Trip Log 36: Mekong River Valley Adventure Day 4: Tan Châu to Neak Loeung

Day 4 Tan Châu to Neak Loeung
2019/12/19

Border Crossings
In the morning my new friend, David, led me out of Tan Châu on his motorcycle. He set a quick pace but I was able to follow him to the ferry terminal and out of the city. On the other side of the river we parted company in front of the school where he teaches. I wish I had had time to visit his school too.

I really enjoy taking the ferries. They aren’t monstrous affairs like the Staten Island ferries or the Oshima Island Passenger Ferry. They are basically small platforms with a motor and a wheel house. I hope that in Vietnam’s drive to modernize they don’t replace them with bridges.

The ride from the ferry terminal followed the course of the main branch of the Mekong River to the border. As I road along I wondered what kind of people lived so close to the border and if they were all that different from those who lived farther away.

David described the border crossing to me. But despite his description and reading about other travelers’ experience I still wasn’t prepared. The only other land border I had ever crossed before was between the U.S. and Canada and that only just barely counts as crossing into a foreign country.

I found the Vietnam border station at Vĩnh Xương just as David described. The border station is a building built about 20 meters from the banks of the river and connected to the shore by a short footbridge. This location allows those crossing by boat as well as those crossing by land to be processed. I parked Mini-V on top of the river bank and walked down to the border station. If the river side is the front then I entered through the backdoor. On the bridge leading up to the door there were four very official military types sitting in front of the door and drinking coffee. They had all the appearance of government employees on their break. I walked past them assuming there would somebody on duty inside. When I got inside there was no sign of a border official. There were a dozen or so foreign tourist lounging around in a waiting room with a very nice view of the river and a tour boat docked to the river side of the border station. In the waiting area there was a glass case with snacks for sale and a woman willing to sell you Oreo cookies and chips. Nearby was a table where a young woman would exchange Vietnamese dong for Cambodian riel. But no border officials on duty.

For some reason I was under the mistaken belief that I had to take a boat to cross the river and the border. I asked a young Australian sounding couple, or maybe they were Kiwis, who can tell the difference?) where to catch a ferry across the river. They asked me in turn if I was with a tour and said the boat docked to border station pier was their tour boat. Nobody knew anything.

Not knowing what to do I went back out the way I came in, past the lounging border guards. They seemed completely unconcerned about my coming and going. I walked back up the bank to my bike and pedaled back up the road I came because, as David had explained, the real land crossing was on side road a couple of hundred meters before the border station. I went through the first gate, more like a rail crossing guard than a gate, to a building. There a Vietnamese guard indicated that I should follow him. I pushed my bike behind him as he led me back to the border station. The guard spoke not a word of English so I was still in the dark about what was going on.

Back at the bank above the border station I met two Indonesian men who had just pedaled across from the Cambodian side. I spoke with them briefly. They told me I needed to get a stamp at the border station. When I asked them about their trip they told me that they had ridden from Indonesia through Thailand and Cambodia. I asked them how the roads were in Cambodia. The warned me that they were good but dusty. Our brief conversation was interrupted by the guard waving me down to the border station.

I went down and the man took my passport. I thought, “Now I am finally getting somewhere.” Inside the office which I was not allowed to enter I could see that they had pulled up my picture on a computer screen. I supposed they had scanned my passport or I was already in the system from when the visa was issued by the Vietnamese Embassy in Tokyo. After a few minutes they gave me back my passport and once again I followed the guard. I notice there was no one in the waiting room and no one manning, or should I say womanning, the exchange table or snack stand. No Oreos or riel for me.

This time the guard led me back to the gate on a motorcycle. We went through the gate into the no-man’s land that I believe exists between all countries. At the railway crossing gate on the Cambodian side of no-man’s land he passed me off to a Cambodian policeman who was also on a motorcycle. This man told me in English to follow him and follow him I did to another gate and another side street where he handed me off to another policeman who took me to the Cambodian border station. Like on the Vietnamese side, the Cambodian border station was on the river though set back from the waterline a bit. The Cambodian border station was like a walled garden or park. Quite pleasant. The police on the Cambodian side all spoke English to some degree. I was processed with a boat load of tourists who had approached from the river side. The tour guide helped me out a little bit when the policemen’s instructions were lacking in clarity. They took my picture and my fingerprints, stamped my passport and I was done.

All of this took no more than an hour. It was probably closer to half an hour. I was really worried about entering Cambodia because the night before I noticed that my Cambodian visa was dated for the day after I was planning to enter Cambodia. I don’t know if this was a mistake on my part or the Cambodian Embassy’s part. Regardless, the date was wrong. If the border guard was a stickler for rules and details the mistake would be grounds enough to deny me entrance. There were three possible outcomes. 1) I would be denied entrance until the next day. In that case I would have to ride back across the border to Tan Châu and find a hotel. 2) I would be forced to pay for another visa with the correct date which would be problematic because I didn’t have any money that I could use. 3) The policeman didn’t notice the later date or didn’t care that I was trying to enter the country one day early.

I suppose there was a fourth possible outcome. The guard noticed the date was for the next day, decided I was just too suspicious and introduced me to the hospitality of a Cambodian jail cell thus extending my vacation. Fortunately, fate favored the third outcome. Like the Mekong River, humans and fate choose the path of least resistance.

After getting my passport stamped I was standing on the road outside the entrance of the border compound taking a few pictures and video of the communist party banner fluttering in the wind when a different guard approached me. While inspecting my passport he asked, “Where are you going? I know you are going to Cambodia, but where are you going?” I answered, “Phnom Penh.” This seemed to satisfy him. I think he just wanted to talk to the idiot foreigner riding a mini-velo through his country or perhaps he decided that a tourist taking pictures in front of the border station was suspicious. I asked him to take a picture of me and Mini-V and then a selfie of the two of us. Weird but cool at the same time.

On the Cambodian Side
Safely through the border crossing I continued on my journey up the Mekong River. I immediately noticed a difference between Vietnam and Cambodia. While many things are very similar some are different. For one, there were fewer chickens and more households had two or three head of cattle. Another difference was that people seemed very interested in greeting me. Every couple of hundred meters someone was waving to me or saying hello. This was fun at first but as the morning wore on and I got hotter and more tired, constantly greeting people became exhausting and a nuisance.

As I rode along I was reminded of the Indonesian bicycle tourists’ warning about dusty roads. Within a few kilometers of crossing the border the soil seemed to become sandy. Also, there were stretches of unpaved road that showed evidence of road construction. Even though it was a weekday I didn’t see any workmen. Maybe it was a holiday.

For an hour or two I road through a semi rural area parallel to the Mekong River though it was mostly just out of sight. I got the feeling that all the houses and businesses were lined up along the road and if I detoured onto a side street I would quickly find myself all alone in the countryside.

After a while the rural road fed into a highway. This is the famous Asian Highway 1. Like Vietnam, there seemed to be no restrictions on what kind of vehicles (or livestock) could use the highway. One significant difference was that I saw fewer motorcycles being used for transportation (still many used for hauling cargo) and more Japanese and American cars.

The Kindness Of A Stranger
I was making reasonable progress towards Neak Loeung, the first town I would stop at in Cambodia. The heat was really wearing me down and I was running low on water. All along the road from the border crossing I saw large signs advertising Ganzberg Beer. The thought of a cold beer was tempting. Unfortunately, I had no currency that I could use to buy beer or anything at all. When I was about 10 km from my destination I really needed to take a rest break. In Tokyo there are lots of little municipal parks and if you are in the countryside you can just pull over to the side of the road and sit in the shade but I couldn’t find a quiet place away from the road to take a break that wasn’t someone’s home or business.

Finally, I pulled into a beautiful Buddhist temple to get out of the sun and rest in the shade away from the dust and noise of the highway. I found a pavilion with a table and benches. There was a monk napping on the bench by the table. I took a seat on a bench in the shade a few meters away not wanting to disturb his nap. I took my shoes off and ate some trail mix I carry for emergencies and drank my water. I was probably experiencing borderline heat exhaustion.

Eventually, the monk roused himself. He must have thought I looked bad because he pulled out of his bag a can of soy milk and gave it to me. I accepted gratefully. It was the best soy milk I have ever had. I didn’t know if his religion would allow him to eat it but I offered him some of my trail mix in exchange. He turned it down. I don’t blame him. It had been reheated in the sun several times by now and I noticed that tiny ants had gotten into when I was in Long Xuyên. The monk went an extra 2nd mile. He offered me a bottle of water and an energy drink. Apparently, Buddhist monks can and do drink energy drinks. I am sure he wasn’t carrying it around just in case he found an exhausted Westerner intruding on his nap. We didn’t share a common language or culture but he shared with me kindness that crosses borders, culture, and politics. In a world that is becoming more polarized and divided we need to reach across all of our borders. Ideological, economic, ethnic and social.

Enough pontificating. Thanks to the monk I was revived enough to continue my journey. Looking at the map it was clear that I would have to cross the river because Neak Loeung and my hotel were on the other side.

It turns out the bridge crossing the Mekong River has two names. The obvious name is taken from the nearby town, Neak Loeung. The less obvious name is Tsubasa Bridge. There are some of you gentle readers who might be thinking that tsubasa sounds distinctly Japanese and you would be right. Tsubasa means wing in Japanese. The bridge was donated to the Cambodian government by the Japanese government as part of a larger project to improve Asian Highway 1 from Thailand to Vietnam. During my travels in Cambodia I crossed two other such bridges. I’m glad I had a chance to cross it as my tax yen helped pay for it.

There are three outstanding features of this bridge. First, the bridge is the longest bridge crossing the Mekong River at 2.2 km long. Second, going over the bridge represented the steepest climb of my entire trip through the Mekong River Delta at around a 4.5% grade. The third and most outstanding feature is that the suspension cables are bright yellow.

Now, I have to admit my faithful, little Mini-V is a wonderful bike on the flats but she has a hard time going up hills with her little 20 inch wheels and lack of granny gears. But her and I did our best and managed to get the top. Partway Mini-V insisted that we stop to take a picture and some videos. I happily obliged her whim without remarking that she might be too tired after riding 50 km in the hot, Cambodian sun. One does not want to get on the wrong side of one’s bicycle.

After crossing the bridge, cursing out the inconsiderately placed rumble strips on the downhill side that I thought were going to taco my front wheel when i hit them at speed, it was a short ride into the town. Fortunately, my hotel was on the near edge of town.

At the hotel I was able to exchange enough dong for riel to get dinner at a nearby cafe, a beer at the tavern across the street and some mystery fruit. (Watch the video to learn more about the mystery fruit.) I should have exchanged more but I thought I would be able to in the morning.

Money Makes the Wheels Go Round
The challenge of traveling in a foreign country for the first time is that you never know how much money you are going to need. Ideally, you want to exchange just enough so that you have very little left when you leave the country. All during my stay in Cambodia I miscalculated how much money I would need. I kept getting Cambodian currency and Vietnamese currency mixed up in my head and my wallet. I think I even accidentally payed for something with a 10,000 yen bill instead of 10,000 in riel or dong. 10,000 yen in Cambodia and Vietnam is a princely sum.

Neak Loeung
My hotel in Neak Loeung was at the edge of town overlooking a swampy area. The hotel staff led me to my room on the second floor. The room was clean and brightly appointed. When the woman closed the curtains I didn’t think much of it at the time. I later opened the curtains so I could get a look out of the window and never closed them again because the only thing outside my window was open space. The room came complete with a television. I turned it on and started surfing the Cambodian air waves. The reception wasn’t very good. First, I found a sports channel with English sportscasting of a sailboat regatta. Boring. Then I found what appeared to be cock fighting. The screen was so staticky it was really hard to see what was going on. I finally gave up and went to the next channel. Click. A Cambodian soap opera. I don’t want to watch soap operas in any language. Click. Now we are talking. Crystal clear reception in English! Oh wait, it is the RT News Channel. The Russian Times News Channel. Why does the only channel that gets good reception in Neak Loeung have to be the Russian propaganda channel. I watched it for a while because it is always good to know what your adversaries are saying. It was just as bad as watching Fox News (only better produced) and I turned it off after 15 minutes.

Enough television. I took a shower then went next door to a restaurant for dinner called the Rio Cafe. The restaurant looked like it could have been plucked out of New York, Tokyo or London. At the same time, very comforting and very uninteresting. The menu was in English and the prices were in dollars. I felt like the prices were on the high side. My meal cost a whole 2 dollars. After dinner, I risked life and limb to cross the street to an open-air tavern where I got a beer so patriotic it was named in a burst of inspiration Cambodia Beer. The beer was outrageously priced at a dollar fifty. I pet the tavern cat and drank my cold Cambodia. After imbibing I strolled next door for mystery fruit and a crocodile shaped pastry. (To see the croco-pastry and the mystery fruit check out the video on the wayfarer.bike YouTube channel.) The pastry and fruit were for breakfast.

Too Many Bugs For One Gecko
I got back to my room well after dark. I turned on all of the lights in the room as one does. I didn’t pay any heed to the open curtains. I settled down to write a few words and delete a few pictures. Before I knew it there were little flies swarming all around. Fortunately, they weren’t the biting kind. They were just the annoying kind. They weren’t doing so well. The bed sheets and floor were peppered with dead flies. Earlier in the evening I noticed a gecko hiding in the curtains and periodically making forays along the walls. A little known fact about geckos. They make chirping sounds like song birds. Actually, more like newly hatched birds that can’t carry a tune yet. Mr. Gecko was in good company because I can’t carry a tune either. I spotted another one clinging to the outside of the window. I’m glad I was able to provide them with the equivalent of a smorgasbord. I wished they had brought all their friends and relations too. Finally, I made the connection between the open curtains and the room lights. I closed the curtains and turned off all the room lights except one on the far side of the room. I worked this strategy out with Lt. Gecko. Closing the curtains would keep more flies from getting in and the light would lure them away from the bed where Mr. Gecko would ambush them. It seemed to work. In the morning there was no evidence of living bugs. The floor and the overhead light were littered with the carcasses of fly soldiers that didn’t survive the night. I don’t know if my compatriot, Capt. Gecko (He surely deserves a promotion after his heroic efforts during the battle of the bugs) survived. There was no sign of him in the morning.

Lesson Learned:
1. In Cambodia, Buddhist temples make great resting places.
2. Kindness is colorblind and tone deaf. It knows no boundaries or obstacles.
3. If hotel staff close the curtains it is a good idea to leave them closed.
4. The sound of geckos in the night is comforting but don’t ask them to sing campfire songs. They just can’t do it.