delta ADVENTURE, indeed

so tim and i thought it sounded like a great old idea to get a boat up the mekong from saigon to phnom penh. sounds good, right? so we went to a budget travel company in saigon called delta adventure, booked two trips on the FAST boat for $30 each and came home very pleased with ourselves.

we should have known something was up the minute we got there. first of all, they seemed to have trips of varying lengths going to the mekong, and they had no idea which bus to put people on. bad sign #1. after being sent to one bus and waiting, we were finally put on another minibus with a bunch of other people. there were some canadians sitting behind us, a quiet boy (of irish/british descent, i guessed) sitting next to us, and three girls in the back. and then, it happened. AMERICANS got on the bus. now, i don't know about you, but i hate american tourists. i shouldn't say that, being american, and i know it's wrong to generalize, but hey--i generalize about everyone else, so why should americans be exempt from my judgment? in my experience (and most other people's), americans are loud, pushy, and generally, pretty ignorant. the girls who got on our bus fit the description perfectly. the head girl looked like nicole ritchie's less smart twin sister, and her friend looked ok, but spent most of the ride making loud pronouncements about various things, mostly things she learned in university, but some things she clearly had no idea about. the two girls, from san diego, were accompanied by two swedes: silent swede, who sat with nicole's sidekick, and the swedish tad hamilton, who spent most of the ride groping nicole. for the three of you who just got the tad hamilton crack, let me just say IT WAS ON IN OUR HOTEL ROOM, and besides, i love topher grace. i ain't gotta apologize for that!

anyway, the ride started off ok, apart from the sidekick's running commentary and nicole and tad practically mounting each other in the front seat. we were supposed to get the bus to can tho, home of the famous floating markets, and then have lunch. then we were supposed to get back on the bus for a while, and then get on a bus to chau doc, where we would spent the night before getting another bus/boat combo to phnom penh. still sounds ok, right? before getting to can tho, we had to stop and get a ferry across the river, where we spoke to the quiet boy, francis, from wexford. we got to can tho, expecting to see the floating markets (as not explicitly advertised to us, but as promised to others) and instead were told to eat as fast as we could before we got back on the bus. so tim and i sat with the canadians, who are on an 8 month tour of hawaii, SE asia, india and peru. in hawaii, they got some kind of weird disease that causes their lungs to freak out, so they were having a great old time. it may be said that while friendly enough, the canadians were intense (or at least the girl, who is a yoga teacher, and is the only person i have ever met to physically turn her back on a street vendor [and in the process, fall over and then yell at the vendor] was pretty serious. the boy was very laid back, apart from the lung disease).

after we our lunch sprint, we got back on the bus--WITH FRIENDS! we were joined by 7 more people for our trip to chau doc! hooray! there is nothing more fun than putting 21 people and their luggage on a bus with 14 real seats (the others sat on weird foldy things)!! yoga girl's head almost flew off, i tell you. so, it was a long 3 hours in the clown bus.

finally, we arrived at the boat dock. a lovely, two-story boat was awaiting us, with beautiful plastic seats on the top deck. we ran to it and sat watching the shore for the next 2 hours, talking to francis. francis was traveling alone, because his friend's girlfriend made him go home, only to dump him upon arrival. if francis runs into that girl at christmas, he'll have her eyes, so look out! he'd spent a year in australia and was traveling around asia for another few months before going home for christmas. we loved francis, though between the roar of the boat and my inner ear and his wexord accent, we had some communication problems. but, there were no communication problems with the people on the shores of the river. families were bathing, people were going about their daily chores, and they would all come running when they saw our boat. you would think they'd get bored of constantly waving to foreigners, but apparently it never gets old, which is good, because it was pretty damn charming.

at 6.00 (11 hours after departure), we arrived at chau doc. for some reason, we stood for ages in the street with our bags. why? the bus hadn't arrived yet, of course! after about half an hour in the rain with 40-pound bags, we got BACK on the bus and went to the hotel. ah, the hotel. what a moldy moldtrap it was! it looked nice from outside, but our room's A/C was broken and they only gave us a bottom sheet and a skanky blanket. it was a sleeping sheet night for us--thank you, LL bean!

we ate dinner in the restaurant, which was basically an outdoor atrium, but i got fed up when my food kept being infested with the mites flying around. the canadians came to sit with us, and informed us that they couldn't sleep in their room and would be camping out on the restaurant floor that night. dear god. i can't decide if it was better or worse than our room!

finally, we went to sleep (or tim did--i spent all night thrashing around) and woke up again at 6am for breakfast. at breakfast, while chomping on our bread with jam, we were informed that there is no fast boat because "the propeller is broken," which in vietnamese means "only two of you booked the fast boat and there is no way we're running it for you two losers so suck it up and take the slow boat". so, slow boat it was. at least we got a $10 refund!

and then it was off to the boats. we all climbed into rowboats (all propelled by tiny little women) and took off for our "tour" of the floating fishing village and the cham village. the tour consisted of the women rowing us through the village (nice enough) and then us being brought into a house and looking at a hole in the floor full of fish, and then being put back into the rowboats and dropped off at the cham village. at the cham village, we walked down the road and were mobbed by cham children, who all wanted pens. i gave them all the pencils i had stolen from the hotels and we went on our way. then, back on the rowboats to the slow boat!

o god, the slow boat. each time we got on a new boat, it got smaller by half (with the exception of the rowboats). the second boat was only one level, with wooden benches. it was a looooooong 4 hours. at the border, we were given some food, which was ok, and then sent through vietnamese immigration. then, we had to walk across the border and get on ANOTHER boat (half as small again) to go to cambodia. now, at this point, we had about 20 people and all their baggage. we then had to go through cambodian immigration, at which point the three irish girls had some trouble. you see, when catriona and elinor were in peru, their passports were stolen, forcing them to get temporary passports. under normal circumstances, this would probably be fine, but they are traveling for 8 months, and temp passports only have 5 pages. the girls had two spots left open for stamps, and they needed 4. this was quite a pickle for the cambodian authorities, who kept the two girls in there for about 45 minutes so that they could write a note saying it was their idea not to get stamped coming into the country. while they waited, tim and i befriended mags, the third irish girl. all 3 girls are from the same town in laoire, but they never met until university.

once all three girls cleared customs at about 2, it was back on the slow boat for us. now, keep in mind that VIETNAMESE people had to bend over to get onto this boat. mmm, spacious! they sure aren't kidding when they call it the slow boat. we were supposed to get to phnom penh at 4--we arrived at 6. the good thing was that the cambodian coastline along the mekong is truly beautiful--very quiet and green, with fields and trees everywhere, instead of houses cluttering it up. and, WE GOT FIREWORKS! we passed one house where an entire family was waiting, and calling, and waving, and they set off firecrackers for us! now THAT's a welcome.

FINALLY, we got to the shore and de-boated. then, back on a bus. on a road. with lots of bumps. and when i say lots, try to imagine bumps with small bits of road thrown in. for an hour and a half. and when you picture it, imagine me sitting in the back seat with the irish girls, with 3478597348927 bags above our heads, precariously leaning at best, about to decapitate us at worst. ROCKIN' GOOD TIME!

eventually we got to the hotel where they dumped us in phnom penh, and everyone but us stayed there (because we're so fancy, we stayed somewhere else). that meant we had to get a $4 taxi to our hotel. the $4 taxi was the first hotel's minibus, on which the back door did not open. so tim and i sat in the front with the driver, and another guy climbed in the back to talk to us. the two cambodian guys were hilarious, though. they asked where we were from, and when i asked where they were from, they said CAMBODIA! and rolled around laughing. they were pretty funny.

and then, we got to the hotel. praise jesus. we went up to our room, bathed, ate some dinner in the overly expensive restaurant and then passed the frig out, exhausted by our delta adventure.