Today is spent mostly sleeping and eating. Having been too excited after our evening out, too conscious of our early wake up call and too distracted by the cat, who seemed to know we were leaving and decided to impress us with a series of energetic and acrobatic feats around our bedroom - I didn't sleep especially deeply overnight. I spend the entire five and a half hour bus journey dead to the world, despite the bus driver appearing to be unable to sound the horn without basically leaning on it for fifteen minutes.
We arrive at Chau Doc and check into our hotel. It's posher than either we intended or are used to, having booked it primarily because it runs a reasonably bribe free water crossing into Cambodia. A porter takes our rucksacks as soon as we step off the bus. And if he is a bit disgusted by the bulky, rather dirty (already!) back packs as opposed to the usual valaise and matching tweed suitcases he is probably used to - he doesn't show it. We are handed cold towels at the door and become pleasantly flustered whilst checking in as beautiful mugs of cold sweet tea are pressed into our sweaty, rather grubby fingers. We reach our room where I run about squealing excitedly and investigate the view of the river from the balcony while M greets the porter who arrives with our bags, and 'explains' the room, a service which includes informing us that the TV is....well, a TV. We realise afterwards that we were probably supposed to tip him. As I said, we're not really used to this luxury!
We wander decadently into town. We need to go somewhere we can pay by card as we are down to our last handful of Vietnamese Dong and it doesn't make sense to take any more out. Chau Doc is a small market town which hasn't yet adjusted to cater for the tourists who pass through it on their way to the border. There is, according to the internet, only one place which takes a card. It's a delicatessen. It serves waffles and pizza. It fits with my general feeling that we are in a sort of luxurious limbo until we make our crossing to Cambodia on Wednesday. We have decided to use it as a sort of rest stop given that there isn't very much to do here so we make a reluctant concession to western food. It's good food. We eat it.
There is a small kerfuffle when we try to pay as it turns out none of the staff know how to use the card machine. After we try ourselves it turns out that the card machine is broken. The large poster on the wall displaying an impressive number of cards which are apparently accepted here would appear to be for decorative purposes only. We give in. Partly because we have to and partly because the young Vietnamese boy and girl who are serving us look absolutely terrified and we are not total monsters. M nips out to a cash point.
That, it turns out, is the largest excitement of the day unless you count my sneaky feeding of a stray kitten under the table at dinner and its subsequent scratching of M. We float into a sauna, drift down to dinner, drink cocktails which we don't even indulge in much at home, eat a heroic amount of expensive, but perfect Vietnamese food in the hotel restaurant and then sink into bed. We have an entire day in which to perform similar feats of decadence tomorrow before our crossing at seven am on Wednesday. It's a hard knock life. For us.
We drown our sorrows in white wine. Behind us is a bustling dusty city. Families scrape a living selling fruit or clothing in a market filled with other families selling identical items. In front of us is a busy river. Fishermen cast nets off the side of their wooden boats, providing us with a picturesque portrayal of rural life. I watch one, idly. In the morning I will see him again, sweating and working in the midday heat. As far as I can see, he catches only one fish in both outings.
Further out across the river is a floating village made of clusters of huts put together out of bamboo, rags and corrugated iron. It's the sort of scene one might expect from a guidebook or a poster advertising 'authentic Vietnam'. I realise suddenly that the scenes here that have struck me as most beautiful have also been the most poor. That even the kitten I have so enjoyed feeding under the table will starve if she doesn't find someone who will do this tomorrow.
In luxurious surroundings like these the dichotomy is all the more striking. Even more of a contradiction is the fact that if we and other privileged westerners do not sit here and sup casually on fruit, vegetables, fish, wine and coffee, the poverty is exacerbated even as the gap between our own and their situation grows more obvious. I think how important it is to spend money wisely. To consider who to buy from so that the original producer receives a fair wage. I don't know if that's true of this hotel. When we booked I didn't really think about it.
The fisherman catches me watching. He grins and gives me a cheery wave. Once again I marvel at the Vietnamese capacity for smiling.
I don't know how to solve the problem of poverty. Other than to encourage tourism and book venues wisely. I think of L and A who, like us, use home stays more often than hostels, and who are conscientious enough to book them direct over email with the owner so that the family receives all of the money and doesn't lose any to fees charged by well known tourist internet sites.
We are selfishly worried that too much tourism will 'spoil' places, but it may save lives. In hoping that farming customs will remain quaintly unmechanised we are sentencing the farmers to back breaking labour and shorter life spans. The line which denotes 'responsible tourism' grows fainter and greyer every day.
Tourists complain about inflated prices for westerners, attempts by children to charge admission to natural beauty spots which are actually free and taxis and cyclos who go the long way or charge for the time they spend trying to sell you another tour for tomorrow.
"It's brilliant." said a British backpacker to me when we holidayed in Thailand and it flooded. "I got the last portion of rice and I bartered him down to 50p". Behind him the vendor is trying to bail his house out using a rusty metal bucket.
Perhaps sometimes, just when it isn't going to kill us, westerners could afford to be scammed.
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