Cai Be and Sa Dec

The volume and variety of watercraft on the Mekong is truly impressive and very entertaining to watch. This morning we boarded a water taxi to tour the town of Cai Be. The French Gothic Cathedral is very noteworthy as you enter town. The tender delivered us to the old quarter where we had an interesting walk. We came upon a series of roosters in single cages. These, it turns out, are fighting cocks. So one of the photos below is literally entitled “Man washing his ——”.

We next visited a local manufacturer producing rice paper and coconut sweets. Here we - Claude and I - sampled snake wine - interesting. They had lots for sale, but we passed on that.

The photo below is our boat, Prestige ll moored outside Cai Be. By mid-morning we were on our way again sailing for Sa Dec.

Now we started seeing kilometre after kilometre of dredges and fish farms. It’s clear the Mekong is a major source for fish in Vietnam. The question would be, is the fish safe to eat given the levels of pollution in the water?

Soon we were seeing the outskirts of Sa Dec, a city of around 200 000 people.

Here we set our to tour the house of Marguerite’s Lover, the subject of a famous book and movie featuring a forbidden relationship between a Chinese man and a French woman.

The market we went through next, featured all varieties of food - from rice (in the yellow bags), to beetle nuts, to snails to live frogs and snakes, to meat sitting in the full sun at 38 degrees - our Health Inspectors back home would not be impressed.

We finished off with a trip to a Caodaist Temple, complete with it’s gaudy hearses. This is a religion that draws the best elements from world religions. Their funerals seem to be similar to the lively nature of a New Orleans funeral.

When we got back to the boat we headed for the pool to cool down - this is a small pool, but effective. It worked and sitting on the late day sun deck - in the shade of course - was lovely, once the boat set out again giving us a refreshing breeze.

We continued up the Mekong for several hours until around midnight before finally dropping anchor for the night.