Thankfully, the rain rolled through and the sun came out the last 10km before reaching the hotel in Chau Doc. I have to say, the Vietnamese people are very beautiful, friendly and greet you with big smiles and say”hello”…one of the few words they know in English. Kids would run out of their little, wooden homes on stilts and wave at us. Many would line up on the streets and want to touch our hands as we cycled through their villages.
We had dinner last night at this rustic restaurant on the water called Thuan Loi. I’m told its the finest restaurant in town and for $5 I had a yummy 6 course meal. I had the bonus experience of a little lizard dropping from one of the rafters and onto my ponytail. Nice…I know.
Aside from my new pet and mosquitoes biting up a storm, we had a pleasant evening. We had an interesting conversation with our local Vietnamese guide, Tom, a 31 year old, english speaking, university graduate about the “American War” aka Vietnam War. Tom is from Mai Lai (yes…where the massacre happened) and his parents were part of the Viet Cong. As my group is made up of all Europeans, they didn’t really know much about the war. Tom and I gave them a review. It was a neutral conversation and I was happy to hear he and most Vietnamese don’t hold any animosities towards Americans. I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to say I was ‘Canadian’
Anyway, over the next 4 days I am sure we will have more dialog…especially tonight as we are taking a ferry to reach our homestay on an island in the Mekong Delta. I’ll write again when I reach Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in a couple days.
