Even though this was a Victoria Hotel, and looked similar in basic ways, in other ways it was like the second cousin who lives out in the sticks. The room was a bit shabbier, the pool didn't always have towels available, and the breakfast was crummier. But the scenery was beautiful, because the hotel is up a mountain ("nui") surrounded by emerald green rice fields. Since we're here in the drier season, it's probably less green than usual, and the skies were hazier and dustier, perhaps due to a few fires we saw burning, but it was still beautiful. There was no good way to get from this hotel back to Chau Doc without taking a cab, and since we'd just come from there we decided to eat dinner the first night in the hotel. Swim all afternoon, relax, eat dinner, and have an easy evening.
Of course we hadn't expected much, but the hotel food was not even up to that standard. I don't even remember now what we had; I think I had a green papaya salad (oh yes, with dried beef) and I don't remember what Marc got but it was unimpressive. The best thing about that first half-day at Nui Sam was the view, and especially from the pool.
Our only planned activity was to go to Tra Su Forest/Bird Sanctuary, which is the main thing visitors do in that area. The flaming sunrise woke us up around 5:40, and I dashed around trying to get the best angle to see it: from our terrace, down to the pool, up to the restaurant gazebo, but it didn't matter because my camera is just not good at capturing those colors. Even in my memory, even if I exaggerate what I think it looked like, I know it was still even better than that. So sunrise, paltry breakfast, and then we walked just uphill a little to a large pagoda complex to look around. The funny thing we saw there were stacks and stacks of bottles of water arranged around the columns in the temple area, each stack bound with red ribbon. No idea. After that we hopped into the cab for the trip to Tra Su.
Most people sign up for a guided tour from the Victoria (either down in Chau Doc or up Nui Sam), but we decided to wing it, which is our usual way of doing things. I was a bit nervous, this time, because (a) zero English, and (b) it seemed there were a variety of actions, motor boat, row boat, climb the observation tower, and I was afraid we wouldn't know what we were meant to do. Luckily it was so easy, and also pretty quick. Our darling cab driver, who was dark and square-ish and didn't seem all that friendly at first, helped get us into the excursion. We noticed, as we were riding in the back seat, that everyone was waving to him, and calling out to him, so we figured he was a friendly and well-liked guy. When we got to the park, he escorted us to the ticket counter and helped us get the ticket, and then he just kind of waved his hands -- go there, over there -- and he'd indicated where he would be waiting for us. So we went there, over there, and climbed steps down to a boat launch where a motor boat (that could easily hold 6 or 8 people) took us into the canals. The water would undoubtedly be higher and more dense with foliage during the wet season, but on the other hand we weren't in that boat getting rained on.
Eventually the boat pulled up to another spot and the driver kind of shooed us out of the boat, pointing in a vague upward direction. We looked confused, I imagine, and someone kind of waved a hand or pointed a head toward another place, where we saw long rowboats. So we went there, and a guy looked at our ticket, called out to a woman, and the three of us went down the steps into the rowboat.
Oh how beautiful it was. Gliding through the canals, birds of all kinds surrounded us. Trees full of white egrets, egrets in groups flying up from a floating spot out into the surrounding trees. The woman pointed at something -- a series of large boxes, I guess they were for breeding? -- and we just floated along enjoying the quiet and beauty of the place. I took a selfie video shot of us and caught her in the frame, which seemed to prompt her to pull out her phone to video or photograph us. It was funny, maybe? So hard to know.
She turned the boat around and returned us to the place we'd started, and when we climbed up we weren't at all sure what we were supposed to do. I knew there was something about an observation tower, and finally we found it and Marc climbed to the top and said the view was really beautiful. I waited down below and watched the goings-on, which is always my favorite thing to do. After a bit of confused wandering, we finally found our way back to where we started, and there was our driver, waiting for us instead of waiting where he'd parked the car. I pulled up my translation app and got the Vietnamese word for 'beautiful,' which made him smile. As always I wanted to learn how to pronounce it, but I couldn't make him understand that and I think he just got a bit annoyed because I'd already showed him the word several times enough already.
Then we swam, relaxed, took a cab back down to Chau Doc for dinner at our second seafood place, and turned in kind of early. Again the flaming sunrise woke us up, and after a paltry breakfast it was time to take the long taxi ride back to Can Tho.
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