Stop 29: The sun will melt-ya on the Mekong Delta -- Mekong Delta, Vietnam

To get from Vietnam to Cambodia you can be lame and take a bus or you can be really cool and spend three days meandering through the rivers that connect the two countries. We’re really cool so we chose the latter. Sadly, though, we did something so uncool: we booked a tour. First and last time we’d make such a stupid decision. For 72 hours, we were ushered on and off buses, in and out of hotels and to and from tourist attractions you normally couldn’t pay us to see.

Day 1 kicked off with a visit to yet another bridge and yet another pagoda. We were those jerks who sat in the bus and waited for everyone else to come back. Gotta do what you gotta do. In the afternoon, after attempting to stomach tour food, we took a boat ride on small canals running through the lush Vietnamese wilderness. Much to our dismay, we were stuck with two (you guessed it!) SCHNITZELS. One was large and in charge and the other was his subservient little lover. We prayed the boat would stay afloat until we reached the honey candy factory. When we did arrive we tasted candy that tasted JUST like plastic and watched on as a giant cobra was passed from one lame-ass tour participant to another. Our turn came soon enough, it was placed around our shoulders, and the second it looked back at us we screamed, lifted it off and threw it to the closest Vietnamese man. While everyone else took their one turn with the snake, the schnitzels felt entitled to three and even held the snake’s head in place for the perfect close-up picture. Oh how we wished it were venomous and hungry. You win some, you lose some. Back on a bigger, better and even more touristy boat, we jotted down the lyrics (yes, all eight minutes of them) of Don McLean’s American Pie for our over-eager guide. Sadly, he attempted to play it on his guitar after a terrible and physically painful Vietnamese musical performance.

Our super duper sucky tour group voted to leave the next morning at 5am to see the sunrise from our boat. Not only was the sunrise completely obscured by the clouds, but the floating villages we visited were nothing special and nothing worth waking up at 4:30 for. Bitter and particularly resentful at the herd of schnitzels, we brought up the rear en route to a rice noodle factory. Ok, for the first time, something revolving around food.  Now we’re talking. We watched as the original paste was made, dried out in the sun on bamboo sheets and shredded into fresh rice noodles. The puppies running around were an especially sanitary bonus. 

Before crossing the border into Cambodia we made one more oh-so-unnecessary tour stop: an alligator farm. Here thousands of alligators, in all shapes and sizes, are “farmed” to be “exported.” Translation: we breed alligators to kill them and sell their skin. Great. Glad we could support your noble business.

The Cambodian border was finally around the corner and we were so ready to exchange our last dong for some colorful riel.