Mekong Diaries: Day 63

Mar 252010
 

Day 63

With the sun yet to rise we are already downstairs for a quick breakfast of eggs and strained coffee sweetened with condensed milk, then into a brand new taxi to a nearby floating market.

The 30-minute drive to there is a bit like window shopping at Vietnam’s transformation from pastoral village life to contemporary industrial power. Some of our team first came to Viet Nam’s delta nearly 20 years ago, when there were no roads, or bridges. At that time it was still a quiet and beautiful floating world where every road was a river, and the only means of getting around was by boat.

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Mekong Diaries: Day 62

Mar 252010
 

Day 62

With the sights of Can Tho failing to provide a new window on life on the Mekong, we decide that our best efforts can be turn towards gaining as much expert testimony as we can.

Luckily and by design Can Tho is home to one of the region’s premier environmental institutions, Can Tho University. On the campus of the University Can Tho, between classrooms and offices, we knock on the door of the local chapter of the Delta Research and Global Observation Network, DRAGON.

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Mekong Diaries: Day 61

Mar 242010
 

Day 61

Last night we briefly met our government guide, and this morning he is up before us, waiting downstairs in the dining room of our small hotel.

We order a baguette and omelet breakfast, washed down with strong oily coffee sweetened with condensed milk, (Health plan 101). Then we set off to our first meeting with Nguyen Quang Vinh, the Director of the Center for Managing Environment and Resources.

The weather is steamy and as much as we try to hide our bigness, the short walk across town to the offices has us properly hot and bothered. Waiting in the offices of the Center for the Director, we stand beneath the vents of every air conditioner we find, attempting to re-crisp ourselves like overheated lettuce leaves.

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Mekong Diaries Day 60

Mar 112010
 

Day 60

Today we caught a bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, where we arranged for the next stage of our journey downstream to Viet Nam by boat. A ferry service runs twice each way every day, carrying tourists through a stretch of river with an amazing history.

Cambodia’s rulers moved its capital from Angkorian Siem Reap to the junction of the Tonle Sap and the Mekong when trade began to replace agriculture as the engine of national wealth and influence.

Since then boats have been making there way upstream through the mouths of the Mekong Delta to the lands of the Khmer and beyond.

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