Some thoughts

I think the agent already took out quite a bit of commision in between, thus drivers like Mr Dong, had to try other ways to increase his income. By trying to persuade us to change venue, he can earn extra because that's outside the itinerary we had paid for. We vaguely mentioned that we are taking the 6am bus to Vinh Long the next day. True enough, he was actually waiting for us outside our hotel the next day morning at 5.15am! By the way, there's a crowd of motorbike drivers trying to vie for business too.

For boat trips to cham village, floating village and even day trips to Sam Mountain etc, we can actually just try to negotiate on the streets. There's many motorbike drivers around. The thing is, they might not speak english. I think we can easily get usd $10 for a day trip to Sam Mountain, Tuc Dup hill.

I have not explored Chau Doc in depth. Only on the last night then I realised where is Hoa Sen Bookstore and Mekong Tours (mentioned in ReidOn Travel.com). alamak. Also, only on the last night, I realised that there's a missing street that I have not stepped foot in! There's also a slightly different village/ countryside that we passed by on the way to Sam Mountain too. If I have the chance to come back to Chau Doc again, I'll explore the countryside more this time, especially the part closer to cambodia border! :)

Hoa Sen Bookstore
Tel 076-867-817; 14 Nguyen Huu Canh St; open 6am to 8pm daily

Mekong Tours
Tel 076-868-222; www.mekongvietnam.com; 14 Nguyen Huu Canh St; open 7am to 8.30pm daily

OH! Must mention about my fav cafe here. Cafe Sam Bo Luong. M and I went twice to sit there to watch traffic and drink coffee and chit chat. Frankly, Chau Doc has the best food and coffee from my entire 8 days trip in Vietnam. As I got closer to HCMC, I missed Chau Doc's food + coffee even more!

Day Two: Chau Doc - floating village, cham village

As you walk along the various streets, many cyclo drivers will try to offer to take you to charm village, floating village etc. You can try to bargain with them. We took a boat ride to floating village and cham village with this guy for $80,000 dong for two pax. Think it took around 2hours. We started at around 3.30pm and end at about 5plus.

The floating village looks ok.. I feels like the one at tonle sap (cambodia) is better. Cham village is 'famous' because the malays are staying there. It's like a totally different area of Vietnam. There's a mosque there. And when we were there, two men are giving out money to the kids. Not sure if there's some custom / festival going on. Anyway, we were attracted to those kids shouting and crowding around thus we went to take a look.