Day 17 - RV La Marguerite - 23rd September 2014

RV La Marguerite - Day 17 - 23rd September 2014 - Tuesday

Gerald and I stayed on board today whilst the herd goes to Cai Be on an excursion, so we have the ship to ourselves. We have a late breakfast in the deserted dining room and sit in the lounge doing FB and writing. Gerald does the banking. It's perfectly peaceful.

Around 11 am they return, a few comments about where we were and jokes about how come we didn't go. Fiona says if she had a room like ours she would have stayed home too. We join the lecture on the Mekong Delta delivered by two of the guides, extremely informative, and quite alarming.

Xxxxxx. See written notes re lecture and info about the delta

At 3 pm we head into the boat to go ashore to visit Sa Dec, and sail by floating markets and the humblest of homes along the river bank people going about their business, sand dredging on a major scale, a barge with two huge tractors. Many boats are now attaching motors and I the noise is unbelievable, it will be a short while only before all these boats have ugly, black pollution pumping motors on them. Sa Dec is a 'city' where the French writer Marguerita Duras met her Vietnamese lover, Huynh Thuy Le. We visit his home, a once beautiful old house with 16 foot ceilings and are promised a DVD in our room tonight, 'The Lovers' made in 1990, of their sad story. We walk along the paved roads on river front markets, dodging bicycles and scooters, every market stall run by a woman, most of whom smile aessily. They are all wearing the Vietnamese pyjamas, and look cool and elegant, ends spite the nest and the fact that they are mostly peddling fish. Several,of them wear animal prints, their lustrous hair is twisted into buns and knots, and their toe nails painted pearly pinks. I see two touching demonstrations of 'sisterhood' and the determination of women. Amongst the chaos and the yelling of afternoon prices and strange smells and bikes and pollution and live eels and snakes and skinned frogs, there are women beautifying themselves and each other. In both instances, one woman is seated on a small box with her leg outstretched into the lap of the other woman, who is diligently clipping her friends toe nails and slicing off chunks of hard skin from her feet. I only hope none of it lands up in the banana flower salad or the prawns.

We see much of the stomach churning stuff we saw on slides today in our lecture - eels, snakes, prawns, catfish, fish of every kind, snails, pippis, mussels, water rabbits (this a a gentler name for what they are, which is a rat) sold skinned, with their entrails still inside, and frogs, oh my, the frogs, I have to turn away, they are skinned, and still ALIVE and moving, trying to hop, I cannot bear it ...... Fortunately, there is no dog meat here today, apparently the dogs they breed for eating look like dingoes, and yet the owners of the business have pet dogs to whom they are very affectionate. We visit the Cao Dai Temple - Cao Dai means High Palace, and this religions includes every religion, there are icons in the unbelievably garish temple, services are at 6 am, noon, 6 pm and midnight daily. The eye is their symbol. The eye is God, and there are nine levels to ascent to, as a worshiper, and the hierarchy based loosely on the catholic religion, with a pope, archbishops, deacons, etc. Nine is the luckiest and happiest number, which is the number of the house Joshua was born into, 9 Ormond Street in Paddington. We see Confucious, Jesus Christ, and other representatives of other religions, and I think this must be a good thing.

Dinner is a beautiful meal, Maria is our waitperson and a delight, and Darryl is the maître d, who comes to me at each meal to discuss what gluten free . They even have gluten free bread made daily, just for me. We have our table for two - the herd seems to have accepted this. Back in the cabin, we attempt to watch the award winning French movie - The Lover - by director Jean-Jacques Annaud. "She gave her innocence, her passion, her body. The one thing she couldn't give was her love". It is set in Vietnam. But Maria has given us two enormous glasses of red wine. These, and the effects of the days activities cause us to fall asleep half way through the movie, which is very, very slow, but very, very raunchy.