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Published: June 26th 2009
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We left Saigon at stupid o clock in the morning and set out on the three hour bus journey to the Mekong Delta. The scenery was very pretty and the journey passed pretty quickly. We got off the bus and went on a boat to see a floating market, it wasn’t that busy as it was getting on for midday but now the real magical mystery tour began. When we booked the trip (Again, why have we not learned by now!!) we were given a choice of three different options, basically, they were all the same and our two days involved whirlwind stops at a coconut candy making place, a popped rice shop, a rice paper factory, a popped noodle factory, a normal noodle factory and many other forms of food, which were all very interesting but kinda blurred into one another. Very quickly we began to feel like we were in Carry on Vietnam so we sat back to enjoy the bizarre but hilarious ride! We stopped on an island for lunch and got the chance to take bikes out to explore but I took the easy option and spent a lovely hour in a hammock and I was glad
The coconut candy
It was actually really nice! I had when we were told we were joining another tour on a different boat and we were cycling to meet them. Next, we were told that unfortunately, due to the river being too high, we couldn’t do our 4 hour boat trip down to Cantho - aargghhhh - that was the whole reason we went down there!! We stopped off in a small town for a stroll around the market, I have never seen such amazing fruit and veg but I have also never smelled things so good and so bad all at the same time! Dried squid is on sale everywhere and the stinking durian fruit which can only be described by saying it smells like s**t and tasted like heaven. Because the Mekong Delta is so fertile huge amounts of tropical fruits grow there and everywhere we went were old women in little pointy hats selling huge baskets of fruit, it was just brilliant. From here we went by bus to Cantho where we spent the night in a vile hotel with plastic mattresses and nylon sheets, pure class! Our doors were hammered on at 5.30 and by 6.00 we were on the boat to see the
big floating market further down the Mekong. Having a fair amount of free time on my hands at the moment I have become somewhat obsessive over the amazing photos on other peoples blogs so I was on a mission to get some wicked photo’s. When we got there it was just incredible, to float around in a boat watching people having their breakfasts at the floating café’s or being sold a fresh coconut by the five year old on the boat pulled up alongside, it was just an awesome sight and we got the opportunity to buy some gorgeous fresh pineapples from the pineapple boat (They all sell only one fruit or vegetable and they display them on a bamboo stick so you can see what their fruit of choice is!) and sit on top of the boat and watch the world go by, totally worth the nylon sheets after all! Unfortunately we weren’t able to go out on the two hour boat trip as the river was too low (?!) so we went to a rice factory and a rice paper factory and well you get the idea. We then went back to Cantho for some quality Vietnamese cuisine
and we had a lovely meal by the river with two very sweet American sisters and an eccentric English guy who played extreme Frisbee and said it was the same as football!?! After lunch we got on a very dodgy little speedboat thing to the other side of the river and then got back on the bus for the 6 hour journey back. We arrived back in Saigon tired but thoroughly glad we had been down to the south although we never actually got to do everything we were meant to! We spent the next day wandering around Saigon and then we booked ourselves on the eight hour night train to Nha Trang, the Vietnamese Seaside!
As a footnote, we haven’t been away from phone signals or wifi or internet for a while now and with baby Halford’s arrival already overdue I couldn’t believe it when we got back to Saigon and I had missed the big event! Congratulations Cha and Rich and welcome to the world Lucie Elizabeth Halford, can’t to wait to meet her in December. Am doing my best to find a tiny pointy hat for her!!
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