We left Phnom Penh early on Saturday, Oct 19 and headed to the Vietnam border. Today turned out to be a long travel day that involved a car, 2 types of boats, a jeep and a bicycle. We started the trip with a 2 1/2 hour car ride over bumpy roads to a place called Neak Luong. We then transferred to a small motorboat with 9 other locals and took a 1 hour trip to the Vietnam border. At the customs office a travel guide helped us with the paperwork, and told us about a 1 day tour that we could take along the Mekong Delta. We had heard good things about the tour from other backpackers, so we agreed, and followed her onto a big boat that took us to the Vietnam coastal city of Chau Doc. Once we arrived an old style jeep took us to a nice guesthouse just outside of the city. We checked in and decided to borrow 2 bicycles and tour the village, which was only 2km away. While it was nice of the guesthouse to lend us the bicycles, they forgot to mention that the brakes didn't work. So, here we were racing down the main road to the village out of control, while motorbikes and trucks came racing down beside us. A slightly nerve racking experience. We biked through the village, realized there was not much to see, and returned back to the guesthouse. That night we had a quiet dinner at the guesthouse and shared adventure stories with some of the other travellers.

The next day we got up, ate, and joined a busload of other travellers. The bus stopped in the nearby village where we climbed the steps up Sam Mountain to visit at a Buddhist temple. The temple was really interesting to see, since it differed from many of the other temples that we had seen in Cambodia and Thailand. (a strong Chinese influence). We then went to the pier and took a small row boat down the Mekong Delta River. The boat was rowed by woman who stood at the back and used two long oars. Dan took a turn at rowing but struggled to keep his balance while at the same time trying to move the boat forward, so the other passangers strongly suggested that he return the job back to the woman. The boat stopped at a floating house (fish farm), which was a breeding house for catfish. Apparently this is a big business in Vietnam with many of the fish being mislabelled and sold to the US as Bass. Needless to say, this has created a big contraversy between the two countries.

Afterwards, we went to visit a Cham village, which is a local tribal group that live near the river. We were then transferred to a large boat, where we ate lunch and cruised down the river for 2 hours. We finally reached our port and took a bus to Saigon. The bus ride in Vietnam was much smoother than the trips in Cambodia, although we still had to deal with a maniac driver that liked to speed down the windy roads and spend way too long in the oncoming traffic lanes. The Mekong Delta tour had turned out to be a pleasant way to spend our first day in Vietnam.