SE Asia - Chau Doc, Vietnam

Day 3, Vietnam, January 26, 2014

Drive to Chau Doc, Vietnam

This morning we had our bags out by 7:00 and departed on our bus for the long day's ride west to the border town of Chau Doc, on the Mekong River. It turned out to be a longer and more adventuresome day than originally planned. During the Tet (Lunar New Years) Celebration, many people go home for family reunions. Since this was Saturday, the traffic was extremely heavy slowing frequently to stop and go on narrow roads. Most people were on motorbikes, but there were also local buses and some trucks. At one point in the morning we were completely stopped for about a half hour. The real hang up at that time was the ferry. We bailed off the main road and took a 35-mile detour to take a different ferry. This worked and we eventually got to the ferry. We had to get off the bus and walk aboard. There was our bus, a truck and a few cars. The rest of the area was crammed with motor "Hondas" filled with families and/or produce and a variety of products.

One rest stop for us was at a Hammock and Coffee Rest Stop. There were many along the way and they were like our combination rest and truck stops. You could get some special coffee that was dripped into the cup, which I hear was pretty awful. Then you could rest in one of their many hammocks. We stopped to use the happy room and test the hammocks. Then we continued on our way.

The first ferry ride left us on a large island in the Mekong River. After we crossed the island there was a second ferry ride that completed our crossing. It was about 2:30 before we pulled up to a local restaurant, in a big hotel, for lunch. We didn't take any longer than needed and were back on the road.

The last stop was to visit the Cao Dai Temple, which Vit winked and called a monastery. He did this so we wouldn't rebel over having to see another temple. The building was part of the Bahai religion and was very unique.

We finally got to our hotel about 5:30. It was fairly spartan. We met in the lobby for a musical event and found Harry, our Vietnamese guide, playing his saxophone accompanied by a CD. He was actually pretty good especially considering he had only been playing for three years.

At 6:30 we left for dinner. OAT hires a lady who cooks a special dinner for their tours. Her place was along the street in town and her three pre/teen age children served us. The two boys and a girl were learning English and worked very hard for their mother. Paul gave one of the boys a deck of cards that we brought. The colorful deck has 17 Oregon pictures and 52 interesting facts about Oregon.

Tomorrow is a long jet boat ride up the Mekong River to Phnom Penh.

That's it for now. Grace and Paul