For those who, like us, decide to combine the journey in Vietnam with Cambodia, an option that we strongly recommend is to reach it by crossing the border on the Mekong Delta. The starting point is Saigon.
By boat, the view before our eyes is like a movie: stilt houses emerging from the river banks, trees submerged by water, locals working everywhere. Mekong’s water is used to wash dishes, brush teeth, take shower, wash food, irrigate fields and much more.
The first destination is Cantho, from where tou can visit the floating markets of Cai Rang.
This is a must-see attraction. The market has all kinds of fruits and vegetables; to understand what type of goods the different boats sell, just take a look at their “sign”: a long stick, visible at long distances, is placed on the bow. Every product the boat has to offer is visible there. Simple and effective.
A series of channels that bend and cross make us remember the landscapes from Apocalypse Now. Palms, banana trees, a house every now and then, children returning from school with their clean uniforms.
Chau Doc is the intermediate stop before arriving in Cambodia. Here we visited some floating villages and stilt houses where fish farms are located. The flooded countryside and some villages enrich the surrounding landscape. After getting up at an ungodly hour (4.30 in the morning), you can choose to visit Mount Sam where there are dozens of pagodas and temples, many of them excavated in caves. The early hour allows you to get back in time to leave for the last stop: Cambodia (link), but this is another trip.
