Mekong Day 3 and Rach Gia

Last day on the Mekong consisted of a boat ride up the tiny channels and also the large floating markets. These people live on the water, wash in the water, discard everything on the water, eat what's in the water ie do everything in this muddy brown soup called the Mekong. Lying back in the boat, I wondered if I could have just a teaspoon of this water to take back and put under a microscope. Apart from suspended solids and huge numbers of coliforms, I am sure that it would also contain a mind blowing array of odd shaped protozoa, bacteria and micro-flora.

We visited a rice husking mill where a home made machine with a vast spaghetti of belts and wheels worked noisily and dustily to rock a huge sieve. In the sieve was the rice which bounced around until it was polished, fed by an array of hoppers. The air was thick with dust and outside two boys played with sticks which would have made any Western mother coming rushing out in a panic.

Back in Can Tho we left the group and caught a bus to Rach Gia. We bounced around during the three hour trip like the rice in the rice husker and were expelled from the bus to find that we were surrounded by men wanting to give us rides on their motorbikes. At the half star hotel that was booked for us, we found that the toilet was booby trapped. As soon as we used it, it exploded with water and would not stop flushing. Looking inside it was a wonder it ever worked at all. We tried turning off the water at the tap but this started coming off in our hands so we ended up rigging up a wire coat hanger to lift the ball cock to stop the water. Trouble was, this stopped the water supply to the basin and shower. The PA system outside kept up an endless stream of announcements and music.

I explored the streets outside and was led across a particularly busy road by a little old lady. We held hands as we crossed and I gave her hand a little squeeze, we smiled and parted ways.

The next morning, the PA system outside the hotel, started up at about 5 am with calesthenics but it didn't matter as we had to get on the boat to Phu Quoc. Breakfast was 3 cups of thick black coffee in a filthy sidewalk cafe. A tiny old lady with a bamboo stick across her shoulders stopped to stare at us for a full ten minutes, totally unashamed. We wondered what we were doing that was so strange. The 3 hour boat trip ended in a beautiful island where we are now. The beach at the resort has only a sprinkling of people and umbrellas and the bar serves drinks and food to anyone lying on the beach. The water is warm and you can dive and snorkel. This evening we went squid fishing out on a boat. I didn't catch anything, of course but that didn't matter as we were fed a hot squid soup anyway.