AT RISK THE OF
BECOMING AN
INFAMOUS GLUTTON,
I DISREGARD THE MORE
FAMILIAR WESTERN
MENU IN FAVOUR OF
DOUBLE HELPINGS OF
CAMBODIAN FARE
Book it!
Timeless Wonders of
Vietnam, Cambodia &
The Mekong (Uniworld)
15-day cruise and
land journey
Departs November 23, 2016
From $5,999 USD*
Vietnam, Cambodia
& the Riches of the
Mekong (AmaWaterways)
16-day cruise and
land journey
Departs November 26, 2016
From $6,498 USD*
Magnificent Mekong
(Viking)
15-day cruise and
land journey
Departs December 9, 2016
From $5,024 USD*
Itinerary by you
Contact a CAA Travel
consultant to plan your
own unique adventure
To book with CAA:
Winnipeg 204 262 6000
Brandon 204 571 4100
Altona 204 324 8474
Toll-free 1 800 222 4357
caamanitoba.com/travel
*BASED ON DOUBLE OCCUPANCY. PRICE SUBJECT TO
CHANGE AT ANY TIME.
38
SPRING 2016
AmaLotus under a cotton candy sunset
and begin my voyage, from Prek K’Dam
in Cambodia to Cai Be near Ho Chi Minh
City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam. The ship,
while shallow in draft, is a touch under 100
metres long and was custom built to navigate
the Mekong. All the luxury amenities are
here, including a pool, a roomy sundeck, a
spa and a bar manned by attentive waitstaff.
Down below, the porthole window in my
cabin has the pleasing effect of turning
every passing river scene into a snow-globelike diorama.
The following morning, my snow globe
reveals we’re moored midstream among
floating water hyacinths. I arrive on deck
just in time for my tour group to be called,
and we literally dance out the door to the
sounds of Pharrell’s song “Happy” (a disembarkation tradition that would only get
sillier in the coming days).
I meet our guide, Buntha, who takes us on
a small motorized boat bound for Kampong
Chhnang, a village with no fixed address.
It floats at the southern end of the Tonle
Sap, moving with the lake’s enormous ebb
and flow. Many villagers are descendants
of the Vietnamese army, which invaded
Cambodia in 1978 to prevent the ongoing Khmer Rouge border attacks. They
traded guns for nets and became fishermen, permanently adrift on what appears
to be a bamboo space station. Each house
is built on a fish cage five metres tall that,
when full, contains tons of market-ready
live fish, and everything from floating pig
farms to churches and schools are nearby.
The underwater world is equally intriguing:
Beneath us, giant catfish, some weighing
over 280 kilograms, and freshwater
CAA MANITOBA
Above: Tarantula is
served at Skun market.
Left: Cambodian
pancake aboard
the AmaLotus
stingrays as big as Persian carpets move
silently in the murky waters.
As the white-hot day cools to a peachcoloured dusk, I follow our narrow gangway
onto the banks of the silversmithing village
of Koh Chen, where our group ambles along
a main road buzzing with kids bearing trays
of silver jewellery. The tap-tap of the silversmith’s hammer and wheeze of the
bellows provide a percussive soundtrack
for my every step. When we reach the
school, the teacher invites our group in and
the children burst into traditional song.
They ask us to reciprocate, so we reduce
them to hysterics with an especially tuneless
rendition of “The Wheels on the Bus.”
The next day, our group is tempted to
hone our newfound a cappella skills as
our bus trundles along the bustling streets
towards Oudong, Cambodia’s former
capital city. The landscape was once gilded
with hundreds of golden temples like the
Vipassana Dhura monastery, which stands
proud like a golden thistle among the low
green hills. Beyond the tall gates, I follow
the multi-headed serpent balustrade up the
stairs to the shrine and leave my shoes at the
door. Thick carpets pad the floor underfoot.
A monk showers our congregation with
frangipani petals and chants a blessing
before he heads off to join the others for a
simple lunch. I trail along, revelling in the
beauty of orange-robed monks receiving rice
from white-clad nuns against a backdrop of
golden pagodas.
Back on the AmaLotus I enjoy another
one of C [X