Rolling on the river

Today is my last day in Vietnam before flying out tomorrow morning to Siem Reap, Cambodia. I have been here for only 17 days, but I am ready to move on. Saigon and the Mekong Delta especially just rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps I toured the country in the wrong order. Maybe I should have started my tour in the Mekong Delta, the poorest region in Vietnam, and then gone to Saigon, the crazy place Vietnamese call The City of Dreams, and then headed north to the less polarized areas.

It is just irritating and shattering to get paraded around on buses and boats to stare at people that are trying to get on with their day. The tour is so popular because the people living in this region are some of the last to live primarily on boats. I have included pictures of their boats - usually a larger one room craft that serves as their home and storage space for the goods they sell along the river on a daily basis and a small boat used to ferry between the other boats selling at the floating market. It just felt like we were on a tour to see how poor and how unusual they lived. It felt really judgement and unfair to them since they are just doing the best they can with what they have.

The tour was organized by Sinh (Cafe) Tourists and, at 40 persons to a group, was a much larger group than I was used to after my Intrepid Tour with only seven other people. It was also very hot on the unairconditioned and sometimes even unshaded boat trips. To top things off, I also got a stomach bug. I upgraded my hotel from the basic option offered by Sinh and, instead, spent two nights at what I am told is the nicest hotel in the Mekong Delta, Kim Tho. While the standard is comparable to any American mid-level hotel, I was really happy with my stay. It was great to have a very comfortable room with all the amenities I could want and a full day without a tour to enjoy it. The timing was right too since I didn't want to be far from a 'happy room' (Vietnamese for 'toilet').