End of the Road in Chau Doc

It's hard to believe that I've come to the end of my Vietnam adventure already. The last six weeks have taken me - via motorbike, train, boat, and bus - from Lai Chau and Sapa near the Chinese border in the north to Chau Doc, a small Mekong Delta town just a few river miles from the Cambodian border in the south. Although I doubt the differences between Vietnam and Cambodia will be overwhelming (the Delta was Cambodia for hundreds of years, after all) I'm trying particularly hard to enjoy my last full day in the country. Chau Doc has turned out to be yet another wonderfully mellow riverside town filled with more of the friendly southerners I've grown accustomed to since leaving Saigon. Although it's seen a fair share of misery over the years (mostly due to the Khmer Rouge), you'd never know it after a casual look around. I've spent the better part of two days wandering the streets and surrounding countryside and meeting a handful of locals - including Thuan, the 15 year old wonderkid from Cambodia who dragged me all over nearby Sam Mountain this morning. Although it's an out of the way sort of place, Chau Doc serves as a jumping off spot for river traffic into Cambodia. Word on the street is that crossing the border is fairly straight forward, if you don't mind paying a bribe or two to the corrupt Cambodian officials wielding the visa stamps. If all goes well, I'll be lining their pockets a bit by 10am tomorrow before heading into Phnom Penh to begin the next leg of the journey.

Traveling the length of Vietnam has been an amazing experience, and one, I'm sure, that won't entirely sink in until I'm back among friends and family in Utah.

While I'm sure that I had some preconceived notions about what I'd find in Vietnam, it has completely exceeded all of my expectations. The fantastically varied landscape and scenery combined with the absolute friendliness of the locals are what have touched me the most. Vietnam may not have the abundance of "Asian exoticism" that other nearby countries do - mostly due to the ravages of war, communism, and capitalism - but it more than makes up for it with a fascinating history and interesting people....who have survived more than their fair share of hardship and, yet, continue to make an American traveler feel welcome.