Meandering Along the Mekong Delta

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The adventure begins with an early start and this sets the scene for the whole adventure on the Mekong - early mornings!

We were debating how to attack the Mekong (not literally) adventure, do it on our own or through a tour. So to cost things up we stumbled into Delta Adventures and a tour cost about 18$ US per day each including accomodation, some meals and with some cool activities, so we decided to go with that, we planned a four day three night trip with a home stay and the plan was to abandon the tour in Chau Doc and make our way to Ha Tien for the ferry to Phu Quoc.

We had to be at the office for 7am for our minivan to the port and like everything in Vietnam you spend half an hour or so driving around to pick people up before we leave. Finally we get to the port and board our speedboat to My Tho.

The trip to My Tho was pretty cool, travelling along meandering rivers lined with jungle and people’s homes, these look like metallic shacks on stilts balancing precariously on the edge of the river bank and the river. T was imagining scenes from the film Apocalypse Now “Give me back the board Lance, I won’t hurt you Lance, just give me back the board, It’s a good board” much to G’s continual irritation. After 3 hours we arrived in My Tho, we changed boats into a smaller, slower wooden boat and headed to the other side of the river to a town called Ben Tre where we were shown how they make honey for honey wine, incidentally, the honey production demonstration would have caused numerous cardiac arrests with the health and safety bods back in the UK, they removed the bee’s with us all standing around with no protective clothing or any of that sleepy gas stuff they spray on them back home. After which we enjoyed drinking some honey tea (which even G sampled) and then observed whilst they showed us how they make coconut candy.

After half an hour or so it was back to the water and into little rowing boats steered (and powered by locals) which took us through the canals that are the ‘roads’ to travel about and T was forced to wear a Vietnamese conical hat which look good on the locals but make a ginger pale foreigner look stupid!!!! We floated along the canal which was lined with jungle, it was pretty cool. We arrived at back where our boat dropped us off and changed to another boat and headed to another island on the Mekong for lunch. After lunch and a swing in the hammocks we headed back to the boat where T had a little accident, not sure how but a mistimed step on the boat resulted in T stuck between the boat and land with his leg in the water and numerous grazes and almost the loss of his glasses but the beer can in his hand was safe!!!!

After a lovely cruise along the Mekong we jumped onto a bus which took us to a town called Vinh Long where we boarded another boat and headed across the river to an island and to our homestay for the evening. Here we had a cooking lesson - well, food preparation lesson would be a better description, but it was good nevertheless. We then sat down and in uncharacteristic G&T style we had a few beers whilst being feasted on my mostiquos.

Early rise and onto another boat, today’s destination was Can Tho via Cai Be. First stop was some of the floating markets - like a chaotic Tesco’s on water. Each sellers ties to the mast of their ship the produce they are selling, for example pineapple sellers tie a pineapple which to us was reminiscent of Wilson from Tom Hanks Castaway “ wwwwwiiiilllllsooooon”!!!!

We arrived at Cai Be and were shown how they make rice popcorn, rice paper and T sampled some snake wine, its rice wine fermented with whole snakes, scorpions and on some occasions whole birds and it is bloody awful stuff, apparently its good for your back! After a wonder around the island we boarded another boat and headed for lunch, in the tour they said there was bike riding - well you’d be pretty pissed off if this was a reason for choosing this tour as the ‘bike riding’ lasted about 5 mins as we cycled from the port to the restaurant for lunch and back again afterwards. The bikes where horrendous, it was like a carry on cycling film, some tires were burst, T’s peddle was wonky so made a funny movement when pedalling and G’s wheel wobbled. Here we had a change of guide, for the third time and boarded another boat for the 3 hour journey up river towards Can Tho. The river journey was brilliant, it was so relaxing and all the children were running and waving from the riverbank and showboating by jumping into the river and we saw a water snake pottering down the river.

After a good night in Can Tho drinking beers and pigging out on Pizza and Steak it was yet another early morning, so up at daft o’clock-the ungodly hour of 06:30 back on a boat to see a larger floating market which was pretty cool we couldn’t imagine Ma Ellis or Ma Clark rowing about here on a Saturday morning, shopping basket in the front of the boat! After an hour or so of watching this market in full flow and enjoying a pineapple some banana’s and a mango purchase from the locals, we headed to see what more stuff they can make from rice - although this was becoming rather boring. We arrived back at Can Tho for lunch before heading to Chou Doc on a bus. Here we were staying on floating hotel. It wasn’t anything special but we spent an enjoyable evening in jovial mood consuming beers with a United Nations group of people: English, Swiss, Dutch and Aussie.

Up early yet again we set off on……. Yes you have guessed by boat to see some fish farms and an ethnic minority village (Charm Village) - Islam is the religion of choice here. The fish farm sits under the floating house and is full of Mekong catfish whom thrive in their natural home albeit with a massive net around them. We were told that we wouldn’t find these types of homes expensive but at $30,000 we disagreed!!!! The fish are sold internationally in Europe and North America in the guise of frozen white fish fillets. After this we boarded our first local bus in Vietnam which was pretty cool to Ha Tien. Ha Tien is a non descript town with nothing to do for the traveller except, yep you’ve guessed it have some beers and watch a film on your hotel TV!!! This place was our launch pad for Phu Quoc Island.

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