The Three Day Journey to Phnom Penh….Via the Mekong Delta

Everyone says you have to see the Mekong Delta, which is the part of Vietnam along the Mekong River where you’ll find floating markets, fishing villages, and rice fields. We also read that taking a boat into Phnom Penh, Cambodia was much more scenic than the bus or flying. So we decided to do a 3 Day, 2 Night Mekong Delta Tour which ended with a boat ride to Phnom Penh. We normally hate tours because we’d rather pick and choose what we want to do and do things at our own pace but we figured this time it was just easier.

I’m going to be honest, while we met some cool people and we did get to Phnom Penh….after 3 LONG days…..we were quickly reminded why we don’t do tours. It was just a lot of the same stuff. I think for us, had we not seen the floating fishing villages in Halong Bay it might have been a better experience. I mean the floating market was cool to see but much of the days were spent going to random workshops/farms – they showed us how the locals make coconut candy, how to make rice paper (kind of cool actually), fruit farms, and a crocodile farm (that smelled like crap). We did also try snake wine (which I didn’t like but Darsh made me try it) and Darsh held a huge snake! But in my opinion, we could have skipped many of the stops we made. The best part was chatting with other travelers - Adrian and Jim from Canada and Barnabe from France. Each night we slept in a different city – the first night, Can Tho and the second night, Chau Doc.

Can Tho was pretty nice surprisingly. We had a great meal there at Sao Hom right on the river. I think I had the best Papaya Salad of the trip! We did also attempt to hang out at one of the bars until the table next to us gave us the stare down. I’m not going into details as I’m trying to keep this PC but know that it was just girls being catty. I so wanted to say something (0r kick some ass) but didn't want to end up in a Vietnamese jail!! So I silently gave them attitude back and we were quickly on our way! :) Chau Doc is a pretty small town on the Vietnam/Cambodia border which we didn’t get a chance to explore much because we got there so late. We did go to Sam Mountain where we could see the Cambodian/Vietnam border which was cool.....and this amazing temple built in caves. We also had some of the best chicken pho of the trip at our hotel….perfect way to end our time in Vietnam.

The last morning, we took the fast boat to Phnom Penh which took about 4 hours. The boat was much smaller than I thought….probably held 20 passengers and “crossing the border” was an interesting process. Basically one of our boat guys did everything for us. He gathered our passports and spoke to the officials. We just gave him money. I suspect there was probably a bit extra for them (since it was higher than first quoted) but it was quick and simple! We got to Phnom Penh by 1pm….after a long three day journey! :)