I set the alarm early to greet the sunrise. It doesn’t disappoint. Orange hues start to flood through our cabin window so we pull on some clothes and pad upstairs to lie on sun loungers, watching the sun rise above the horizon and the world come to life as we set sail again. Cocks crow, birds sing and the sun hazily rises up with real heat despite the early hour, revealing towns and villages already getting on with their day as we cruise past drinking coffee.
Breakfast
We’re served a delicious pho for breakfast, slurping gingery noodles and fresh coriander, and then just after 8am we dock at the town of Cai Be, taking a little boat to the jetty. After the peace and tranquillity of our cruiser, it proves an absolutely overwhelming assault on the senses. Picking our way through litter and effluent we arrive at the street market, which is in full swing, and are confronted with challenging scenes of livestock cruelty.
Ducks are trapped in cages with their legs tied in great masses, unable to escape from each other. Frogs are piled high in big vats, and vast arrays of pig, cow, snake, poultry, eels, fish and insect butchering goes on before our eyes. The suffering and lack of hygiene is rife.
Cai Be market
Trang leads us through back streets past souvenir stalls and cooking items, piles of sweets and spices, but the stench of blood and flesh of indeterminate natures and stalls crammed in amongst each other proves challenging. Knowing what we know now about the coronavirus pandemic, it’s absolutely no surprise that viruses pass from animals to humans. The sooner the planet becomes vegetarian, the better and healthier our societies will be.
Our next stop is a factory further down the river where the workers demonstrate how to make delicious coconut toffees and popping rice, providing us with refreshing cups of kumquat and ginger tea, which Richard and Caroline point blank refuse to drink, to the dismay of our hosts. It’s utterly delicious. We browse the stalls buying a few beautifully lacquered and engraved bowls made from coconut shells, but baulking at the bottles of snake and scorpion wine on offer.
Thankfully this is the last stop for Richard and Caroline who get picked up by a long-suffering driver who looks less than delighted to have to see them again, and we get on board the little tender and are returned to our boat, which soon starts to fill up with an international mix of fellow guests for the return journey to Cần Thơ.
Taking tea in the factory
Our new travelling companions include some young German couples, four Swiss Italians who smoke and talk loudly, a strange group of elderly European men with two younger Asian ladies, complete with enhanced bosoms, in tow and a retired British couple, Jan and Peter, who are on their way back from visiting their daughters in Sydney, with tales of wildfires, smoke and destruction ravaging the country.
The upper deck is full for lunch, which for us includes a papaya and crispy tofu skin salad, sweet potato dumplings with a chilli plum sauce and a gin & tonic for Coman and chilled beers for me. As the afternoon progresses the humidity builds further and the heat beats down so when we disembark at a different village and get into the shade of trees it’s a relief.
This time we jump on bikes and have a fun cycle through fields and villages, past temples and through gorgeous flowers and scenery. Trang waits by the tender for myself and Coman to return and then gets us back to the ship ahead of the others so we get a chance to experience an absolutely spectacular sunset as the golden orb sinks into the water through the silhouetted palm trees, sipping cocktails before everyone else gets back on board. It’s a proper Mekong moment.
Bassac at sunset
Dinner is livelier than before as the chatter of other tables replaces the icy air of Richard and Caroline and we have great fun people watching the other couples. The chef chats to us about the food we like and makes us a host of special vegetarian dishes and, with bellies full, we lie on the sun beds looking at the stars listening to some truly brutal drunken karaoke drifting across the water from a wedding party on the shore.
The next morning there’s a jaw-dropping sunrise, the tropical air outside our air-conditioned cabin instantly misting up my camera lens as I try to focus on the horizon, and the burning orange orb rising quickly over distant buildings and shimmering on the river.
After breakfast, Trang takes us downstairs to meet our chefs and crew, checking out the spotless kitchens run by a husband and wife who we thank for their creativity with new dishes for us, and wandering around the sweltering engine room where one member of the crew has to be permanently stationed. It’s a hard life, pedalling frantically below stairs for the guests to glide serenely on the upper decks. We leave a sizeable tip when we leave the ship.
Through the porthole
Our final destination is the floating market of Cai Rang, which means Crocodile Tears. In a little boat we weave our way through crafts piled high with fruits and vegetables, most boats selling just one crop which they advertise by tying a bunch of their wares to the tallest mask. Boats selling pomegranates and pineapples, potatoes and onions, bananas and mangoes bob and float around and pull up beside us to try and sell their goods.
Finally a boat drifts alongside us with durian fruit for sale. I instantly purchase, keen to discover if it truly smells as nauseous as legend has it yet tastes like the most heavenly custard. Having seen an episode of Blue Peter as a child where one of the presenters tried it, I’ve always wanted to taste it for myself… but it’s a little anti-climactic. Perhaps my olfactory senses are not as developed as others’ but it smells mildly unpleasant and tastes relatively sweet, with a custardy texture, yet is not the sensory overload of my childhood imagination.
Another little piece of golden innocence tarnished by adult reality. Ah well, what’s to come next is a vivid experience of Indochina’s challenging past which definitely leaves an impression.
