Day 18 - RV la Marguerite - 24th September 2014

RV la Marguerite. - Day 18 - 24th September 2014 - Wednesday

Another breakfast of mango, papaya, jackfruit, nuts, yogurt and pho. Oh my I love this food, but I think I already said that. The Green 'Family' leave at 8.30 for our in shore excursion. The tender boat takes us to Tan Chau, a small river town virtually untouched by tourism. All are helped off ship and on board by a series of willing hands of the crew, I watch the heavy clump of bodies and feet as hands thrust their total weight in some unsuspecting little Vietnamese man. I pride myself on stepping lightly, using their generous hands for guidance on,y, making eye contact, and always saying thank you. We are all clad in our orange life jackets, and sit on teak chairs, as the boat navigates small channels to visit a local village, in an evergreen island, called Green Village, which is Eco friendly (apparently, but the garbage is not) - where smiling children chatter and shout hi, and smile and follow us, wanting high fives and posing for photos. We must late averse a monkey bridge, a narrow gangplank affair to get off. It is perhaps twenty feet long, and I wonder whether Evelyn, who goes before me, will manage. She is a very pretty, very large blonde woman of German heritage, she reminds me of Ann Hoey. I hope her weight doesn't break the monkey bridge whilst I am on it just feet behind her. It doesn't.

They are already trained in fleecing the tourist, their smiles I discover are not all delighted, but some clearly calculated, as one in particular demands 'pen pen pen' until he is given one, then starts with '7 up 7 up 7 up'. Nobody has. 7 up, but if they had, he would have had it. These are good looking children, clean, healthy and happy, and whilst they are very poor compared to us in Australia, they do not appear poor compared to say, the mountain children. The women have brought bags of lollies and coloured pencils, and the kids line up in a row at a word from Tang, our tour guide. The women are beaming, and clearly enjoy the act of dispensing one lolly to each child, one woman after the other. I have not brought lollies, I will not give crap to these kids, yet they are all so happy, as kids everywhere are, with the sugary treats. I think, this is but a moments pleasure for these people. A moment where they get to feel good, and see a kid smile, but what difference does this make?? I wonder how many sponsor children. There is one handicapped child on a verandah, and several of these kind hearted grandmothers head back to ensure she gets her treats too. From what we see, the homes are spotless, some with fairly elaborate glass ornament cabinets, and wooden beds upon which their sleeping rattan mats are covering the mozzie nets and pillows they use at night. Some are open at the front, no walls to the street, hence no privacy. There are chickens running loose and roosters in tiny bamboo cages, in the boiling sun, my heart aches, and men lazing in hammocks, the diet floor is swept clean. We see straw bales covering the eel breeding pens, and the saddest cows, Brahmin, in concrete pens which they never leave, tied with a short noose, and other cows in a tiny pen, shaded by cloth, the baby nuzzles my hand and puts her black tongue out to lick me, I cry for the cruelty of it, but Tang says, 'this is the way it has been for a thousand years' ..... Each house has a collection of pots out front, and when Tang opens one, filled with a dark liquid and there is a vile smell, it looks to be fermenting, and it is, with odd lumps floating on the surface, and I. To ice a couple of large flies. It is their fish sauce, which takes months to prepare, but by the time they are done, and it is filtered, it is the clear wonderful tasting sauce we have on board ship. (Well perhaps not on board ship.). They must use gallons of the stuff. Nobody steals it. As everybody has huge pots of it out the front. There you go.

We visit a small story where they are making rattan sleeping mats, such a labour intensive process, with each thin reed fed individually into the maws of the machine, in an intricate colour arrangement, there is a lot of counting involved, I shake my head, and there is clearly no job satisfaction here judging by the look on there faces.

Back on the boat we head to the village of Tan Chau, where we are taken by local rickshaw cyclos (a man on a bicycle and you sit on a narrow seat behind him) - only found in this area of the Mekong - all made of metal, and boiling hot. Gerald doesn't want to do it, he believes it is demeaning, but it is a long way to our next stop, and Tang says they will be very cross and won't get paid if they do not ferry us all. He reluctantly, but with good grace, surrenders. Kathrine who has already stopped several times. And caused alarm for her out of breath and red perspiring face, is a problem, as she cannot get on the cyclo, several men help,her, but she cannot sit with her knees bent, so they get her off, and commandeer a scooter, but she cannot balance on that either, so they get her off, and there are no cars here. She arrives eventually at the silk factory on the back of a cyclo, where two men are perched holding her upright by the hands and at her back. She should never have come and looks like she might expire, but the prospect of shopping in the silk outlet revives her instantly.

There is only one hotel here. Plus a vast expensive house and when I enquire as to how this much money is made in such humble environs, Tang says it may be the outcome of smuggling across the Chinese border, smuggling is rife here.

We visit a working silk factory, where the machinery is ancient, sixty or more years at least, and the working conditions are awful, poor lighting, back breaking work, incredible precision of pattern making, one woman is taking care of eight looms. Tang leads the group through the factory, and Gerald witnesses Trish slip and narrowly miss falling on to this dangerous machinery, no health and safety regulations here, and in Australia you would never be able to do this.

Back on the tender we travel along the tiny tributaries where stilt houses lean haphazardly on one another and over the rivers edge. We see a floating fish farm, heralded by its smell, this is a working river,and the traffic is constant, and I can see will only become more so, I dread to think what damage they are doing to the environment, sand mining is 24/7, and all the human waste goes directly into the river. Tang explains via a graphic demonstration of how the water comes out of the river for the villagers, and is treated with alum ?????, which causes all the sediment to drop to,the bottom and clears the water to a crystal clarity, but does not remove the bugs or diseases. Yet the villagers drink it with no ill effects, as we witness as three children happily guzzle it to demonstrate its safety (for them at least). I guess it was the same for Gerald and I growing up in Africa, we drank the water out of the taps, and survived. Which is why I think we both have pretty cast iron stomachs today, unlike Joshua, who at 16 on a trip to Africa with us, was felled after playing basketball and patting kids on the head and then chewing his fingernails against all our protestations. Poor kid suffered for days, spouting from both ends, in the Edinburgh Hotel in Kitwe, once the pride of Zambia and the venue for weddings, 21sts and celebrations, now reduced to no water or flushing toilets, and poor Joshua, spouting.

We enjoy another memorable meal, salads with banana flowers, clear fish ball soup, and from the Action Starion, nod to the street food hawkers, and. Y favourite place in the dining room, a Vietnamese Banh Hoi (fine fresh rice noodles with roast pork, mixed herbs and a sweet and sour Berlin sauce, followed by a pile of mango slices and lychees. Yum Joshua. You would love,this food, Son. We spend a wonderful afternoon. I sleep on our vast bed for an hour, do some writing, have a swim, drink some tea, attend a spring roll cookery class (this is my third, so I am only there ten minutes and eat the roll I make and leave, missing out on the fruit carving .... We try to access internet, to no avail, but this morning we had a wonderful happy message from our son. He apologises for being out of contact, but has been very busy, a different gig to film every night of the last four or five nights, including the Snowdroppers, and making a short film to promote cricket for young 13 year old girls, brought about by Laura Barker. He says it was nice hanging out with he, and I winder I'd they will rekindle something. We also miss out in the 5pm ice cream party, not a loss. The herd were there in force I hers later. We spend a happy couple of tantric hours instead, my Beloved and I - in the spa, and lying on our big white bed - the voile curtains floating gently in the breeze coming in the open verandah door. If I was not a romantic I may complain about the slight whine of the air conditioner and the sand dredging happening close by on the river. But I am, and all is blessed in my world.

A delicious dinner of clear chicken and mushroom soup, oh those mushrooms! That broth! I have tilapia, which is bream, and originally from Malawi, I remember it from our childhood, I do not think I have had it since we left Africa in the early seventies, and it is delicious. Gerald has BBQ pork ribs, to die for, I taste text, and it is true, followed by another big plate of tropical fruit, and a couple of very large glasses of wine, expertly taken care of by Maria.

There is to be a surprise show tonight, I believe the crew are performing, and Gerald has gone to secure good setting whilst I sit there with my wine on the big island bed, and write. I shall go now and try to contact Colleen Kennedy in Pnom Penh via Quang's phone.