The Mekong Delta (Sinh cafe tours)

28 and 29 October 2008 - My 3rd visit to the Mekong Delta. I made the first trip to the area 9 years ago on a 3-day tour to 6 provinces with Sinh cafe. Unfortunately, on that trip I used a camera with roll films and it didn't work due to some technical problems. I ended up having no photos on the trip. Some years later, I joined a 1-day tour to Mỹ Tho and Bến Tre. This time I was back in the Mekong Delta, but I chose a 2-day tour to visit 4 provinces Long An, Vĩnh Long, Cần Thơ and Tiền Giang.

The bus left Sinh cafe office at 8am. After 3 hours, we arrived at Cái Bè of Tiền Giang province and started the boat ride along Cái Bè river. We visited a farm to see how the locals make rice papers, coconut candy and rice cakes before moving to a restaurant by the Mekong river and enjoyed simple lunch. Also at this place, we saw a lake where crocodiles are raised. Then we gathered inside a house with simple stage to see "đờn ca tài tử" song performance made by the local singers, who are also the farmers.

After a short boat ride, we went to Vĩnh Long city. Some people on the 1-day tour visited the market then they would go back to Sài Gòn, while we continued our way to Cần Thơ city. This is the largest city in the Mekong Delta. At 4:30pm, we arrived at the hotel and I had to pay a single supplement to get my own room. On my first visit to this city 9 years ago, I shared a "xe lôi" (simple vehicle same like rickshaw in India but it's motorized) with some other tourists and we went to a place by the river, but nowadays this vehicle has been banned. As I was alone this time, I just walked around the area near my hotel, found a pharmacy to buy some medicine as I caught cold and had cough, then had dinner at a restaurant near my hotel.

Next day, we visited Cái Răng floating market. Although we went to the place at 7:30am, there were not many boats left since the market is often organized early in the morning, maybe at 5am to 7am. In the Mekong Delta, the boats are always painted with red eyes on the front side and if a boat sells something like fruit, there is always such kind of fruit hanging up on the pole. We also saw the boats carrying sand, even a motorbike. Some people live on the boat and they move around along the Mekong river.

We had an hour relaxing at a fruit garden and enjoyed fresh fruit. Then we visited An Bình market in Cần Thơ, had lunch and crossed the Mekong river by ferry before going back to Vĩnh Long city by bus. Some more time was spent at the market where I saw people selling snakes. In fact, snake meat is one of the local dishes in the area. We were back in Sài Gòn by bus at 7pm.

One of the symbols of the Mekong Delta is the monkey bridges (cầu khỉ). They are very simple bridges made of bamboo and wood and it's very difficult to walk on these bridges. Many of them have been replaced with concrete bridges. On this trip, I saw only one monkey bridge in Cần Thơ.

After 3 trips with Sinh cafe on all 1-day, 2-day and 3-day Mekong Delta tours, I would say that I still like the first trip (3-day tour) most of all. Some places on that tour 9 years ago are no longer included on the present tours. For example, Đồng Tháp (Xẻo Quýt - the Vietnamese soldiers base during the American war) or the bird park near Cần Thơ have been moved from the list of sightseeing. Both places were very interesting. Also, Sinh cafe combines all people on the different day tours on the same trip, then at the end of the day we are separated toward different directions. That's more flexible for them, not the same like the tour groups I joined before, when we traveled together on the whole trips.

The photos in this blog were taken at Cái Bè river, the farms to make coconut candy and rice papers, houses by the Mekong river, floating market in Cần Thơ, local markets in Vĩnh Long and Cần Thơ.

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