat tours etc settled.

Mekong Travel

Tel 070-836-252, 0919-002-505; vinhlongmekongtravel@yahoo.com,

No 8, 1 Thang 5 St; open 7am to 8.30pm daily

We asked the bus driver and asked people on the way to find directions to Mekong Travel. After a huge round, we realised its actually very close to the bus station. We just need to cut across the local market. If you can find the river side and see the local ferry terminal, you can see a large alfresco kind of cafe. Mekong Travel is just round the corner and beside it is a small hotel: Van Tram. Opposite Mekong Travel is the older Cuu Long hotel. There's a newer one, also Cuu Long hotel, at the river side.

M and I proceeded to book a 2 day 1 night tour with Mekong Travel for usd $60 (2 pax). Details as follows:

Vinh Long - An Binh Island - Cai Be Floating Market

- potteries & brick kilns, bonsai garden, fruit nursery, biking around villages

- sampans on the small canals

- home stay, make and have dinner with local family. overnight

- breakfast and boat trip to Cai Be floating market

- handicraft village: coconut candy, rice paper, pop rice, sewing coconut-leaves for roof etc.

This is truyen *not sure if i've spelt her name correctly. She is very cheerful and 'playful'. She is a very nice guide and though she's only 6 months into this job, she is very passionate about it.

Vinh Long has several islands and there are many small arch bridges that link them up. Another mode of transport will be by boat on their various waterways and canals. Since we booked a private tour, we have boat to ourselves. Along the way, you can see various big boats transporting fruits, rice, rice husks, bricks, etc etc etc. I liked the tour because i get to see how these people make their earnings and live their lives. The only turn-off is the expensive lunch at a local house. The owners are very clever. They only offer two choices: either the elephant fish or the prawns.. costs us $270,000 dong! frankly it doesn't taste that nice. I prefer my usual rice from Chau Doc.



I did enjoyed the sampan ride on the small canals. Its really very tight. When there's another boat in the same canal, we had to help to push the boat away in order to pass through.

Our homestay place is at Mr Ba Linh's house on An Binh Island. He is an ex-VC soldier.. I think he's 80 year old if i remembered correctly. The whole family are very enthusiastic in having us. Mr Ba Linh does not speak english.. But he'll signalled you to follow him as he show off the nice flowers he grew in his garden and the turtles he kept.

We proceeded to try to cook our dinner with the family =p

We slept very early tonight because there's basically nothing to do after night falls. Also, we are walking up 5am next morning to go to Cai Be floating market, which is an hour boat ride away.

night :)