Carleen's travel blog: South on the Mekong

In the morning we went to Long Khanh A, a town of 20,000 along the river arriving by sampan. Our first stop was at a house where lived a former Viet Cong soldier, now the local pharmacist. He fought at Ben Tre where one of our group manned a patrol boat during the war. Not a dry eye in the place as the man ran up to shake Rick’s hand. The man’s wife was very proud of her kitchen with all her pots and pans hanging neatly from the wall. We also went to see some local weavers. They used to use a hand loom and turn out 2 scarves a day. Now they have electricity so have 4 looms cranking out 20 scarves each, so they are in (relative) fat city. The scarves go for 2-4 dollars.
In the afternoon, we went to the oldest Catholic Church on “mango” island. Transportation was by a 6 seat cart pulled by a motor bike. We had to wear non la or the traditional conical hats to keep from getting hit in the head by mangos falling from the trees. Most of us looked pretty silly. We visited the home of a lady who makes the hats, again can only make 2 per day. Our final stop was at a sampan builder who makes the wooden boats by hand. It takes him 1-2 days depending on the size of the boat. He makes them out of golden oak and they are quite amazing. He showed us how he cuts the brackets for the inside of the boat with a hand saw, stabilizing the wood with his feet. And he still has all his toes! He was by far the happiest person we have seen in Viet Nam.