Blogs from Can Tho, Mekong River Delta, Vietnam, Asia - page 2

When it's pitch black and you wake up and hear a noise but can't tell where it's coming from. It's the middle of the night and you reach out to make sure your sleeping partner is still there and not prowling round the room. And you realise that something is prowling on the roof making scrunchy sounds....and it's only a few feet above your head.... May as well go back to sleep. It's probably only a monkey. Hopefully. And after that we were still up at 6am to go out and take pictures and upload yesterday's blog. Someone had told us how to work the shower so we actually had hot showers before a lovely breakfast of pancakes, baguettes and fruit. And then we were off on a bike ride through groves of fruit growing such ... read more

Day 20 - on the Mekong We had a great idea this morning, to strap my empty backpack into Helens full one, to make travelling easier, she got loaded up, and it worked a treat! We were being picked up at 9am, after breakfast by the tour guide. She was on time with the driver; her name is Hoang. We got into the car, fully expecting to be taken to a bigger bus to join a tour, she looked as us really surprised, explaining that we had booked a private tour! No wonder it was so bloody expensive! But, to be honest, the big tour did not go on a Saturday, which is why we had had difficulty booking it previously! I think we paid about £170 each for 3 days and 2 nights. We have ... read more

The morning started off early with a boat ride to the floating markets on the Mekong River. These are not the tourist markets of Thailand, but the real ones the farmers, middlemen and traders use. It took about 30 min to get there from our hotel, but once we arrived there was a plethora local men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes trading and selling their produce, meat and fish. The small row boats were the farmers bringing their goods to market to see to the middle men, in larger boats. The middle boats would put their product on a pole in the air to sell to the traders. So there were poles with sweet potatoes, gourds, roots, and other fruits and vegetables. There was even one boat full of butchered meat with NO ... read more

Having set my alarm for 05.45 it was a pretty early start to the day. What makes it bearable though is watching the early morning river traffic and the sun beaming across the water and into my room. Having booked the bus to Can Tho for today and a short one hour boat tour to fit in beforehand. After a spot of breakfast a group of tourists arrived at the hotel, we all climbed on the boat and were on our way. The first stop was to a small fishing village on the river, we got off the boat and stepped into a woman's house which basically had 2 large holes in the floor with lots of fish in - primarily there to be fattened up before being sold on at the markets. It was interesting ... read more

A short flight from Danang took us to Saigon, also known as Ho Chi Minh City, and back to big cities with throngs of motor cyclists. We spent an interesting morning visiting the Cu Chi tunnels near the end of the Ho Chi Minh trail, a ninety-minute drive from our hotel. This is where members of the National Liberation Front or Viet Cong lived while fighting American troops. We went down a short section of tunnel, which we could only traverse while bent over, although there were areas such as the kitchen, meeting rooms, and a 'hospital' where we could stand upright. The tunnels enabled the NLF to appear and disappear instantaneously by means of well-camoflauged entrances to the network of tunnels. We also viewed a variety of nasty-looking traps they devised that all resulted in ... read more