day 49 At Sea towards Cambodia

We slipped our moorings in Ho Chi Minh city last night and headed out to sea. Soon we crossed into the Gulf of Thailand. While it was a quiet day at sea, visions of what I saw in Cambodia and Viet Nam continue to filter thru my brain. Even the conversations we have had with other passengers seem to gravitate toward telling one another of the things we found so unusual in these places. The traffic has been a hot topic as well as the cleanliness, mostly the lack thereof, seems to astound us and our fellow travelers. It was a wonderful experience because it really makes you appreciate the advantages we have in the U S. That is not to say the people are unhappy because they seem to be. One thing I did come away with is that many of the people I met in these two countries would love a chance to come to the US. It is nice to know that we still are viewed as the land of opportunity.
Tomorrow Cambodia.

Chris - Mekong Delta - As I mentioned, there's a change when you leave Ho Chi Ming and head south. You leave the crowded, dirty city and suburbs for the green fields of farmland. The main crop is rice and we saw many people working in the rice fields. I saw some water buffalo as well. I like them :) It appears that the farm plots are not 100 acres each but more like ten and 20 acres at the most. It was hard to tell but there was one way that you could distinguish one farm from another. The farmers are able to bury their ancestors on their farms so you see grave markers every so many acres. Some are very elaborate and some more primitive. Sometimes you see a grouping but often just one monument by itself. I thought this was interesting since they said that you lease the farm land from the government. They also do have graveyards.

The Mekong River originates in Tibet and runs through 5 countries before it "bottoms out" in Viet Nam. It's obviously a very large water mass and has 4 islands at it's mouth. They are known as Dragon, Unicorn, Turtle and Phoenix Islands. We boarded one boat similar to a junk and motored to Dragon Island where we got off and did a little shopping in the little stands and had a snack of tropical, regional fruit. I only ate the banana as it's the only thing not peeled. We then boarded a second boat only holding 3 and was rowed through the jungle via some small back channels. After meeting up with our original 15 passenger junk, we were off to Unicorn Island for a lunch. The lunch mainly consisted of various kinds of fish and vegetables. The two islands we visited had very little on them. Then back to the boat and back to the van. I found the river area to be very interesting. I saw some house boats, but not the boats with grocery stores and not the number of "families" living on boats that I thought I would. I'm sure there are lots, but not so much where we were. We did go past quite a few houses (shacks) sitting in the jungle right on the water. A very primitive type of life, from all appearances. The jungle was very dense and obviously very swampy where we were. I was concerned about mosquitoes and malaria there so I had my deet on, but was told they don't have a lot of bugs and no malaria. I never saw a bug! I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Viet Nam, very fascinating.