Mekong and exit Vietnam

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Ohhhh if you watch the video see the joy on the faces of the boat passengers. They have just spotted a bigger boat and shelter. This little rowing trip was going to be one of the highlights of our trip into the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.... and in some ways it was - we were soaked, nearly sank and our boatmen nearly killed themselves laughing. We were slightly less endeared to the idea of falling out of the boat and wallowing with the mud fish (weird leggy fish that live in the mud) but when you are sinking you have to laugh. Life in the Mekong goes slow, people are so friendly and you take it as it comes. We have a lovely lovely time traveling on various craft, seeing local orchards, bee-keeping farms, rice mills and life on the river.
And the people were extra friendly (more so than the rest of Vietnam). One of our pics shows two little kids cuddling puppies: we'd stopped for a break on our bus and the kids were watching us. When they saw us watching them they ran over to a wriggling hammock and came running back with two puppies to share for cuddles and tickles. Their mother was in the background laughing her head off - the kids were so funny.
Also funny was our guide who we hired for one of the smaller trips. He added an s to various words like "floating 'smarkets" and "spring sprolls" but dropped his 't's at the worst times - like when he was talking about peanu(t)s in peanuts candy (say it out loud). He also liked to loudly spell things out to make sure we understood them but always misspelt them "this is the floating smarkets where the locals peoples anchor....A..N..K..E..R.. to buys foods". But we shouldn't laugh - Vietnamese was impossible - due to the fact it's tonal - there are up to 6 different meanings to a word dependent on the tone- we tried pho ga (chicken noodle soup) but our ga intonation meant petrol. We avoided the name of the market in Saigon which if mispronounced meant penis.
But time to exit Vietnam..

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