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Published: January 5th 2012
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After 3 days in Ho Chi Minh city, myself and Vinny booked a 3 day 2 night tour of the Mekong Delta to include our boat to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. We were a little hesitant about booking a package trip and contemplated doing it ourselves, but in the end, the convenience and also the price were the deciding factors and so off we went, at 8am to a place called My Tho to check out the Mekong for the first time! I was very excited about seeing this part of Vietnam, as the Mekong Delta is home to approx 17 million vietnamese whose lives revolve around the river. They live and work on the river, washing themselves and their clothes in the river water in front of their houses. The Mekong also saw a lot of fighting during the war between the Viet Cong and the US, due to its proximity to the Cambodian border. It also produces more than half of Vietnam's rice!
Upon arrival in My Tho, we boarded a boat to take us across the Mekong to an Island where the locals make coconut candy. The journey across the river took about half an hour and
was really enjoyable. When we got to the island, we boarded a little wooden boat with an engine at the back and slowly weaved through a narrow little canal through the island. This was amazing and one of the highlights of the trip. There were only 3 of us on this tiny boat, and as it slowly made its way through the jungle-like vegetation, we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at a small little farm, with chickens and dogs running around and climbed out of the boat to where the local women make coconut candy. We were shown how they make it and we all got to try it. It was so good, we couldnt get over it! Vinny snuck a couple more samples and we ended up buying 3 big packs of it. Yum, it would remind you of Werther's Original, but really chewy. So good!
Back into our little boat and on to another part of the island to a bee farm! This was fun, as when they showed us the bees and talked about them a little, we could hold the hive full of bees for a photo op! Vinny
was the only one who volunteered (after a little pressure from me!) so see photo of a slightly nervous looking Vinny holding hundreds of bees!
We then all sat around and tried honey tea, made from the bees at the bee farm. This was amazing, which is surprising as I’m not a fan of honey at all!. After tea, the little boy on the farm brought out a MASSIVE python for us to hold if we wanted! I held him for a moment, which was class but he weighed a ton! Vinny had a go as well, but the python didnt really take to him (see photo!).
We were then brought in little rowing boats, down through the narrow canals again (wearing the obligatory conical hats!) and on to another part of the island for lunch, after which myself and Vinny borrowed a couple of bikes and went cycling around the island. This was another highlight as we cycled through this little village and along the edge of the river. The island was a very peaceful place, with just a dirt track going around it and no cars! Almost ran over a couple of chickens along the way
(that seems to happen to me a lot!) and Vinny got chased by a dog (which also happens a lot!) but overall it was a memorable afternoon, not least because when we came back from cycling, we realised there were about 20 crocodiles in an enclosure. I was literally about 6 feet from a croc before I even realised he was there. Didnt seem like the safest place to have them and there was so many in such a small space. The restaurant where we ate lunch has crocodile on the menu and the crocs are kept out back to be killed as required. So wrong.
Back to My Tho, we boarded a 4 hour bus to Can Tho, the biggest city in the Mekong Delta where we checked into a hotel for the night. After dinner, while drinking tea at a street cafe, an old vietnamese man came up to us to welcome us to Vietnam! He had only a tiny bit of English, but asked us our names and where we were from and welcomed us to Can Tho, where he was from! He was so nice!
Early start the next morning to witness first hand
the floating markets! For those who havent heard of them, its a market that actually operates on the water. The local people sell their wares from a boat, with the produce they sell stuck on the mast of the boat. So basically a boat that sold bananas would have bananas up on the mast. A few of us on the boat stopped and bought some fruit. Some of the smaller boats came up alongside us and hooked onto our boat and glided alongside us while the various transactions were being made! It was a really interesting morning, watching it all take place. Although there was one German on the boat who thought that "zis is not very efficient, iz it"!
After the markets, we were brought up through another narrow canal to a little farm where the local people make noodles. This was really interesting as they used the rice water after cooking rice and pour it onto these round hot plates, just like making a crepe. When the ‘rice pancake’ is cooked, they cool it and put it through a shredder and voila, noodles! Was really cool to see!
We left the farm and got a boat
back to the town where we then boarded another 4 hour bus this time to a place called Chau Doc, a town on the border of Cambodia where we would be getting a boat to Phnom Penh the following morning. Thankfully it was just a stop over as the town was not particularly nice and had very little to offer. It didnt help that we were put up on the most disgusting room we have stayed since we started travelling! There were cigarette burn holes in the sheets, the bathroom was manky and when we were going to bed, we realised the bed was covered with these tiny little insects, like fleas or something. Not having a mosquito net, we just had to get on with it. I fell asleep straight away (surprise surprise) but Vinny was tormented by them. Oh and I forgot to mention there were two lizards on the wall communicating with each other in a high pitched squeak every few mins! Needless to say, we were happy to be checking out of there in the morning and heading to Cambodia's capital and a nice guesthouse that we had booked ourselves!
The journey to Cambodia was
long but pleasant! It started with a boat trip to the border but we stopped along the way at a Cham minority village to see the women making shawls and then a fish farm along the river, which was actually really interesting! After sleeping for most of the 3 hour boat trip, we arrived at the border, where we had lunch while we waited for our guide to sort our visas. (Bit of advice for anyone doing this route, the visa is $22 and the guide charges $1 per person to sort it out for you. Some people have a problem with this, but it is more convenient). We then reboarded the boat for a short trip to Cambodian Immigration. Once through immigration, which took a matter of minutes, we had another long boat trip before boarding a mini bus! There were 13 of us and there was a 13 seater minibus provided. Sounds appropriate, however no account was taken of the 13 backpacks that would also have to fit on with us!! You can imagine how much of a tight squeeze that was! Fortunately, it was only for an hour and a half and the scenery made it worthwhile!
Upon arrival in Phnom Penh, we got a tuc tuc to our guesthouse to chill out after a long day of travelling! After three amazing weeks in Vietnam, we were looking forward to exploring a new country and its history.
PS. There are lots of photos with this blog but they are all worth a look! Hard to try narrow it down!
A xxx
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Helen
non-member comment
Great things in Asia.
Travelling is one of the most precious thing that you could ever do to your life, and this blog of yours is very nice. Pretty faces and places we could see along the way of Vietnam. Great and fun stuff. What more we could do in this lovely city? Of course! we could just hang around and find our way to do fun stuff! I wanted to share this to you guys, hope you like it like the way I am. http://funstufftodoin.com/