It's not you, it's Mekong.

Since our experience with the ijits at Blue Mongolia, Ed and I have been wary of signing on for anything with even a whiff of "group tour."  When we decided to spend some time in the Mekong, our initial plan was to go DIY.  After looking at bus schedules and consulting some locals, we realized that piecing it together was going to take more effort and planning than we were willing to put in.  We ultimately consulted a reputable tour company in Saigon to discuss our trip.

The dude behind the desk actually had the information we were looking for, answered all of our questions, and didn't try to sell us on the tour or anything else during the entire 15 minutes we talked to him.  In the land of kick backs and bus drivers who do not hesitate to hijack their passenger load for a quick stop at Uncle Trang's House of Knickknacks and Snakejuice, the soft sell was a novel approach.

We discussed whether the price tag merited the itinerary outlined and decided to book a 3 day tour with Sinbahlo Adventure Travel.  And you know what happened?  It was freaking awesome.  We got to travel on tiny boats through the canals of the delta and cycle on back dirt country lanes through villages and along rivers feeding the Mekong.  I rode across tiny bridges made from scrap by locals past rice paddies, fish farms, fruit markets, and children released from their classes to watch us ride by and yell "HELLO!"

From a bike:

From a boat:

In Mongolia, we were pressured several times into awkward visits in the gers of Nomads who clearly weren't prepared to receive us nor necessarily that psyched that custom made it incumbent on them to do so.  The good folks at Sinbahlo seem to understand what both locals and tourists want out of "home visit" - the tourists want to glimpse the local lifestyle without having to make stilted, translated conversation through the guide.  And the locals want to know what their responsibility is (serve fruit & tea, show us around the brick making factory), how short the visitors will stay, and to get paid.  We were anxious about our homestay on the Mekong, but the family was super nice and seemed happy to retire to their quarters and let us knock back some Tigers in peace.

Side note on the homestay - that shit was like wild kingdom.  A very indoor/outdoor camp-like experience in a home on stilts in the Mekong river, it was a beautiful spot.  The night we stayed, we went to take showers in the "bath area" and in the course of rinsing off in freezing water were greeted by a praying mantis and watched a gecko snatch a flying cockroach nearly its size and try to eat it in one bite.  The cockroach escaped from its mouth and flew into the folds of the towel I had around my waist; slapstick ensued.  We barely slept in our mosquito-netted bunk due to the deafening sounds of the jungle behind the house.

Guest wing:

Hallway:

Our little group of 5 of us got on well, and we particularly enjoyed the company of a Swiss gentlemen named Franz.  Or, "Tour de Franz" as I called him while cycling.  He was super cool and had a bazillion interests and has travelled everywhere.   He also shared Ed's nerdy lust for camera equipment and brown liquor, so they were fast friends.  

Our final morning was a visit to the unmissable floating market in Cai Rang.  We boarded a small boat so we could thread between the larger market boats and got to board one of the vendors' boats for a fresh pineapple snack.  While hanging on deck, we saw masses of tourists in much larger vessels skirting the edges of the market and were pleased with our choice of tour.  Also we were in, like, all their pictures.

The boyz (Rolf, Ed, Franz) on the pineapple express:

Undraa and the Blue Mongolia Collective

When you're planning a trip to Mongolia, 2 things become clear very quickly. 1. That you're going to need to go with a tour operator or at the very least a driver/translator because if you don't you'll probably die in the desert looking for a shelter from the wind or a meal and, 2. The information available online about the various tour operators is conflicting, confusing, and sparse. The best comparison I can draw is to real estate brokers in Manhattan; a large percentage are bogus and you know they're shifty as hell, but you probably have to deal with one if you want an apartment.

After much research and to-ing/fro-ing with several companies, we landed on Blue Mongolia. Things got off to a winning start with our guide, Undraa. Laughy laughy, jokey jokey, tell us about Mongolia, now you tell me about America, let's make friendship bracelets, etc. What became clear by Day 4 was that her knowledge of the sights we were visiting was limited to a small blurb memorized each morning from the Blue Mongolia Tour book. Also, that she was being heavily bossed about by the non-English speaking or understanding driver (let's call him Driver #1). #1 was surly and rude and lost most of the time. That last attribute was particularly frustrating and when we would inquire as to why a stretch of driving took 10 hours instead of the scheduled 5, he would angrily fall back on the Mongolian superstition that its bad luck to predict how long something should take or to give arrival times. Our suggestion that he ballpark it for us went down like a lead balloon and thus the triangle of conflict between us, #1, and Undraa had begun.

Undraa annoyed us in the initial days when she was trying, ineptly, to lead us. I've charted our experience with her thusly:

What happened on July 10^th, you ask? Why such low scores? Well, my trend-spotting friends, that was the day that #1 decided to test the Delica's 4 wheel prowess by gunning us through a flooded clay desert. We knew of the poor road conditions from other tourists in the camp who had complained of long detours to avoid it. So when we came to the vast expanse of foot-deep puddles we assumed there we'd go around. When #1 started to plow on through, we insisted we go around. At that point, however, #1 was no big fan of ours and we didn't go around. We got stuck.

That was the day that the balance of power shifted. It was clear that no thought or preparation had been given to an emergency. That, stuck in the middle of the desert with no humanity in sight Undraa, #1 and Blue Mongolia combined had no plan. Undraa was out of her depth and panicked. No chains, no satellite phone, no GPS, no compass, no flares, nada. At #1s instruction we collected rocks and pulled mud from under the tires. We dug and we levered and we pushed. We were covered in mud, soaking wet and sunburned, and sinking.

Ed and I user our outside voices with Undraa that day. We informed her that we were taking over the leadership of the tour and that she now reported to us. We took her phone and #1s, ordered her to ferry our belongings and lunches through the mud to shore, and taught her Chapelle-style cursing. Standing on the roof of the sinking van to get service, I gave the tour manager back at HQ some tips on how this day might have gone better. We demanded a new driver be delivered by morning, that a hotel be booked for the night, and that she remain available via cell 24 hours a day should anything else go wrong. All of this was agreed to and, thus, Undraa was demoted from tour guide to translator, cell phone holder and waitress.

Nomads were eventually contacted and came to our rescue. In total, we were stuck in the mud for 10 hours but the van was salvaged and we were on our way by dark. In the end the new reporting structure with Undraa worked well for all involved and Driver #2, who arrived the next morning, was just the best ever.