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with BILL'S EYES

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Thus the first twelve days of our adventure are at an end. I may yet add the remaining days of our Vietnam adventure to this blog. Send me a message using the FEEDBACK button to be advised when I do.

Good bye to a great crew who helped to make our cruise most memorable.

Day 12 Cambodia and Vietnam

The last day and night of the river cruise are upon us too fast. No rest for the wicked though as early in the morning we are on to the 20 person boat again to travel the smaller tributaries of the Mekong Delta and visit Binh Thanh Island at Sadec. 

We walk through the village to the local temple that is kept neat and tidy by the senior village folk. Two of those venerated people, one a man 83 of age and one a woman 87 years of age have agreed to tell us their stories and answer questions we might have about village life and their lives.

The guide translates that they are both glad to have us visit their village and to see and hear from them.  We learn about their lives and the rough times they endured as children and during the war. They seem very laid back and happy to answer our questions and we fell richer for the experience. We leave a donation for the temple and are much buoyed by their talk to us. 

We continue to walk the streets of the village, a great way to see how the people actually live and work, and see their interactions with each other. 

It is a curiosity of modern life but it is part of current life here, to use a hand-pump to get petrol into a marked glass jar and then let the petrol flow into the tank of the motorbike's petrol tank, and some of those motorbikes were very up-to-date. 

We enter the backyard of a house that backs-on to the riverbank and which has shades over the outside area. Two women are making a rattan mat. The weft lines are strung between firmly fixed rails set about 15 centimetres (6 inches) above the tiled back yard floor. 

One woman sits crossed legged on the partially woven mat working the tyne which is used to set one-half of the weft lines high and one-half of the weft lines low. A second woman sitting cross-legged next to the forming mat pushes an individual thin straw through the separated weft lines to the full width of the forming mat and then quickly withdraws the rod used to do the pushing. That pull and push happen in a mere second or so, and that leaves no rest for the woman on the ever forming mat, who then leans over (yes I am getting a sore back just writing about their flexibility and stamina) and pulls the tyne hard against the other previously compacted straws. Then that same woman changes the angle of the tyne to change the high weft line to low and vice versa. Those steps then get repeated until the mat is made complete at the centre of the mat.  

There are more movements than I described. You get the gist though and will hopefully appreciate that working 12 hour days in humidity and heat to create a rattan mat is hard work. These mats are intended to be slept on, but it may end up on Western world floors to be walked on. After seeing how hard these people work and the conditions they work in, I am confident they do not get paid nearly enough for their skill and labour. 

We saunter along a walk-way which separates the river bank and the back doors and back yards of the village and marvel at the number of home back verandahs that are a shop for one thing or another. Seems that every home has an expertise that must be in demand.

Our small boat then takes us along the river tributary beside the village, then out into a larger tributary and past a fish processing factory of impressive scale which sits right next to the fishbone crushing factory. Both factories are owned by the same company.

Next, in our busy morning, we are visiting a small-scale rice paper making enterprise. The rice flower, salt and water mixture is spread onto a very hot slightly domed non-stick cooking surface with a ladle and spread evenly into a disc shape by the person who had just poured the mixture. 

Less than 15 seconds later the now cloudy white but almost see-through round rice paper is coaxed off the hot plate and placed on a bamboo rack.  You may recognise the crisscross pattern on the surface of dry rice paper, and now you will know that those patterns are the direct result of the freshly made rice paper being left to dry on a bamboo rack. 

You will recall coconut water is sweetest from the green coconut, and the inside coating of the coconut is edible. Seems that if you boil and then stir the mush of a honed out coconut shell, it turns into a toffee but only if you add the right ingredients and heat it for the right amount of time.  The toffee is spread and cut it into rectangles and individually wrapped they are then sold as a lolly. 

Rice varieties abound, but we are shown sticky rice, which is popped in very hot black sand (it turned black long ago). 

The popped rice is separated from the sand by a sieve, and it tasted great, but then they mix the popped rice with a sweet coating, pack the mixture into a rectangular box, and then cut the coated popped rice into large rectangular blocks for packing. Yum. They have four different flavours available. 

You can't deal with this much rice and not have a still somewhere to distil rice wine. Must be in good supply since earlier in the day a local offered me a sip of rice wine as I walked by their home adjacent the main street of the village.  

Back to the cruise vessel to freshen up as the last evening on board would be full of talking and drinking.  

The uppermost deck of the boat has been set up for an entertaining evening and champagne for all the passengers awaits us.  Every member of the crew will be introduced to us the passengers, excluding a crew member capable of keeping the vessel on a steady course, since we are still powering our way along the great Mekong river.  

The DJ fires up the music and almost everyone gets their bogie going, much to everyone's surprise and enjoyment. Lee organises a group photograph to capture in time the smiles of the cohort of the passengers that have shared a fantastic journey of discovery of the great Mekong River.

This blog is my recollection of facts, events, places, people, smells, and tastes of my journey and I am solely responsible for any factual inaccuracies and unashamedly glad to have met the real people of Cambodia, Vietnam and our fellow travellers.