Mekong Delta - Border Town Chau Doc

Chau Doc is the nearest town to the border to Cambodia. It was rather obvious as our xin lo driver was willing to accept the normal USD or Vietnamese dong, even Cambodian riel. Aside from that, there are more Kh'mer people around this town.

Except for My Tho, one should be prepared to take the ferry crossing from town to town in the delta. Hence a ferry crossing is required from Vinh Long to Chau Doc. It reminds me of the ferry crossing from Butterworth to Penang Island. However this ferry is much smaller.

Cars and motorcycles were placed in the same lower deck. I'm not too sure if it is part of the tour package or that it was due to we were in a bus, we were told to hop down the bus and enter the bus as pedestrian. The bus were transported via another ferry but we did see some vans and there were passengers inside. Pedestrians could opt to stay at the same level as the transports or could go up the narrow stairs to the upper deck. There wasn't any shed at the upper deck so it was a little hot but the journey was rather short and the view was worth it anyway.

taken from ferry

After the ferry crossing, we boarded the bus again. We reached Chau Doc after about 1 hour. It was over 7 pm then. We were transported to a hotel, by far one of the best hotels we stayed over since touched down in Vietnam - with 2 double beds and air con that wasnt too cool or too warm.

We had a good dinner and retired to bed. Unfortunately we can't recall what time to have breakfast before departure the next day. So in order not to be too late, we actually woke up a little too early. Anyway, it wasn't a bad thing as we finished breakfast earlier, we got a little time left to roam the market.

And the view overlooking the delta was great.

Little did we know, in store for us after breakfast was rowing boat ride to the Cham village for the itinery only mentioned boat ride. We thought it was similar to the many rides we had yesterday.

On the way to the Cham Village

Cham girls selling waffles and some tidbits.

We were told Cham people are Muslim but a little different from our Malaysian Muslim. The elderly and the youngs need not to fast and performing the haj is not necessary.

As we travelled together with other tourists who joined the 3 days 2 nights Delta Mekong, we were to wait for the boat to transport us to the border while the rest back to shore, continuing their journey to Can Tho.

Food were shared while waiting under the sun

Chau Doc was our last stop in Vietnam, excluding Vinh Xuong where we stop for lunch while waiting for visas to be processed despite we do not need one.


Side note: So many to do, so little time...

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