John Edward Cooper’s Notes

[i] The village was in what was called in the blurb “Evergreen Island”, an area of land forming a “tongue” between the Mekong and its tributary. If we’d proceeded all the way along the channel we’d have actually found ourselves at the Mekong; so the tongue of land, cut off thus by the channel, is indeed an “island”.

Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:27:14
View back, of the channel along which we’d come


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:27:28
Evergreen Island on the other side of the channel


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:27:38
Evergreen Island on the other side of the channel: agricultural activity

We walked along the narrow street into the village, and not far along turned right, passing a garden where chillies were growing and arriving in a yard between a couple of houses. I don’t think I’d be happy if a gang of tourists invaded my back yard! Everyone we passed, though, on the excursion, was friendly, and waved to us.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:29:36
Proceeding to an Evergreen Island village


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:31:42
Growing chillies


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:31:54
Growing chillies

The guide did tell us what was fermenting in covered vessels by one of the houses — fish sauce? — but I’ve forgotten.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:36:26
What are they fermenting?


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:37:26
Cat in one of the dwellings


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:38:40
Dwellings


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:39:36
Dwellings

We halted under the cover of trees for more explanations. Just beyond there were villagers engaged in agricultural activity.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:45:18
Agricultural activity


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:45:28
Agricultural activity

At the end of the first street, we turned left into another. We passed a café where one could lie in a hammock and doze off or watch TV. After walking along a bit, we turned left again, and made our way back to and over the bridge, and returned to the boat.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:56:06
Proceeding through the village


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:57:50
Proceeding through the village


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 09:59:04
Proceeding through the village


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:01:54
Proceeding through the village


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:11:58
Returning across the channel to the boat


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:11:58 (detail)
Returning across the channel to the boat


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:13:38
Returning across the channel to the boat


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:14:26
Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:14:36
Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:18:38
Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)

We went back the way we’d come along the channel, crossed the Mekong-tributary river, and went ashore on its south bank by means of a long, narrow, very springy plank, with helping hands provided by guide and boatman.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:34:14
Going ashore at Phường Long Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:37:42
Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera)


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:37:42 (detail)
Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera)


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:37:56
Seen while proceeding to the rattan factory

We proceeded along a narrow dirt-track till we came to a factory making rattan goods: mats, etc.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:38:54
Proceeding to the rattan factory


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:45:16
Rattan factory, Phường Long Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:47:42
Rattan factory, Phường Long Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:51:10
Rattan factory, Phường Long Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 10:53:24
Rattan factory, Phường Long Châu

There was a café and retail outlet attached to the factory, and I had a beer (“bia” in Vietnamese) there.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:00:06
Rattan factory, café and shops


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:07:18
Rattan factory, café and shops


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:09:38
“The Trade Village of Weaving Uzu Mat — Address: 112 K[hóm] Long Thạnh, P[hường (i.e. ward or sub-district of)] Long Châu, T[hị] X[ã (i.e. town of)] Tân Châu, An Giang [province]”

The factory was in Long Châu, a ward of the town of Tân Châu. At its entrance waited a fleet of cycle rickshaws, waiting to take us eastwards through Tân Châu. Each could carry two persons, seated side by side — a considerably more comfortable arrangement than on an ox-cart!


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:14:10
Cycle rickshaw ride, Tân Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:14:46
Cycle rickshaw ride, Tân Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:18:32
Cycle rickshaw ride, Tân Châu

After 10 minutes or so the convoy stopped, and we trooped into a silk factory on the right-hand side of the road, stopping in its shop first for a talk on silk-weaving, before walking through the factory itself and congregating back in the shop. The looms are automated, operated by means of long, narrow punched boards, which are fastened together along their long sides and fed through the machine in a manner akin to a piano roll. We left the factory by a different door from which we’d entered, and walked down an alley before re-entering by the shop door. In the alley, I noticed the power supply in the form of bare wires between ceramic insulators. At a stretch, they’d have been just about within arm’s reach; and there were no warning signs! In the shop there were a couple of old manual/treadle looms for the purpose of demonstration.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:27:18
Silk factory, Tân Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:27:26
Silk factory, Tân Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:28:44
Silk factory, Tân Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:29:44
Silk factory, Tân Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 11:46:18
Silk factory, Tân Châu

One of the products is “lãnh Mỹ A”, a fairly thick, black, almost “rubbery”-looking (though inelastic) silk, dyed by a fruit of the Diospyros (persimmon/ebony) genus in a month- or months-long process of repeated dyeing and sun-drying, then pounding and sizing. One of the pictures on the wall was of actress Angelina Jolie wearing a lãnh Mỹ A dress.


Angelina Jolie wearing a lãnh Mỹ A dress (photo from FactoryFinder)

We resumed the rickshaw ride, coming to a long road which ran parallel to the Mekong, and boarded our boat quite far along that by means of a ramp leading down to a floating landing-stage.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 12:05:12
Cycle rickshaw ride, Tân Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 12:15:00
Boarding the boat, Tân Châu


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 12:20:54
Approaching RV La Marguerite

We were back aboard La Marguerite just before 12.30pm, so went to the cabin first then along to the restaurant, rejoining P and Y for lunch. I had a couple of beers with lunch, I think. After that Janet and I went up to the Saigon Lounge, where she had a decaffeinated coffee and I had another beer. We went back to the cabin, where Janet did this and that and wrote in her journal, then went off to use the exercise bike; I transferred 55 photos from this morning from the camera to the WD Elements HDD (14:14–14:16); I looked through them, and rotated one that needed it, using Windows Photo Viewer (14:20). After Janet returned to the cabin, we went back to the Saigon Lounge; she had soda water with crushed slices of lime and I had yet another beer. At 3.30pm there was a presentation by the Vietnamese cruise guides: “Life along the Mekong Delta.” Ca.4pm, Janet was feeling tired, so she went back to the cabin to rest. I joined her after the presentation, ca.4.30pm. Janet was resting on the bed, so I also lay down and, wearied from my exercising the elbow in the Saigon Lounge and raising the wrist from table to mouth, dropped off to sleep. “I’d set the alarm for 5.30pm,” Janet wrote in her journal, “and nearly jumped out of my skin when it went off.” She showered and changed clothes; then I decided to do the same. At 6.30pm there were cocktails (and those very hot-and-spicy dried peas) and a briefing about tomorrow in the Saigon Lounge, then at 7pm we all went down for dinner. Ca.8.45pm, P, Y and I went back up to the Saigon Lounge, where there was a “talent show” put on by crew members before a panel of three “judges”: two female passengers and a male passenger seated between them; the latter, judging by the slurring of his speech and the heaviness of his eyelids was fairly far gone in inebriation! The first one on did conjuring tricks, but the highlight was a quasi-erotic dance routine by a young man in drag; this was far more entertaining than, say, the group that danced and mimed to the song YMCA. Meanwhile, Janet, feeling very tired, had gone back to the cabin. “I was in bed at ca.9.30pm,” she wrote. I returned perhaps ca.10pm, and got ready for bed not long afterwards.


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:08:50
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:10:58
Crew members’ “surprise” show: introducing the panel of judges


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:11:08
Crew members’ “surprise” show: very drunken member of the panel of judges


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:14:16
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:20:52
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:21:08
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:21:28
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:22:04
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:27:54
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:29:06
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:30:02
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:33:32
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:37:12
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:46:04
Crew members’ “surprise” show


Sunday 19 February 2017 — 21:46:32
Crew members’ “surprise” show

[Monday 20 February 2017]