Some thoughts

I think the agent already took out quite a bit of commision in between, thus drivers like Mr Dong, had to try other ways to increase his income. By trying to persuade us to change venue, he can earn extra because that's outside the itinerary we had paid for. We vaguely mentioned that we are taking the 6am bus to Vinh Long the next day. True enough, he was actually waiting for us outside our hotel the next day morning at 5.15am! By the way, there's a crowd of motorbike drivers trying to vie for business too.
vietnam travel
For boat trips to cham village, floating village and even day trips to Sam Mountain etc, we can actually just try to negotiate on the streets. There's many motorbike drivers around. The thing is, they might not speak english. I think we can easily get usd $10 for a day trip to Sam Mountain, Tuc Dup hill.

I have not explored Chau Doc in depth. Only on the last night then I realised where is Hoa Sen Bookstore and Mekong Tours (mentioned in ReidOn Travel.com). alamak. Also, only on the last night, I realised that there's a missing street that I have not stepped foot in! There's also a slightly different village/ countryside that we passed by on the way to Sam Mountain too. If I have the chance to come back to Chau Doc again, I'll explore the countryside more this time, especially the part closer to cambodia border! :)

Hoa Sen Bookstore
Tel 076-867-817; 14 Nguyen Huu Canh St; open 6am to 8pm daily

Mekong Tours
Tel 076-868-222; www.mekongvietnam.com; 14 Nguyen Huu Canh St; open 7am to 8.30pm daily

OH! Must mention about my fav cafe here. Cafe Sam Bo Luong. M and I went twice to sit there to watch traffic and drink coffee and chit chat. Frankly, Chau Doc has the best food and coffee from my entire 8 days trip in Vietnam. As I got closer to HCMC, I missed Chau Doc's food + coffee even more!

Day Three: Chau Doc - mountains day

We set off for our day trip at 7am. The motorbike uncle, Mr Dong, came by and grabbed another motorbike driver off the street to take both M and me on our day trip.
vietnam travel
I don't really like to sit on motorbikes back in Singapore. However, this is the most common and easiest and cheapest way of transport here. SO, i begin my day on the bike...

Mr Dong took us to Tuc Dup Hill first. It's actually the furthest from the town centre, about 41km south. I think we took about 1h to get there. Along the way, we stopped to take pictures of rice fields etc. Chau Doc is very near to the cambodian border, thus on the way to Tuc Dup, cambodians occupied this area. There's many cambodian temples and many cambodians own the lands here.

I noticed that Mr Dong is very persistent to ask us to go to another place. Of course, he wants to earn extra. Thus, for every place he stopped (not on my day trip list), i'm kind of worried he'll charge me again later. We have already paid usd $15/ pax for this day trip yesterday at the agent office.

Anyway, Tuc Dup Hill was fun! I liked climbing in and out and weaving between those rocks. hahaha. A bit breathless though. The entrance fee is $8000 dong per pax.

Tuc Dup Hill is also termed at the '$2million dollar' hill as the US army tried to knock out the VC out from this hill during the war. It's a maze of caves, passageways in between the rocks of this hill.

The next stop is Cam Mountain. Paid $7000 dong per pax for the entrance fees. Frankly I know nuts about it. Then the ugly things came.... our dear Mr Dong says our day trip only brings us to Cam Mountain BUT not to the top. We need to take the motorbikes inside Cam Mountain area to go up and thats another $70,000 dong per pax. come on, I sort of expected this but its too expensive. Also, because i had already paid usd $15 per pax upfront, im really quite pissed off to pay another $70,000 dong. We tried to reason with him (esp when his english is limited). In the end, we choose to relax and had a drink at the foot of Cam Mountain and idle our time away till 2.30pm, after which we proceed to Sam Mountain. I wonder if the same thing will happened later.

Well, dear Mr Dong decide to play a good samaritarian. He says he's a good man and he'll bring us up without any extra charge. hahaha. luckily he brought us up. It's a tedious way up to Sam Mountain. The view is good and we had our dinner and coffee while waiting for sunset.

By the way, I got super sun-burnt today.

Day Two: Chau Doc - floating village, cham village

As you walk along the various streets, many cyclo drivers will try to offer to take you to charm village, floating village etc. You can try to bargain with them. We took a boat ride to floating village and cham village with this guy for $80,000 dong for two pax. Think it took around 2hours. We started at around 3.30pm and end at about 5plus.vietnam travel

The floating village looks ok.. I feels like the one at tonle sap (cambodia) is better. Cham village is 'famous' because the malays are staying there. It's like a totally different area of Vietnam. There's a mosque there. And when we were there, two men are giving out money to the kids. Not sure if there's some custom / festival going on. Anyway, we were attracted to those kids shouting and crowding around thus we went to take a look.