3 Days in the Mekong Delta

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11th feb - Tuesady
Saigon -Cai Be - Vinh Long - Can Tho - Long Xuyen - Chau Doc - Saigon.

Leaving behind the frenetic pace of Saigon City we were looking forward to a more sedate couple of days along the Mekong Delta. It was a bit of an arduous journey to Cai Be taking three hours, due to the disgorging and intake of passengers along the way.

The scenery helped us along and two things stood out.

1. The municipal councils take enormous pride in their gardens, parks, roundabouts and just about anywhere they could plant shrubs, flowers and trees along the roadsides. All without doubt watered, pruned and nurtured.

2. By bizarre contrast, they seem to allow burial sites and mausoleum just about anywhere. For example, in the middle of paddy fields, and disused building plots.

On arrival at Cai Be we clambered aboard a passenger junk and sailed along the Lower Mekong river amidst expanses of water chestnuts and shanty houses lining both sides, no sign of any satellite dishes in this part of the world. We stopped at a small village for the obligatory visit to local industry, involving Rice Paper Production,Rice Pop Corn Making and local Toffee methods, then the heavy sell to buy their products. For reasons of mantaining our waistlines we resisted all offers.

On return to our boat we had an hours voyage across a vast convergence of river systems flowing into the Delta, arriving finally and disembarking at Can Tho, which was down a fairly narrow river. This was not without incidence as our Skipper managed to collide with a moored house boat, impact point close to us, in trying to avoid the boat we then got stuck in the bank narrowly avoiding fouling the propeller. After several attempts we were on the move and berthed at a small jetty, walking to our lunch venue, a typical Vietnamese Restaurant which took us a pleasant 5minute walk through the village.

Very nice lunch then an hour chilling out in the garden which offered plenty of shade from numerous fruit trees, where we are writing this blog. Much more to look forward to this afternoon. Posting now as have Internet access, resume ASAP.

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Comments

[Loz & Jake]

Love this pic Nan! :-) xxx