The Jungle Cruise

If yesterday was a bit of a disappointment, today was the best I could imagine. One shouldn't expect all to go to plan when traveling, but when you get close to it, it's like magic.

We were off the conveyor belt. By that I mean we left the tour company for the day, and made our own agenda. We were in Can Tho which is the largest city in the Mekong Delta, and scene of the infamous brazed rat incident. Can Tho is also a huge boating city, so were going to make up for all the boating we didn't have yesterday.

The port was 1.5 kilometers from the hotel. But both of us are recovering from surgeries, so why spend it all at 7 AM? Luckily, in Vietnam there's almost always someone wanting to sell you a ride. We hitched lifts on two motor bikes.

On arrival, a woman immediately asked if I wanted to hire a boat. I said my negotiator would be here shortly, and we waited for My Lovely Wife's motor bike to arrive. After about 10 minutes of discussion, the deal was struck, a coconut and two soft drinks were bought, and we were on the water.

Our first arrival was the largest floating market in the Delta. It took at least 30 minutes to pass all the way through. During this time, My Lovely Wife struck up a conversation with the boatman, who only spoke Vietnamese. The trouble was he wasn't involved in the negotiations. We didn't want the standard four hour, three stop tour. We wanted at least six hours.

Our first landing was to see where many of the plants we've seen for sale originate. There was a path along the shoreline where we could go from yard to yard. There were many children, and we had brought a large bag of candy, and some stuffed animals. We started to pass out some of the candy. The boatman could see what was going on. After we were back on board, he asked if we would give candy to the children of his village.

Next, we stopped at an "orchard" which was really more of an amusement park/zoo. There were crocodiles (but it wasn't feeding day), ostriches, and fish, as well as swings and cages full of balls for kids to play in. On the other side of the barbed-wire fence, which separated the orchard from the next property, there were two men harvesting coconuts. My Lovely Wife sprang into action and bought a few (5).

The boatman arrived, said a few words, and took the coconuts back to the boat. He later came back. The lady who had negotiated the deal was concerned over the length of our stay. At this point, we had not paid any money, so the Golden Rule took effect. My Lovely Wife re-started the terms of the deal.

Back on the boat, we passed through another floating market and then headed up a smaller tributary. It was like turning off the Grand Canal in Venice. After about 45 minutes, we arrived at another "orchard". We've been to this one before, and the tour company will probably bring us to it again tomorrow. Yes, there are a few plants, but this is really a lunch stop. We ordered chicken and was asked if we would like to watch them kill the bird.

If you are squeamish, skip the next three paragraphs.

I decided to see the offing of the bird. Not because of some morbid fascination, but because we should understand where our food comes from. The chicken was held down to the floor and had its throat cut. The blood was collected in a bowl. After the bird was bled out, two thoughts came to mind.

First, there's a number of computer technical support jokes about letting the blood of a chicken onto your keyboard to solve many computer problems. I was wondering if they would use the collected blood to repair their Windows 7 registry conflicts, or if they were trying to get a mobile data card to work.

Second, I kept thinking of the Monty Python Pet Shop sketch. It struck me that I had just purchased an Ex-Chicken!

It was going to take a while to pluck, gut, and cook the late chicken. I decided to kick off my shoes and lay in a hammock. Finally, dead clucky arrived on the table. Being a free-range daisy-pusher, he was very chewy.

A stuffed animal was given to a child who lives at the orchard, and we were back on the boat, which turned around and headed in the direction from where we came. My heart sank. If we back-tracked we would not go down any of the really narrow canals. But there was that one turn we hadn't taken... the boat turned. Oh, yeah! We were on the Jungle Cruise. Waterways so narrow boats have to coordinate passing each other.

The prop fouled in some vegetation. The boatman jumped over the side to clear it. Apparently, this is all in a day's work. I has seen many boats with props fouled by plastic bags. They are a serious problem in the Delta. The sooner the plastic bag can been gotten rid of, the better.

We were going through narrower channel after narrower channel. I had moved to the front of the boat to get better pictures, and the boatman made suggestions and slowed the pace when it would help. When you get down to it, he was being a better tour guide than yesterday's tour guide. What he had been doing was moving us back to this morning's dock, but not using the main channel. The tour ended up being 8 hours.

The boatman asked if he could give the rest of our stuffed animals and the candy to the children of his village. When we agreed, he lit up like it was Christmas morning.

Back on the dock, we paid for the trip, then gave the boatman the tip a real tour guide would be proud to receive. He had made our day, and now we were returning the favor. It had been the longest day we had ever been on boats in the Delta.

We headed back to the hotel for showers and a siesta. Then, we headed to the water front where the party had already started. It was obviously Date Night, as well as the prelude to new years. We shared a taxi with a couple from Germany who will probably be on the tour tomorrow.

This was probably one of the best days I've had on any tour.