Chau Doc
We came off the Mekong into the little fishing town of Chau Doc. The border to Cambodia has just opened up and foreigners are a new phenomenon. Walking down the street we were minor celebrities. Everyone who could shouted “hello!” at us. Mostly children, who run up just to touch us. I think if you tag 10 foreigners you get a prize. Even grown men charge up to shake our hands. I got offered some rice whiskey by a group of tough guys sitting for cards and drinks. I think I was supposed to be overpowered by its strength.
We’re often asked to stop to chat with people with no English. They don’t want to learn like in Cambodia, they’re just enthused with being near a foreigner. They pull up seats for us and stare, sometimes signing madly at us, sometimes we get a precocious kid as a translator. People don’t understand not having children, so we say we’re married and going to have children later.
Every day at three in the afternoon the schools let out and the girls bicycle home by the hundreds. The girl’s school uniform is a brilliant white silk ao dai. They look like a flock of ghosts, riding home in the sun with their perfect posture and garments streaming behind them.
Some photos before we move on to Saigon…