Fun on the Mekong

Well the last few days on the Mekong delta have been great - especially yesterday as we jumped a boat to take us eastwards down the mekong to Can Tho where we stayed in a local farm stay (basically just somebodies house converted to allow for visitor accomodation). 

The boat trip took about 8 hours, and I spent most of it a hamock reading a book or listening to music...  there is such an abundance of things to look at! So much is going on in the Mekong delta - I've seen brick factories, loads of family owned live aboard cargo boats, floating fish farms (basically houses with netting cages underneath housing the fish), barges dredging the harbour of transporting fertilizer and all sorts of other random things.   It's definitely my favourite part of the Mekong that I've seen so far - I'd love to come back with my own boat and explore the region thoroughly one day - it's simply stunning.

This'morning we got up early and headed to the floating markets in Can Tho by boat - the markets setup every morning, selling food predominiately, but also covering things such as porcelain, fuel and building materials - all from boats floating 50 or so yards off shore.. I would estimate that there was at least 200 boats there this morning - fascinating stuff to watch, especially as just about every boat over 6 or 7 metres doubles as a family home.. so you have mum, dad and the kids all helping out.. some more then others (the woman here seem to get worked bloody hard).

Also while in Chau Doc we headed up the Sam mountains to watch sun set over the amazingly fertile Mekong delta (I've never seen any place greener) - and headed out to a village near the Khmer border which had all but 3 of it's occupants slaughtered by the Khmer rouge - and amazingly one of the 3 survivers runs the local drinks shop, so you can talk to her (via a translator) - what a tough old bugger she is too - shot in the neck and beaten over the head - she lost conciousness only to awake 3 hours later and discover everyone else in the town dead (I think it was aproximately 3000 killed?) - and somehow she just kept of living ever since.

Back to Saigon, The War Remnants museum

This afternoon we headed back to Saigon, where I am now.. and decided to visit the war remnants museum... which is basically the American/Japanese war crimes museum.. the museum seems to be split into 4 sections.  The first is a number of war artificats - including tanks, fighters, helicopters and artillery from the vietnam war... which was quite interesting, to me at least.. second section is a wonderful array of war time photography done by american and japanese war correspondents that provides an insight into the photographers themselves as opposed to what they were capturing on film, included in this section is a book listing a page long history of each photographer who lost his life (or just went missing) during the conflict.. I never realised just how many war correspondents perished in the conflict.. there are a lot of pages.

After that we have the war crimes sections, which I see as two - basically the first one you hit is what generally horrifies most people - which details the devestation caused by defoliants, such as agent orange, and phosphor based bombs dropped on villages. If the photos on the walls aren't bad enough (people with skin falling off, disfigured and humongous birth defects) - they also have fouetuses in jars showing massive deformities as a result of gross dioxin poisoning in their mothers.

The second section is the more traditional war crimes - documenting the wholesale slaughter of men, woman and children.. with some truely horrific pictures of American soldiers looking pretty pleased with themselves as they proudly show off corpses (and in some cases partial corpses) of their victims.

I think the museum in itself is interesting for two very different reason, one because of the truely amazing photographs that are on display, and secondly because it is truely a product of propoganda fueled from the north - displaying a particularly one sided view of a tragic and drawn out conflict - a good reminder of whoever wins the war, writes the history books... but regardless of bias, the end result is that a lot of people died on both sides, most of them needlessly. 

Off The Nah Trang

Tonight we jump onto an overnight train at 11:00pm to take us up to Nha Trang ... it will be interesting to see how the trains are in Vietnam, compared to China and Thailand - Looking forward to it, definitely been too long since I've been able to catch a train (seeing as Laos has none, and Cambodia has one or two (depending on who you talk too) .. but it's only capable of travelling at ~20km/hr!)

Incidentally Nah Trang used to be the traditional R&R spot for american soldiers, and still carries a very dodgy reputation after dark - it should be good for a laugh, though my guide warned that they've had cases of men being chased by prostitutes - even all the way into elevators in hotels.