To the next border!

We exit through what looks to be everyday traffic. Thousands of motorbikers charging to their next destination. 1-4 people per bike, often the rear riders are sitting precariously side saddle style. Most drivers were helmets here, which I haven't seen much of in India or Thailand. I love to witness the loads that some motorbikers seem to commute with... a huge bag of fabric, baskets of fruit, boxes stacked high. I have actually seen one driver with twenty plus tuk tuk tires circling his body as he struggled to reach the handlebars :)

The man who picked us up, brought us to the travel company and left us for a non-English speaking guide. Whatever. Then we picked up another guy on the side of the road who I thought maybe had food for our lunch or spoke English, but then he jumped out at a stop light... but then we picked him up again after about 25 minutes of insane traffic. The bridge is so overloaded, traffic flowing like water- weaving through, navigating towards the path of least resistance following no rules. Maybe there are no rules to follow? But there ARE men selling bags of hot dogs off of their motorbikes, and that is way more fun than rules!

I am hot, no AC in this van (as promised by the brochure that I later will find out is not much of a "promise keeper" in general... we had to go through a company. A three day trip down the Mekong River Delta can be self organized but neither time nor language are in our favor to try this feat so... we put on our baseball hats, khakis, and sneakers (not really!) and took the tourist badge on this one)

We drive on. I didn't think the drive was supposed to be long, but it ended up being a few hours. I surrender to my experience. As I let it all visually pass by, I try to remember it detail for detail, for in less than three weeks none of this will be visible from I-94.

Little old ladies squatting on the side of the road or straddling the back of a motorbike... what their eyes have seen! Old men riding bikes that pull heavy carts. Entire families on open bed trucks, ladies selling mangoes, monks collecting alms, kids playing in the dirt (smiling of course!) dogs roaming, garbage resting. Women with baskets in one hand, baby in the other. Gasoline sold in Sprite bottles at roadside tables. Oxen pulling carts through the main road and in multi-green farm fields. Bundles of sugarcane transported on women's heads. Doorless houses and kids in uniforms scatter the street.

So I am hot, I have to pee, and my head aches in a way I have never experienced (it has now been hurting for over 24 hours and I wonder what the next three days will bring) We found the pothole ridden street Cambodia is infamous for. Dusty, polluted, chaotic, and I don't want to be anywhere else in the world right now :)

Next came the random alley drop off where we were shuttled (team totaling 7) to a boat to begin our journey down the Mekong River Delta. It is a wide flat silty body of water. We cruise in the middle, which doesn't bring us near any of the action on the banks, but I read that because it is the end of the dry season the water is very low. So low that we actually had to take 40 minutes to tow out a boat carrying rice! We just lounged on the boat (on the folding chairs that were placed inside the small wooden craft) for a few hours filling out some paper work, reading about the places we were traveling towards, and enjoying each others company. I stopped enjoying much else once we started to deal with the boarder crossing crap... I expected lunch and there never was any- I never do well on low blood sugar:)

"Welcome to Vietnam" said the tour guide who immediately tried to scam us of a couple dollars (we passed the scam thanks to a mummbly British fellow), then he freaked out and made us wait in the heat for awhile because he had to pay the medical fee that we all refused to pay. We demanded our passports back which- he wanted to keep- and then stopped at some dock so he could grab a lunch snack which he threw into the river when he was finished!

I did chill out and had some moments of joy when we turned into the small canal system (and the hunger pains subsided- no food until 6 p.m today!) Families and communities that truly live in this remote and natural section of Vietnam. I cherished this moment of the boat ride existence. Houses built high above the canal banks looked quiet but the lives that were happening right on the water were exciting and moving. Smaller boats I can only imagine were to be used for fishing, and big boats which looked as if they were they housed the families were sitting still. The boats looked ancient and had laundry drying and open windows. Every person we passed waved and energetic and sincere "hellos" as we passed. Kids laughed as they swam in the filthy water that their mom was washing the dishes in at their side. The sun was nearing the western horizon and it was simply beautiful to pass squatting farmers in rice fields with the traditional conical straw hats.

After a long day, we arrived to Cahu Doc. We walked to our hotel. Beads of sweat dripping down my back, into my eyes- hotter than sin! We told the guy at the front desk two things he didn't like. First, that we were going to keep our passports for the night. And, second, that the three of us were going to stay in one room together. We said it nicely, but he still put us in a windowless room on the top floor. It was filthy- hair on my bed and ants in the bathroom style. But even worse was the temperature of that room. I swear the devil must have been in the room next door. That night I slept on my towel, on my silk sheet, so that the sweat would absorb. This is the grossest and hottest place that I ever want to stay in my life.