7th Nov - Cai Be and Sa Dec

This morning's excursion was a sampan ride to Cai Be where we had morning tea at a French Colonial house.  We were entertained with traditional music while we ate and drank.  The food included banana rice pancakes, fruits - and that traditional Vietnamese tea time treat: Oreo cookies. 

Perhaps more interesting than the set piece of the morning tea, was the sampan ride to and from Cai Be.  Seeing the way the people on the river live:  doing their washing in the river, living in houses that are often little more than tin sheds on stilts.  It's amazing how virtually everything is done on the water - there are floating gas stations, boats that serve as floating hotels for the local honeymooners, motorcycle ferries - you name it.

Motorcycle ferry

Floating gas station

Sa Dec

After a buffet lunch our afternoon excursion was to the "wet market" at Sa Dec.  I'm sorry, but I've got to say this was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life.  Other people said they'd seen markets in other Asian countries that were worse, but the cages of rats and the skinned frogs that were still alive were just gross.  One of the guys in our group stopped to take a short video of the skinned frogs that were feebly moving and the woman at the stall actually started poking the frogs to make them move more for him!  Anyhow, if there are any more excursions to food markets I think I'll give them a miss.


We were back on board at 5.30pm for our gin o'clock evening on the sun deck while sailing down river towards Chau Doc. There were 38 different kinds of gin to choose from.  I started with an Canadian gin that I'd never heard of, and then moved on to the gin cocktails.  Dinner was French themed and very nice.  Sadly after dinner I was just so out of it that all I could do was head back to my suite and collapse.  Hopefully I'll have more energy tomorrow.