After our trip down the Mekong we ended up in Chau Doc, a smallish border town on the river. We were super excited to be in a new country and were surprised to notice differneces right away even though we were only a few miles from Cambodia. They use Roman script for their writing here so at first glance the signs almost make sense, but then you realize it's all Vietnamese. The architecure was a bit different as well.
And the people weren't quite as outgoing as in Thailand and Cambodia, but we still got some smiles and friendly waves.
Natasha's obsessed with a Vietnamese soup called pho (pronounced fah). She's been talking about it since before we left. So of course we had to get some as soon as possible. I ordered another common dish; meat cooked in a clay pot with this really great sauce. And I got to try my first Vietnamese beer. The very drinkable Saigon.
One of the biggest differences was the total lack of tuk-tuks. This made us terribly sad as we had gotten quite attached to them. Instead you can either hop on the back of a motor cycle or grab a cyclo, which is a bicycle with a cart attached to the back. These are slower than tuk-tuks and you just kind of feel bad for them hauling you around. At any rate we had to at least try one.
We checked out the market and it was one of the craziest ones we've seen yet. Things were really fresh...like..... you picked out a live fish and they beat it over the head for you.... fresh. There was even a lady killing and skinning frogs. PETA might have to change their diaper if they saw this.
Cutting up live fish
One thing that we've definitely concluded is that puppies are universally cute no matter what country you're in.