Follow the Mekong

I haven't done it myself yet, but its something I'm keen to do in the not too distant future, though there's already not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. Graham Reilly take a trip up the Mekong River for the Brisbane Times in Australia.

Follow the Mekong - with time to watch the ebb and flow of a river's life, Graham Reilly floats from Vietnam to Cambodia (Brisbane Times, Australia).

I stare from the riverbank at this astonishingly vast and lively world of water. Here, in the charming provincial city of Can Tho in the heart of southern Vietnam's Mekong Delta, it is as if the land is merely an afterthought. Everything is about the river and the way of life it sustains. It is a world of colour and movement, of a comforting spray of cool water on your face as you are rowed back to your hotel at night in a slim stick of a boat, of the sleepy glint of dusk as you trail your finger across the river's surface, of the cough and splutter of a small passenger ferry as it crosses the river to Vinh Long, of the throaty gurgle of a rice boat as it slowly motors to Ho Chi Minh City or Cambodia.

The Mekong begins its 4500-kilometre journey to the sea in Tibet and winds its way through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and finally into the Mekong Delta. The Vietnamese call the river Cuu Long, or nine dragons, and it is easy to see why, for here the Mekong spreads in great tentacles into nine exits to the sea. Can Tho sits on the banks of one of these tributaries, the Hang Giang river, also known as the Bassac, an impossibly broad, bustling expanse of brown water. It is a pleasant capital of 300,000 people, with tree-lined boulevards, cool grassy squares and 19th-century buildings that are remnants of French colonial days. One of the great pleasures of Vietnamese provincial towns such as Hoi An or Nha Trang is the local markets and Can Tho is no exception.

Selling vegetables, fruit and seafood, its large market spreads over an entire city block on one side and follows the curve of the river on the other. There is much to do here and it is a good place to organise a home stay with a farming family. It is also a good place to do nothing much at all. Gazing out from the pleasant promenade, I see boats of all shapes and sizes, one of which takes my friends and I early next morning to the famous Cai Rang floating market. Boats from all over the region – from Bac Lieu, Vinh Long and Camau – come here to sell what seems like every fruit and vegetable ever imagined: jackfruit, oranges, rambutan, bananas, longans, pineapples and sweet potatoes.

An, 30, is our guide. It is her father's boat and her husband navigates it safely through the shifting mass of craft on the river. "He is a good husband," she says, smiling. "He is happy to cooking and washing with me at night." We nod in agreement. A good husband can be hard to find. I explain to her that we want to travel to Cambodia by boat, from Can Tho to Chau Doc, across the border and up to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and then on to Siem Reap, home of one of the great wonders of the world, the temple complex of Angkor Wat. We've got six days for the journey of more than 400 kilometres. An offers to arrange the journey and a few phone calls later we agree to meet at the Can Tho dock at 2pm the next day. I tell her I have visited these places before but always by road or air. This time I want a gentler, more romantic mode of transport along the mighty Mekong and its tributaries. I want to hear the gentle slap of the water against the boat, feel the tropical breeze on my skin and watch people go about their lives on the riverbanks. I want to be part of the landscape. I want to make the journey as important as the arrival.

Can Tho has several restaurants along the waterfront and that night we decide on the Thien Hoa. We settle happily at a pavement table in the evening balm, show no restraint and order a feast – fried snake with onions, sea bass soup with tamarind, prawns steamed in beer, catfish hotpot and coconut ice-cream. It is a meal to remember and a harbinger of culinary experiences to come. Loaded up with fruit and sandwiches we've borrowed from the sumptuous breakfast buffet at the Victoria Hotel, we board the "fast boat" to Chau Doc, a journey An tells us will take about three hours. She says the slow boat, which leaves at 6.30am, takes about eight hours.

The fast boat is a long, relatively sleek, metal-hulled craft that does not go particularly fast, which turns out to be a blessing, given the pleasure of being on the water and lounging on the deck and watching the world go by. Most of the passengers are part of a package run by Delta Adventure Tours that includes a night at the company's floating hotel in Chau Doc. As we are travelling independently, we each pay $US20 ($23) for the trip. The boat seats about 30 people in something more or less resembling comfort. Sitting on the deck munching on a bag of rambutan, it becomes immediately clear to me that this is a working river. Large boats, washing fluttering in the breeze and overloaded with bananas, take their produce to market. Other boats dredge silt from the riverbed to be used in the construction industry. The weight of their cargo lays them so low in the water it is as if just one more grain could tip them into the muddy depths.

The riverbanks jump with activity. A line of brick kilns several kilometres long puffs smoke as families stack freshly baked bricks or load them on to waiting boats, the children straining under the burden. The smell of fermenting fish sauce wafts from factories onshore. Much of the riverbank is lined with sandbags to protect stilted houses from the river, which swells dramatically during the wet season. There is so much of interest to observe on the water and the riverbanks that the journey passes quickly and before I know it we are approaching Chau Doc, a journey of 5 hours. The river seems to settle in the dusk and takes on a kind of dreamy indolence, as if it has done enough work for the day. Meanwhile, I have been lulled into a sense of well-being I've never experienced when travelling by road or air.

Impressed with our stay at the Victoria Hotel in Can Tho, we decide to spend a few nights at the Victoria in Chau Doc. It is another elegant, splendidly positioned, colonial-style building perched on the banks of the Bassac. The view from our room across the spreading river takes my breath away. Chau Doc shuts down early and we are lucky to get to the Bay Bong restaurant while it is still serving dinner. The restaurant forgoes interesting decor for delicious Mekong cuisine. It's another feast. We start with canh chua, the local sweet-and-sour fish soup, and follow this with steamed fish and prawns, including ca kho, stewed fish in a clay pot. It's so good we return the next night. Chau Doc is another attractive and welcoming provincial town of about 100,000 people with an enormous market that snakes along the riverfront. The fish section alone – which has not just fresh fish but dried, spiced, marinated and salted – is wondrous.

We're close to the Cambodian border here and the people are more obviously Khmer, with their fuller features, darker skin and a preference for a chequered scarf over the ubiquitous Vietnamese conical hat. It is also home to a sizeable community of Chams, a Muslim minority of Malaysian appearance who live on the other side of the Bassac river. We hire a boat and motor across to the Cham village. On the main street, dotted with stalls selling fruit and vegetables and snacks, women chat in the shade of the verandas of their wooden houses. Little girls sell waffles and simple cakes to visitors. I meet the caretaker of one of the two mosques. He shows us a short film about the history of the Cham but it is in Vietnamese so we leave none the wiser. This part of the Bassac river, where it meets the Mekong, is home to an extraordinary concentration of floating houses, each of which is a self-contained fish farm. In the centre of each house is a large cage submerged in the river, in which families raise local bassa catfish, thousands of tonnes of which are exported to Australia every year. The fish are fed a kind of meal made from cereal, fish and vegetable scraps in cauldrons that rumble and roil. The smell is challenging.

At eight the next morning, we board another fast boat for the journey to the Cambodian capital. On another steamy, insanely hot day, we are looking forward to spending the trip on the deck, savouring the breeze. But a gaggle of young American backpackers with newsreader voices storm the boat and secure the outdoor area as their headquarters. It is their world. We just live in it. As we travel towards Cambodia, the river begins to change. Gone is the frenetic boat activity and on the riverbank life takes on a less industrial, more bucolic demeanour. As we rejoin the Mekong, the river widens and soon the factories on the shore are replaced by cornfields, banana trees that shift and flap in the breeze and ragged, palm-thatched huts. Families bathe in the shallows and children scrub and splash their wallowing buffaloes. One-and-a-half hours later, when we reach the border at Vinh Xuong, Vietnam, and Kaam Samnor, Cambodia, we're in a different, more lush, more languid world.

We disembark at the border post and after an hour or so filling in various forms and questionnaires, we say goodbye to the Vietnamese boat and board the altogether less salubrious Cambodian craft for the rest of the journey. But in the end the boat's state of rugged disrepair matters little and most people spend the afternoon sitting on the rear deck or lounging on the bow and impairing the vision of the driver. It is all too idyllic and, as it turn out, too good to last. Low water levels in the Tonle Sap river mean we have to complete the final leg of the journey by bus. But even this is fascinating, if cramped, as we hurl through the countryside and the sedate outskirts of Phnom Penh. As we arrive in the busy heart of the capital, I check my watch. It was just over seven hours ago that we boarded the boat in Chau Doc.

At our hotel, the owner tells us the water levels in the Tonle Sap are too low for us to go by boat to Siem Reap and that we'll have to take the bus or fly. He dismisses our disappointment, saying the boat has a karaoke machine on board. "Very noisy." But we won't decide what to do until after dinner – perhaps some steamed fish in coconut milk or fried squid with green peppers. As we hop into a tuk-tuk to take us to the waterfront, a young girl, brown as a nut and cute as a button, implores us to buy some bottled water. "What's your name?" I ask. "Cosmic," she replies, beaming. "Where are you from?" "Australia." "Do you know Kevin Rudd?" she asks. "Of course." "Well, he is my father." I look puzzled and she giggles. We are smitten and it's bottled water all round. As we putter away, she yells to us: "Tell Kevin his daughter says hello." I wave and promise I will.

Puppetry excellence

Two of the shadow puppet characters that courted the most laughter from the watching children

The questionnaire that I completed at the end of my 4-day Mekong Discovery Trail fam trip asked me for the highlight of my tour. Without hesitation I scribbled down, shadow puppets at Wat Roka Kandal in Kratie. Not only is the venue pretty spectacular, a stone's throw from the Mekong River and on the steps of the renovated early 19th century vihear, but the quality of the performance was exceptional when you consider the artists had received only one and a half month's training before this inaugural show. With more practice and support from the professionals at Sovanna Phum, the talented girls, who provide most of the puppetry during the hour long performance, will be sensational. The musicians and the voice-overs all added to a great show and it was capped off by what seemed to be the whole village turning out for the floodlit event too, with the younger children laughing and screaming at the puppets' funny antics, as they inched ever closer to the stage. Whilst our group occupied two rows of seats near the front, hordes of villagers stood behind us enjoying it as much as we did. The shadow puppet story focused on the princess and the crocodile, which is the tale that is linked to the 100-pillar pagoda at Wat Sasar Muoy Roy, 35kms north along the Mekong at Sambor, so it was educational for everyone too. In the future, they want to offer a dinner and puppet show double-bill that will add a 'must-see' attraction in the Kratie area, which pretty much closes down for the night when the sun sets just after 6pm. It certainly gets the thumbs up from me. After the show ended, I met with the artists to thank them for the excellent entertainment they'd provided and they were simply adorable. They gave me two leather puppets to keep and then took turns to practice their faltering English with the usual array of questions that crop up on such occasions, ie. age, nationality, job, marital status, etc. In return, they rattled off their names and without exception they all looked about sixteen years old but I'm sure they were older. One girl said "I love you like my father" which made me feel very humble and pretty ancient at the same time! If you get the opportunity to see the shadow puppets at Wat Roka Kandal, make sure you grab it with both hands. More from my April visit to Wat Roka Kandal here.

Some of the children waiting expectantly for the show to begin

The musicians and singers open up the performance

A brother and sister watch the performance

The children inch ever closer to the main stage at Wat Roka Kandal

The light shines on the righteous; well on this occasion, two of the artists with yours truly, after their splendid performance

Back in PP

One of the most enjoyable moments came when the girls above performed an evening shadow puppet show at Wat Roka Kandal in Kratie, to our group and the rest of the village

I'm back home after a very enjoyable 4 days along the Mekong River, getting a feel for what the Mekong Discovery Trail is all about, seeing the sights with some new friends (also known as tour operator rivals) and visiting a handful of new locations on the Brouwer itinerary. I'll post details of the trip and photos in due course, for now I need a shower and an early night. More tomorrow.
For the record, I wasn't available to cover the Cambodian Premier League matches at the weekend, hence the absence of any football round-up. Thank goodness some of you may say. Phnom Penh Crown kept up the pace at the top, beating BBU 3-1, whilst 2nd-placed Preah Khan Reach went down 2-0 to Naga Corp. The CPL's top scorer Prince Justine netted another two as Spark drew 2-2 with Khemara and Kirivong swept aside Phuchung Neak 2-0. PS. The Cambodian U-23 squad was due to play a select Nigerian XI early on Tuesday morning in their first practice match but the heavy rain put paid to my attendance. I later found out it was a 1-1 draw with Prak Mony Udom netting for the national team in their first run-out together despite numerous absences due to injuries and club calls.

Up The Mekong

I'll be indisposed for much of the next 4 days as I'm off 'Up The Mekong' (sounds like a Carry On film to any British readers) on a fam trip to Kratie, Stung Treng and the Cambodian-Laos border area. I'll try and post an update or two but the likelihood is that I'll be back online once I return home on Monday night. Wish me a happy trip.

On the way back - photos

A look at the Mekong River near Sambor

These photos are linked to my On the way back story from 16 April. Unfortunately at that time, the host company for my blog was not allowing uploading of photos. Now they are, and here they are. Read the story again below.

The low level of the Mekong River exposes small grassy islands

The low level Mekong River near Phnom Sambok

Do not sin, or the poor unfortunates in this painting could be you, at Phnom Sambok

Females are having a bad time of it, having sinned and been punished on this thorny tree in hell, on the 1st level of Phnom Sambok

A distinquished looking Neak Ta on the top level of Phnom Sambok

A rather unique styled building on the 1st level of Phnom Sambok

This half-lintel at Wat Thma Krae shows a large makara eating human figures

The rather elegant looking two-storey Wat Krakor, near Kratie

Leaving behind Sambor and the 116 pillar pagoda, we retraced our steps southwards along the east bank of the Mekong River, stopping often to interact with the locals, usually kids 'cause they're the easiest to get the big wide smiles from. The Mekong River water level was quite low so exposed a lot of small grass-tufted islands, as it had in Kratie town, where a virtual beach had appeared complete with temporary sun-shades just in front of Wat Roka Kandal. At the turn-off for Phnom Sambok, we stopped for sugar cane juice before tackling the three-levels of Sambok mountain, 360 steps and its varied pagodas. At the first level we stopped to have sticky rice (a local delicacy called krolan) with the nuns who were so welcoming we couldn't resist. Through actions rather than words, we had an enjoyable half hour, sharing their food and doing our bit for English-Khmer relations before facing the rest of the steps to the top. There are great views over the surrounding river plains, though the pagodas themselves weren't much to write home about and apart from a sandstone pedestal, there was little else I could find. Next stop was the pagoda at Wat Thma Krae where I spied another pedestal and after a bit of searching, a half lintel - with figures riding a massive makara - that had been cemented into part of a bridge construction. One way to avoid it being stolen I suppose. The young monk we spoke to told us that there used to be other carvings but they had been whisked away years ago, a similar story can be heard across the country. The village of Thma Krae is where it seems everyone is involved in selling krolan packed in bamboo. Our final port of call was the distinquished two-storey pagoda at Wat Krakor, before we rolled back into Kratie town itself, in time for a shave at the local beauty salon, an hour on the internet and a fruit-shake and chat with riverside vendor Leang, who'd come to Kratie a year before from her home in Kompong Cham as business was much better here. At 27 she was looking to stay one more year before returning to her home town with her earnings and to look for a husband. Spotting a glint in her eye, it was time to say goodbye, I wished her well and walked back to my hotel for an early night, in prep for the minibus ride to Stung Treng the next morning.

Wat watching on the Mekong

A thick-set stone lion, a relic from its 7th century beginnings, at Wat Sasar Muoy Roy

Buoyed by our successful early morning dolphin-watching activities at Kampi, about 15kms north of Kratie, Tim and I and our respective motodops, headed further north and called into Wat Sandan on our way to Sambor and Wat Sasar Muoy Roy, the 100-pillar pagoda, that's actually 116 pillars but who's counting. The ride along the road hugging the east bank of the Mekong River was a very pleasant journey as we passed through villages, returning waves and hello's before pulling into the grounds of our target destination, some 35kms north of Kratie. Now for a history lesson. Wat Sasar Muoy Roy was built on the site of an 7th century former royal palace called Sambhupura and was one of four temples, each facing a different direction; Sasar Muoy Roy faces north and was built in the 16th century, when King Chan Reachea II dedicated it to the goddess of the temple, who he asked to care for the soul of his daughter, Preah Neang Varakak, who'd be swallowed by a crocodile. About 100 years into its life, the temple was struck by lightning which burnt 22 columns and turned the face of the main Buddha statue black. Now reduced to 78 colums, the pagoda was renovated again at the end of the 1990s and is now wider, longer and has 116 colums for good measure. Of the other three temples, one has disappeared, another, the wooden Preah Vihear Kuk (and faces east), stands 300 metres east and is currently being renovated, whilst Preah Vihear Laos (faces west) is in town and lies unattended and abandoned. Back at Sasar Muoy Roy, I found a stone lion and an inscribed stone with eight lines of Sanskrit writing being attended by a couple of laymen, next to the gold and pink stupa of the deceased princess, before we visited Preah Vihear Kuk, which was a decaying ruin the last time I visited it nine years earlier, and a quick chat with some young monks. Restoration efforts were in full flow at Vihear Kuk, with the ceiling paintings being retouched and the wooden columns and roof having already received expert attention. A couple of kilometres north of Sambor are the villages of Don Meas and Baay Samnom and closeby are a series of five sites where groups of brick temples once stood, but where little remains and even the residents had no idea where the piles of bricks were located. So instead of spending hours scouring the undergrowth, much of which was underwater, we sat down with a group of women and children to practice our limited Khmer and their non-existent English, which is always fun, before starting our ride back.

A ceiling painting in need of a spring-clean at Wat Sandan

Wat Sasar Muoy Roy, a stone's throw from the Mekong River and its 116 pillars

The re-painted stupa of Preah Neang Varakak, eaten by a crocodile

An unusual Neak Ta at Wat Sasar Muoy Roy is well-armed!

Preah Vihear Kuk is undergoing extensive renovation

The re-painted pediment above the east-facing entrance at Preah Vihear Kuk

Preah Vihear Kuk's ceiling paintings getting touched up, complete with wooden scaffolding

The central shrine and wooden columns at Preah Vihear Kuk

The attractive and pretty location of Preah Vihear Kuk, as well as stairs that go nowhere!

The unattended and abandoned Preah Vihear Laos, in the town of Sambor

Relaxing by the Mekong

The vihara at Wat Roka Kandal, restored to its former glory in 2002

A couple of weeks ago, I spent two nights in the provincial town of Kratie, on my way into northern Cambodia, enjoying the dolphin activity at Kampi and the laid-back atmosphere of this colonial-infused Mekong riverside location. It was my first overnight visit to Kratie in nine years and little had changed. I stayed at the Oudom Sambath hotel on the riverfront, which was about as good as it gets in the provinces, ie. air-con and hot water, at $15/night, ate at the Red Sun Falling - where I had the best chips I've tasted since moving to Cambodia to live - and also sampled the fare at the U-Hong restaurant next to the market and a cooked breakfast at the Star guesthouse. As you can expect at any town in any province, the market was a hive of activity and the colonial buildings ringing the marketplace add a touch of faded elegance to the area, even though the smell doesn't quite add spice to the scene. The restored early 19th century wooden pagoda at Wat Roka Kandal (its original name is Wat Botumny Vannaram) lies a couple of kilometres south of the center and I remember it as a broken and dilapidated vihara when I was last in Kratie, until it received its makeover in early 2002 with financial help from the German Federation, and is now a handicraft center. It lies next to the Mekong riverbank and adjacent to a couple of decaying wooden bungalows that can be rented. Tim and I popped our heads into a couple of the locals wats, played football with a group of men at Wat Serey Santhor Vong and took the opportunity to enjoy the setting sun across the river with a fruit-shake in one hand and camera in the other. A relaxing start to our adventures.

I remember this female figure from my last visit to Roka Kandal 9 years ago

A rare wooden pediment on Wat Roka Kandal showing a sitting Buddha

A nicely decorated door panel at Wat Roka Kandal

The west-facing wooden pediment at Wat Roka Kandal

A wooden post inside the vihara which has been hand-painted with naga motifs

Did you think I wouldn't bring you a Neak Ta? This one is from Roka Kandal.

Sunset on our 1st night and the birds fly home to nest

A temporary beach near Roka Kandal, where the water level of the Mekong has dropped

The gorgeous dusk sky as the sun sets on our 2nd night in Kratie

Ripples on the river

Tim's shot of one of Kampi's ultra-friendly dolphins

When you see this sign, you know you have arrived at Kampi

Dolphins at Kratie, well Kampi to be precise. I hadn't forgotten that I was going to share with you a few more of our pictures from our dolphin encounter last month. Tim's photos were better than mine, I seemed to find the happy knack of clicking the shutter just as the dolphin disappeared from view, leaving the majority of my pics showing just ripples on the river. Nevertheless, we enjoyed considerable dolphin activity during the hour or so on the Mekong River and some of the unexpected full, body-out somersaults and vertical head-out manoeuvres were quite exciting. We persuaded our boatman to paddle to reduce the noise and in the quiet of our 6.30am start, we thoroughly enjoyed our brief flirtation with the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins. The pod that lives at Kampi is about twenty strong I'm told, and I reckon we saw most of them, though without any way to formally identify them, its impossible to tell. However, with dolphins breaking the surface at the same time in at least four directions, often in a group of four, we had our fill. As we went further out into the middle of the river our group of four dolphins followed us, deliberately teasing me and my failure to capture their antics on film - well, that's my theory. As we returned to shore, both Tim and I deemed our dolphin-watching a major success.

The sun rises over the Mekong River

Two dolphins head out to deeper water in the middle of the river

Tim captures one of the day's first somersaults

Local traffic began to pick up around 7am

If I had managed to capture the picture before the dolphin disappeared, this may've been a nice shot!Dolphin in foreground, French-colonial river markers in background, on the right

Vertical head-out pose from this dolphin, quite close to the shore at Kampi

This was how the majority of my photos turned out, an indistinct shadow and some splashes

Welcome to Kampi and the Irrawaddy Mekong dolphins - the boat costs $9/hour/person

The stretch of the Mekong River at Kampi and the tourist boats lying in wait for customers