Breakfast was available between this morning. Bernie felt recovered enough to venture down with me at about for a glass of orange juice and a slice of toast. Even though we felt we left it quite late to make our way down for breakfast we were certainly not the last to arrive in the dining room this morning.
After breakfast we headed upstairs to the sun deck. The signal is strongest on the sun deck so I was finally able to bring the travel blog I dont like to get too far behind because then the whole travel diary ritual might fall by the wayside entirely! Fortunately, I did most of the writing last night, so it was only copying the words from Word and pasting them into the blog website that we use before publishing the blogs for our subscribers to see.
Following this bit of admin there was still plenty of time to gain an insight into life on the vast waterway that is the Mekong River. We sailed past simple fishing villages and vast industrialised zones often existing straight across the river from each other. So many people enjoy a simple way
of life on the river raising a few fish in the netted areas attached to their small holding on the river whilst on the other side there are huge factories that are set up to deal with manufacturing and processing of agricultural crops. Vietnam exports a considerable amount of rice, much of which is grown and processed near the Mekong River.
We also saw river traffic in all different shapes and sizes, from the smallest of boats to huge dredging vessels and everything in between. In a number of places there were vehicular ferries crossing the river to provide crossings in betweeen the many bridges that arch their way from bank to bank.
Our relaxing morning was bookended with another meal. An amazing three course luncheon. We started with cold meats and salads (safe on the boat we have been assured) that we served ourselves from the buffet. We ordered our main course for lunch during breakfast and our delicious lemongrass chicken skewers with a side of rice were delivered to us at our table. I finally had enough of an appetite back to appreciate this meal. Bernie, not so much. He skipped entre and managed a bit
of chicken and rice before retiring back to our stateroom while Cathy, Steve and I stayed in the dining room to enjoy our mango cake for dessert.
Bernie had taken it easy all morning hoping that he would feel up to this afternoons excursion. As our departure time approached though, he decided that he should give todays outing a miss. About 2.00pm a sampan arrived to transfer us to the riverbank where we were loaded into minibuses. We enjoyed a drive through rice paddies to Gao Giong, a ‘green of a eucalypt forest.
A short walk from the entrance to the park we were able to climb an observation tower for a view out over the forest. Hmmn, our guide was telling us only three people at a time on the top of the tower, but this instruction was not heard by most of the group! Cathy and Steve found themselves on the very dodgy observation deck with about ten people. I hung back and managed to abide by the three person rule. Even so, I stuck to walking on the joists where I hoped there would be a bit more support rather than
walking on the mostly rotted planks!!! In Australia this observation tower would be closed for repairs for sure.
Another day, another jaunt in a rowboat this time across the Duong Tharp Muoi or ‘Plain of Reeds. It seemed to take quite a while to find our group enough rowboats. We learnt later that this was because another group arrived ahead of us and ‘stole our boats. There were people scurrying about trying to find extra boats and extra planks to put in the base of them for us to sit on and young ladies to paddle/steer the boats.
It was quite worrying when a boat pulled up to the bank and its ‘paddler was bailing water out of the bottom! Everyone still waiting held back saying you go next, oh no, were in no rush, YOU go next.
