The Mekong-Delta

I went on an organized 3-day-tour through the Mekong-Delta... I didn't do something similar since I started traveling in 1981. But it was a fairly interesting and cheap offer, so I didn't really hesitate...
A large time we spent on boats, going from one place to the next. We visited a rice noodle "factory" (a family business), a fish farm (also family run, there are hundreds of them one after the other), floating houses, one of the biggest floating markets, some more tourist traps where souvenirs and other junk was sold, pagodas, minority villages and some more things I've already forgotten. Still, it was fairly okay. As I pointed out, a long time we spend on boats, and this is the most interesting way to see the Mekong-Delta. Life here is determined by the water, people live at the river or right above it... floating houses are necessary due to the rising of the water level, up to 3 or 4 meters at the end of the rainy season. They feed on the river, they wash in it, they get their water from it (unfiltered in many more remote places)... and they trade on it and with its products...
There are several floating markets, of course a great attraction for tourists... together with our boat many more were closing in on the biggest market, it felt a little bit like the helicopter attack in "Apocalypse Now"... yet we came in peace and left some money there, because they also were waiting for us: selling cold drinks, fruits and sweeties... and taking us around in small rowing boats, because our motor boat was too big to navigate through the narrow spaces between the hundreds of local boats...

The most beautiful part was the tour upriver to Chau Doc, close to the Cambodian border. In the afternoon of the second day we got on a large cruise boat, large enough to take 70 or 80 people, but we were only 13... it's off-season, fortunately... it was a three-hour trip and among the most fascinating things I will ever remember. The afternoon sun threw a terrific light over the river and its banks. The sky was a threating dark, behind us, announcing some heavy monsoon rain. Large carpets of water hyacinths and the palm forests on the banks shone in shades of green of an incredible intensity. The wide river was full of life, small and large boats going in either direction, ferrys crossing, rowing boats with a handful of people fishing... and the banks full of children taking their evening bath and yelling and shouting and greeting us...
A remarkable thing were my fellow travellers. Either they knew all that already (hardly imaginable) or were going there again within a short time (probably not), I don't know... half of them were reading, the other half of them pulled out their ipods, sun glasses, and whatever is necessary to distract yourself and get away - mentally - from where you are at the moment. I again wondered about who the strange one is: is it me or is it a good part of the rest of the world? Anyway, I enjoyed this colorfull and lively atmosphere on the river and was glad that no one talked to me... Would be a great thing to come back, with much more time, and organize your own trip through this delta, with its hundreds of channels and river arms... but that's a nice dream, and at least I had the opportunity to glance for some short moments at the life on this fascinating river...