http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , Vietnam , Mekong River Delta en-us Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:53:11 BST Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:53:11 BST I think that title fairly well sums up our last excursion to Can Gio. It was great overall but in the moment well... it was really muddy there were lots of mangroves and often we don't know what's going on at all so cats living under water encapsulated that feeling. Can Gio really was amazing though like most everything else I've seen or done here in Viet Nam. The first day we were there http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-331263.html 7 de SeptiembreNo tenemos habitacin en el Sprng hotel que habiamos reservado pero hay muchos por la zona en el segundo que preguntamos Star hotel tienen una habitacin por 90 la noche pero nos apetece un poco de ldquolujordquo nos dan una habitacin alta piso 18 con bonitas vista. Vaya un lavabo con limpia ojete.Comemos en Lotera una especie de McDonals Vietnamita.Nos damos una http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-331026.html Desayuno ms contundente que la cena de ayer. Vamos camino de My Tho paramos para visitar la isla detemplo de Nguyen Dinh Chieu donde habit el Monje de los Cocos una especie de decorado de parque de atracciones venido a menos esperando la llegada de turistas. En My Tho paseamos en barca entre islas de frutales y hacemos una parada ldquotcnicardquo a almorzar frutas y a ver si compram http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-331025.html Seguimos nuestra ruta por el delta del Mekong. De camino a Tra Vinh vemos puestos de carne con la cabeza de vaca expuesta. En Tra Vinh vemos la pagoda de las cigeas el memorial al to Ho lstima que la sala de fotos est cerrada. Hoy nos anticipamos la comida y les hacemos llevarnos a Le Trau Xanh despus del da de ayer una buena comida incluyendo sopa de wmg.La lluvia de las 1500 h. Dor http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-331022.html Al final hemos contratado la excursin para 3 das por unos 220 hotel aparte.Nos encontramos un todoterreno nuevo con conductor y de gua el mismo de ayer el Sr. Chung Lee el anciano exmecnico de helicpteros del ejrcito de Vietnam del Sur.La ruta que seguimos es camino de Vinh Long vamos parando y disfrutando del paisaje ldquoFabrica de inciensordquo de ladrillos nias saliendo del http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Vinh-Long/blog-331015.html Excursin por los mercados flotantes.Espectacular forma de vender y comprar barcos llenos de frutas anunciadas en lo alto de las caas. Visita de ldquofabricardquo de pasta de arroz. Comida de una pia en el barco de unos vendedores con su hija haciendo muequitos con las hierbas del ro. Visita de la casa de una seora que hace sombreros y le compramos uno. Para ldquotcnicardquo donde http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Can-Tho/blog-331013.html Transporte al barco 50.000 VNDpax mitad de precio que a la ida hay turistoidehellipOtra vez en el barco esta vez el VINASHIN Cailanshinco M.V. Vinas him Rose mismo precio 250.000 VNDpax tambin con derecho a las toallitas hmedas pero las pelis son de polis chinos bastante viejas prefera a Jaky Chan.Al bajar del barco en Rach Gia agobin de ldquomoterosrdquo nuestro objetivo neg http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Can-Tho/blog-331010.html Decidimos quedarnos slo dos noches en la playa el bungalow no nos acaba de parecer los suficientemente ldquoromnticordquo . Creo que algn da conseguiremos ser algo ms objetivo al ver los sitios donde dormir despus de lo del geritrico de Lisboa ya va la segunda y no hay dos sin tres hellip. Maana con lluvia fina pero nos decidimos a alquilar una motillo para recorrer la isla e i http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Phu-Quoc-Island/blog-331007.html La noche no ha estado mal hasta que a las cinco de la maana el centro social prximo ha empezado a emitir por los altavoces informaciones tablas de gimnasia y no se ha calladohellipCompramos los billetes del ferry en el mismo hostal. Despus de que me cobren 20.000 VND por un manojo de rambutanes que debera valer la mitad. Pues otro barco ms el SuperDong Esto si que parece un barco http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Phu-Quoc-Island/blog-331003.html Voici les photos de nos trois jours dans le Sud du Vietnam. Au programme bonne bouffe a Saigon Ho Chi Minh City traversee de la mort entre les scooters marche flottant dans le Delta... http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-330955.html Today we did a trip to see the Chu Chi tunnels. It was great to see the network of tunnels with a hospital and everything all originally under ground. We all had a go at climbing into a hidey holematt managed to squeeze in for a photo but my womanly hips prevented my photocall One of the girls managed to get right inside but we were kind and didnt put the lid onWe had a photo taken on an old http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-328999.html Well David carried out his promise and had Anteater and I tasted some too. To be honest it was quite nice although I'm glad I stuck to then non exoctic sweet and sour pork. By the way he lived to tell the tale better than the Llama in BoliviaI have a bit of a dicky keyboard so apologise in advance for the errorsSo we departed for Saigon on a seven hour bus trip which took ten This had someth http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Chau-Doc/blog-328517.html I just got back from a yummy breakfast with my homestay sister Uyen. We ate at a little cafe near her house and had bo ne except I don't know how to do the proper accents... Anyway it was beef a fried egg some sauteed onions and bread and ca phe sua which is the iced coffee with sweet and condensed milk. So we've been exteremely busy with classes and trips around this area. Two weeks http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-328395.html Just to clear things up The scooter thing was not serious. I was walking along a street in Can Tho chatting to another guy from the Mekong Delta trip not paying a lot of attention. These little scooters were coming out of any alley and were following the Vietnam school of motoring code i.e. honk loud and long enough and people will get out of the way at no expense stopAnyway I didn't notice http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Can-Tho/blog-327036.html I decided to book a tour of the Mekong Delta. I woke up early and walked to Delta Adventure Tours and met up with the rest of the people.We took a bus out to the Mekong and then boarded a boat. We visited various places and got back to Saigon pretty late.I met up with Hong and we went to a bar for a few drinks. http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-325579.html Weather that feels like home I never did get my massage as stated in my last message but I did visit the War Remnants museum. As I know nothing about the VietnamAmerican war the whole thing came as a bit of a shock really. The museum is quite small but the exhibts are unbelievable moving. Sometimes it reminded me more of a gallery than a museum as a lot of the exhibits are photographs but i http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Can-Tho/blog-325557.html Safely in Vietnam having not had to pay any unofficial extra charges to any officials We began the process of bargaining for a lift on the moto to the Chau Doc. As usual the price started ridiculusly high and we were followed for several metres by a large group of bikers until they finally agreed a reasonable price. Chau Doc is about 25mins drive from the border crossing and somehow i ended up w http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Chau-Doc/blog-324898.html My busy weekend has turned into a busy week already. I should begin with last week though. We have begun in earnest Vietnamese and have at least two hours though twice we had five hours of Vietnamese every day. It is rather intensive but the grammar rules make sense the verbs don't have to be conjugated and as long as I can remember the basic words and numbers I should do mostly alright. W http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-323831.html We were up bright and early this morning to get ourselves to the airport with plenty of time to check in for our flight to Rach Gia on the mainland. Our plan was to go from Rach Gia to Ha Tien border crossing into Cambodian and then on to Sihanoukville and then Phnom Penh. We had planned everything last night and were happy with it. Thats until Vietnam Airlines got involved.We got to the airport a http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Phu-Quoc-Island/blog-320876.html At 8.30am we were picked up by a minivan and taken to our boat. The boat was ready sat in the harbour rocking side to side and there was a overpowering smell of dried fish. We quickly boarded the boat and sat on two chairs in the centre to ease the rocking. We sat eagerly awaiting the fresh sea breeze we knew we would get once out of the harbour. After a few clever manuevures the boat got out of http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Phu-Quoc-Island/blog-320852.html The day began with a firendly greeting from the hotel staff and other guests. After finishing breakfast we slapped on the suncream and walked along the beach all the way into town. On the way we passed all of the other resorts and began to realise how lucky we were with the positioning of our hotel. The others looked tatty and quiet even some of the expensive ones possibly because it was the low http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Phu-Quoc-Island/blog-320846.html Up early today to get to the airport for our flight to Phu Quoc Island. It was another small plane where we met the people we had travelled on the bus to Vang Vieng and had also seen several times when we had been travelling south in Vietnam. The flight took just under an hour and we then got a taxi to the place where we were staying. We had looked on the internet the day before for somewhere to s http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Phu-Quoc-Island/blog-320845.html Well here I am in the lovely city of Can Tho Khanter if you want to begin to say it correctly Our guest house is right on the banks of the great Mekong River. It's really neat to wake up in the morning hearing the boats and barges and ferries moving up and down the river to and from the floating market construction sites for bridges or loading docks. The river is quite wide the size of r http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-320788.html .Soon after crossing into Vietnam the Mekong splits into many smaller rivers all seeking their way into the South China Sea. This fan of great waterways with constructed channels connecting them has for centuries been the basis of a unique way of life. The delta is awash with barges produce boats passenger ferries private boats. A little Vietnamese language plus a lot of spare time woul http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-320323.html We are now in Vietnam its wonderful we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City formally Saigon and have spent the few days exploring in and around the city Firstly we went on a Boat trip to the Mekong Delta and went on small rowing boats through the jungle and saw many local produce as well as sampling the produce including the snake wine and the coconut candies the latter of the two was lovely the other w http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Can-Tho/blog-314903.html 4 hours from Can Tho right next to the Cambodian border is the small market town of Chau Doc. extending from the centre of town is a 4km long road that leads to Sam Mountain a place of much spiritual importance to the towns people. for on this mountain there are countless temples with more being built well at least one that i saw it was also the location of a funeral of a friend of someone i m http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Chau-Doc/blog-311353.html Finally the Latin or Roman Alphabet Well something similar at least. Unlike us back at home they have dots apostrophes accents slashes bottomless triangles flying above and swimming below their letters. For instance there are something like eighteen different ways to write 'A' and 'O' using the different accent marks. Anyways who is counting I don't speak Vietnamese and this is the f http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-309972.html Peace............. this is the defning word to sum up my time in Can Tho. i had left Ben Tre at 8am for a 4 hour hour bus journey where once again i had the pleasant fortune of having a Vietnemese person learning English to sit next to me and spark up conversation all be it limited. nonetheless due to these encounters i can now already speak more Vietnemese in less than 2 weeks than i knew after http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/Can-Tho/blog-309855.html