Mekong Delta with Visitors

We’ve had chance meetings on freezing sawngthaews, struck up conversations with folks at the next table over and on the slow boat down the Mekong. Often, we’re on the same route (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia…) which means we keep bumping into the same lovely people.

What gets a bit tiresome however is constantly having to ask and answer the same questions all the time.
“Where are you from?”
“Where are you going?”
“Where have you been so far?”
“How long are you travelling for?”

Sometimes we feel it’d be great to just hang out with people without first having to wade through the same tedious Travel Small Talk. Enter my brother Ezra and his girlfriend Sarah. Having just graduated from university, both are currently living in Malaysia, teaching English this year. Malaysia is just a hop skip and a jump away from Vietnam (or two hours if you’re flying rather than jumping). So when Ez and Sarah had a week off from work, they came out to see us.

What a treat to see familiar faces out here. How fun to spend a full week travelling with people we already know and love. Peter and Ez went for a beer in Saigon. Sarah and I scoped out a good tailor to make her an Ao Dai (a traditional Vietnamese tunic which women still wear in the south). We were off to a good start.

The four of us decided to explore the Mekong Delta region by hiring a driver named Minh and tour guide, Chanh for a three day trip. A private tour meant we’d have more control over where we went and have as much time as we wanted at each place. Particularly appealing it meant not stopping at the “handicraft” factories which serve as regular pit stops on many group tours. (“Mother of pearl inlay coffee table not your thing? How about a crushed eggshell lacquered ashtray?”)

A stop where we weren’t expected to buy anything but did, was on an early morning boat ride through the floating market at Can Tho. In a dense, patch of the river, larger vendor boats advertised their wares by attaching them directly to a long wooden pole. Imagine a sort of bendy flagpole on each vessel, with carrots, pineapples and mangoes flying in the wind. Meanwhile smaller boats moved between the vendor boats, buying bags of cabbages and papayas. Our little group chugged in on a small motorboat and we were the first tourists to visit the market that morning. We bought a kilo of sweet mangos and took photos to our hearts content without any westerners sneaking into the frame. Breakfast was delicious, savoury rice porridge, served up by a woman who rowed over to us. Not so tasty was Sarah’s winter melon juice. Ezra thought it tasted like the sweetened milk at the bottom of a bowl of cereal.

Living in Malaysia, Ez and Sarah have incorporated some Malay idioms into their speech which we’ve been quick to pick up as well. As in Chinese, in Malay if you ask someone if they can do something, the answer isn’t “yes” but “can”. The four of us found ourselves saying this all the time.

One evening, Peter ordered the snake set menu. Naturally this consisted of snake spring rolls as a started followed by snake curry. Interestingly there were no stand-alone snake dishes on offer. Either you got the full, snake set menu or no snake at all. The meat was cut into thin, ribbed strips.
“Can I try some snake?” Sarah asked.
“Can,” Peter said.

It was slightly salty and chewy. All in all quite nice.

We visited a local fair one evening in a park in Can Tho. 2,000dong (US$0.13) bought us a ride on the Ferris wheel. It turned so slowly, the operator didn’t need to stop the ride for us to get on. We just walked into a moving carriage. The dusk breeze was relaxing and from the top we could see out over the park. We went around for a while, enjoying the ride. In fact, the ride didn’t seem to end. When would it be over? Would the operator stop the wheel or yell to us to get off? Peter called to me from the next carriage over, “I think we just need to get off when we’ve had enough.”

“I think you’re right!” I said. A few more times around. Ezra, then Sarah got off and then we followed. The wheel kept spinning.

In the riverside town of Chau Doc, the four of us played hearts in the shade of a giant fish sculpture. Ezra and Sarah are great card players, but they tell us they haven’t been playing much in Malaysia. Although they of course aren’t gambling when they play in cafes, they’ve been asked to put the cards away. Peter tried to shoot the moon and Sarah stopped him. A Vietnamese woman and her toddler in squeaky sandals watched us. It struck us as a nice reversal, as usually the foreigners watch the locals playing games.

Back in Saigon, for our last night together until we go to Malaysia in mid-April, we had cocktails on the roof terrace bar at a fancy hotel. Sarah wore her new Ao Dai and I wore the fitted skirt from my tailor-made suit. At US$6 each, the drinks cost the same as our dinner that night, so we sipped them slowly and enjoyed the view. The sun set over the skyscrapers, the city darkened and the lights came out.

At some point we’ll all have to get off the Ferris wheel. But I’m going to have a good ride before I do.

- Mui Ne, Vietnam

Time Apart

"Did you have a fight or something?" Asked a girl on my cooking course when I told her Peter and I were travelling apart for a few days.

"No, it's just for fun," I told her, pounding my lemongrass. "The idea is to have time apart so we don't have a fight," I joked.

The thing is, Peter and I have quite separate social lives in London. Peter goes for drinks with his work friends and I have my book group. When we go for walks along the canal in Islington we always have plenty to talk about. Spending time together back home is more fun because we aren't with each other during all our free time. But for the past two months travelling through Southeast Asia, we have spent nearly every day together and all our time is "free time". True, Peter went mountain biking in Luang Prabang while I relaxed in town. We often run errands on our own - one of us buys bus tickets while the other gets food for the journey. But although we've spent many hours apart, we've always travelled together.

Sunday, I made my way to pretty Hoi An and Peter stayed on the train for a further eight hours to the beach city of Nha Trang. I love exploring a new place, but the logistics of getting there and finding somewhere to stay are often annoying by-products of travel. Arriving in Hoi An on my own was exhilarating. The touts were all mine to deal with, but the joy of dumping my bag at a guesthouse and wandering the streets of a new town, was mine alone as well.

When we planned our career break in London, we discussed both wanting to have some time to travel on our own. This was the first time so far that we actually put this idea into action.

Hoi An (a UNESCO World Heritage town), was an important trading port from the 15th to 19th centuries. The colourful traditional buildings have a certain crumbling charm and reflect a mix of foreign and local architectural styles. The town has a thriving crafts and tailor-made clothing industry. Although I have no need for a handmade silk embroidery painting, clothing is always tempting.

Have you heard of these Asian tailor shops which crank out custom-made clothing? In a few days they can make you a fitted suit or dress for a fraction of the price that you would pay at home. I will be looking for a job when I get back to London, so a tailored "interview suit" would be more useful than a silk lantern. The only problem is quality which apparently varies dramatically. Most of the Hoi An tailors display large, handwritten signs supposedly from satisfied customers. "Stop! Look no further! This is the best tailor shop in Hoi An. My friend and I got clothes somewhere else but they weren't good. We came here and got a really nice dress made. You won’t be disappointed! - Maddy Miller, USA" Sure thing Maddy, but I wasn't keen to take a recommendation from a handwritten sign.

I met wonderful French Canadian Julie and her boyfriend Nick on my cooking course and we spent most of our time in Hoi An together. I accompanied Julie to her first suit fitting. The shop had fixed prices and customers' business cards instead of cheesy signs. I was so impressed by Julie's suit that I decided to have one made for myself.

As I selected a bolt of grey cashmere wool and had my measurements taken, 550km away Peter was underwater in a swimming pool starting his PADI training. Over the next several days I popped back to the tailor's for fittings. The trousers were a little too large here, the shirt a little too tight there. The friendly shop assistants marked up my clothes with chalk and told me to return in a few hours once the alterations were made. Meanwhile Peter graduated from the swimming pool and was out in the South China Sea, testing out his SCUBA equipment and experimenting with neutral buoyancy. (He’s apparently a complete natural.)

Predawn one morning, Julie, Nick, German surgeons Sylvia and Marcus (also from the cooking class), their friends and I, chartered a minivan to the Cham ruins, My Son. Our aim was to beat the tour groups to this “mini Angkor Wat”. Indeed, my little group was the first to explore the site that day. It was amazing seeing the sun rise over the hills behind the 7th century Hindu temples and all the more special having it to ourselves.

Back in Hoi An, my suit was finished and turned out beautifully. For the curious, the suit (jacket and trousers) was US$100 plus an additional $30 for the matching skirt and $15 for the pale blue shirt. They all fit me perfectly. I’m in no rush to start interviewing for jobs, but when I do I’ve got my outfit sorted.

Yesterday I arrived in Nha Trang and Peter and I were reunited after four days apart. We walked barefoot along the beach, picking up spiral shells and filling each other in on what we’d been up to. We passed a Vietnamese woman selling pet guinea pigs on the beach front and had a good laugh. It’s good to be together again.

- Nha Trang, Vietnam