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Second Day, Off to Vinh Long!
Day Two. 05/18 Journey to Vinh Long
I woke up the next day to find out we were going to travel to Thu's parents home in Vinh Long. This normally involves a three hour drive and a fifteen minute boat ride. We were basically going to accompany Thu's parents home. Well, the three hour drive actually ended up being closer to six because of a traffic jam caused by construction. We were able to get a boat easily enough, but it was after dark by then. No problem, we set off in two small boats carrying about ten people total, without a light among us. Have I mentioned the Vietnamese casual disregard for death. It was really eerie motoring along the river in nearly complete darkness. After a couple minutes my eyes adjusted so that I could see fairly well. There were, of course, lights on the shore, and the larger boats normally had lights of some sort. I even noticed a boat with a proper set of nav lights (green on one side, red on the other). The river was about 50 feet wide. Eventually, we turned into a smaller tributary, and then into an even smaller one. This branch of the river was only about 20 ft wide, but it still felt deep. The lights were getting fewer and fewer, until all of a sudden we came to a large house that was all lit up. Thu was home.
A word here about Vietnamese river boats. The boats we used to get to Thu's house were identical to the ones in James Bonds "Man with the Golden Gun" That is, they're long and slender, with an outboard motor in the rear. The motor isn't what we consider an outboard, its basically a standard two or four stroke engine mounted on a long pole, there's a straight shaft that runs along the pole and ends in the propeller. The whole deal is mounted so that the weight of the engine is balanced by the weight of the pole so that the boatman can swing the propeller up or down and back and forth. By the way, these boats all have round bottoms, so they are very unstable, but very maneuverable.
We pulled up to a small wooden jetty and hopped onshore. Well, Thu hopped nimbly. I kind of staggered and fumbled, but with the grace of God and lots of helping hands I was able to get ashore without falling in. By then it was getting pretty late, so we took our showers and went to bed.
Thu's family home is rather difficult to describe. Well, actually it's not that hard. The place is really only a barn, that's been upgraded with internal partitions. The basic structure is a steel reinforced concrete frame, with a tile floor and a corrugated steel roof. The walls are planks of wood that, while flat, where never trimmed down from the shape of the tree they where cut from. So to make a wall, planks of similar shape are simply fitted together. If it wasn't so crude, it'd actually look artistic. Thankfully there's a real bathroom with shower. (No surprise, Thu sent them money to build one). The original bathroom was a seat on a wooden jetty over a pond out behind the house. At least this place has electricity. Oh, and the kitchens are out back as well. The food is cooked over an open fireplace. The house is divided into about four or five rooms, with about that many beds. The beds deserve comment, as they have no mattresses, just thin rattan mats. Me and Thu bought a mattress for our bed, we left it there, but with all the heat, humidity and vermin, I'm not sure how long it will last. Mosquito nets are standard. All in all, it's pretty rustic, but when you remember that the temperature basically never varies from 90 to 100 degrees F, it's pretty comfortable. It didn't rain while we where there thankfully, you could see the holes in the roof. |
Date(s): June 22, 2004. Album by Steven W Dugger. 1 - 7 of 7 Total. 129 Visits. |
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