The Mekong tour has been great. Sorry I haven't had a chance to post in a couple days. I spent most of Thursday and Friday cruising on various branches and canals in the Mekong delta. At several points we stopped and saw a some of the local industry such as a ceramics plant and a coconut candy factory. It was a nice view of Mekong river life.
We spent the first night in Cantho, where I finally got around to eating cobra. Surprisingly, unlike every other exotic food, it didn't taste just like chicken! The taste was actually much closer to turkey.
The second day of the trip was similar with more time spent just taking in the sights along the river. We visited several floating markets, including a large one a Cantho. The day finished with a long boat ride up to Chau Doc where we spent the second night of the tour.
This morning I split off from my tour group and spent an extra day in Chau Doc while the other people in the group either returned to Saigon or went on to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. I join up with another tour group tomorrow morning for some final sight-seeing in the area before heading to Cambodia by boat.
My trip today was wonderful. I hired another motorbike guide to take me around to some of the sights around Chau Doc. The time spent driving around the countryside turned out to be better than the things I originally wanted to see. We were off in deep rice-growing country and the scenery and small villages were beautiful. It was nice to get off the tourist track for a while and ended up being the perfect way to spend my last day in Vietnam.
One of the sights I saw (see the first picture in the next group) was the "bone pagoda" at Ba Chuc. In 1978 the Khmer Rouge crossed the border and slaughtered over 3000 people in this town. In fact only 2 people from the town are known to have survived. This pagoda houses the skulls of 1000 of the victims. Although not on the scale of the killing fields memorials that I expect to see in Cambodia it was still pretty powerful stuff.
The day finished up with a trip up Sam Mountain back near Chau Doc. The views of the surrounding villages and rice fields were amazing. The pictures I took don't do it justice.
That's probably enough for now. Time to head out and have my last Vietnamese meal in Vietnam. I really can't believe it's my final night here. The last month just flew bye.
We spent the first night in Cantho, where I finally got around to eating cobra. Surprisingly, unlike every other exotic food, it didn't taste just like chicken! The taste was actually much closer to turkey.
The second day of the trip was similar with more time spent just taking in the sights along the river. We visited several floating markets, including a large one a Cantho. The day finished with a long boat ride up to Chau Doc where we spent the second night of the tour.
This morning I split off from my tour group and spent an extra day in Chau Doc while the other people in the group either returned to Saigon or went on to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. I join up with another tour group tomorrow morning for some final sight-seeing in the area before heading to Cambodia by boat.
My trip today was wonderful. I hired another motorbike guide to take me around to some of the sights around Chau Doc. The time spent driving around the countryside turned out to be better than the things I originally wanted to see. We were off in deep rice-growing country and the scenery and small villages were beautiful. It was nice to get off the tourist track for a while and ended up being the perfect way to spend my last day in Vietnam.
One of the sights I saw (see the first picture in the next group) was the "bone pagoda" at Ba Chuc. In 1978 the Khmer Rouge crossed the border and slaughtered over 3000 people in this town. In fact only 2 people from the town are known to have survived. This pagoda houses the skulls of 1000 of the victims. Although not on the scale of the killing fields memorials that I expect to see in Cambodia it was still pretty powerful stuff.
The day finished up with a trip up Sam Mountain back near Chau Doc. The views of the surrounding villages and rice fields were amazing. The pictures I took don't do it justice.
That's probably enough for now. Time to head out and have my last Vietnamese meal in Vietnam. I really can't believe it's my final night here. The last month just flew bye.
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