Bangkok to Rio

Actually, that title is a bit of a misnomer. We were quite happy to finally leave hot, dusty, dirty Phnom Penh and head down the river to Vietnam. Actually, first we got in a hot, dusty, dirty bus and bumped along dirt roads for about an hour and a half alongside the river before getting onto the river itself. Why the boat doesn't actually leave from Phnom Penh is still a mystery, but probably has something to do with making sure your journey gets spread over as many different modes of transportation as possible, which seems to be a theme of this trip so far.

The boat ride was nice, though -- we headed down the Mekong for several hours, which is easily a mile wide at most points, then crossed the border into Vietnam and turned off into the network smaller waterways and canals that criscross the Mekong Delta region. We spent the last few hours drifting by houses on stilts, people casting and pulling in fishing nets, women in conical hats, people wading up to their waists in rice paddies -- pretty much what vietnam is supposed to look like.

Sadly, the light was pretty terrible for most of the trip, but here's one photo of the boat:

We floated into Chau Doc, the sleepy Vietnamese border town late in the afternoon, checked into our hotel, and headed out for one of the best meals of the trip so far:

This is a Mekong Delta specialty, river fish in a sweet/sour/salty broth with lots of vegetables, fresh herbs, and fried shallots on the top. Yum.

Chau Doc was pleasant and charming, but tiny with very little to do, so we headed the next morning for Can Tho, the largest town in the Delta.

We took the local bus there, rather than the air-conditioned tourist bus ($1.50 for the three hour trip, rather than $5). On this bus we saw one of the more interesting sights we've seen...pretty much anywhere.

Let me paint a picture here: this guy gets on the bus, which is already full, so he sits in the middle aisle right next to us on an upturned milk crate. He then drops his baggy sweatpants -- turns out he has shorts on underneath. He opens up his duffel bag, which contains dozens of cigarette cartons and a lot of rubber bands.

He starts taking cartons, two or three at a time, and strapping them to his upper thighs with the rubber bands. We figure, okay, I guess there's a quota on how many cigarettes you can transport by bus from one town to another? He must be hiding some of them so that he's within the legal limit. But no, the strapping continues for a good 20 minutes (meanwhile, two little kids on the other side of him keep glancing over and giggling -- we're not the only ones amused). Finally, his entire bag is empty -- he's managed to attach an entire medium-sized duffel bag of cigarette cartons to his legs. He then puts the sweatpants back on, his legs have now more or less tripled in circumference, and he's now walking with a pronounced bow-legged gait, like you see on people who have spent too much time on a horse.

Anyhow, over the course of the bus ride, at least two women with similar leg-girth waddle onto the bus. We began to wonder if we should be strapping things to our legs as well, but unfortunately I was wearing shorts and Beth's pants have a nice tailored fit; she only managed to strap on her iPod and a couple lychee fruits before we gave it up and settled in for the ride.