Home » Vietnam » LZ - Cambodia - April 25th 2005

These are entries from my travel journal from www.travelbog.org.
They are descriptions/stories of my trip from Hanoi, Vietnam to Phi Phi Island, Thailand from April 2005 to May 2005.

LZ - Cambodia - April 25th 2005

Lt.col.lewin
2006-01-02 03:43:46

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"I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn't even know it yet. He was close. He was real close. I couldn't see him yet, but I could feel him. As if the boat were being sucked up the river and the water was flowing back into the jungle. Whatever was going to happen, it wasn't going to be the way they call it back in Nha Trang."

Ok, I'm not losing my mind or heavy into opium at the time of this writing. I'm only reciting quotes from a movie. If you don't know this movie, I am sorrowful for you but will give you a hint...it's from Apocolypse Now.

So, after taking 5 different boats and 3 different busses over two days, my journey up the Mekong River and crossing the Vietnam-Cambodia border was complete. It started early in the morning at the edge of a very poluted and fast moving Saigon River. John Wayne, our vietnamese tourguide, who yes, actually talked like John Wayne, but with a vietnamese accent, escorted us in a rather fast and quite comfortable motorboat to the mouth of the Mekong River. Along the way, we passed dozens of barges filled with a highly prescious commodity in Vietnam...dirt, yes, precious dirt was being transported. Probably 50 tons of it per barge was moving at a snails pace from somewhere upriver, down to Saigon. I observed a similar transport of large rocks in Hue along the Perfume River, but this was done on much smaller sampans, rather than tremendous barges like these. The purpose of the dirt? For building everything from homes, to skyrise buildings, to roads in and around Saigon. With a little over a year between visits, Saigon has changed and continues to grow at a rapid pace. It has several streets that resemble even the most modern cities in the world, with high-end shopping, hotels and restaurants. The only real difference were the gals dressed up in ao dai, standing every 30 yards, handing out brochures for a massage to every westerner passing by. Don't ...