Mekong Delta

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Bianca:

Yesterday we set off for the Mekong Delta.

We got up nice and early so we were ready to be picked up at 7...at 7:30 Scott decided we should get the hotel to call the tour company and see where they were...a car turned up for us about 15 minutes later. We met the rest of our group (who were all much older) at the dock and hopped onto a boat, only to find out that we were short a seat, so Scott spent the trip (the whole 3 hours) sitting on a step.

After about 3 hours we arrived at My Tho, the closest town in the Delta to Saigon. We hopped off the boat and sat in the lobby of a random hotel for more of the group to arrive. We then got on a smaller (slower) boat and went off to an island. As the tour company promised, we were going to see a coconut candy factory and a honey factory(?)...when we arrived at the island, we did see the two factories...and a whole heap of souvenir stands. We got to sample the coconut candy (which was pretty nice) and then made our way past the stands to try the local honey in tea with Vietnamese lemon. At the honey place we got to play with a huge python! It probably weighed about 15kg's, but was so pretty. We both had a hold and then went back to sampling the local treats. From here we walked to the 'back' of the island and waited with about a million other tourists for a small paddle boat to arrive, which then had to negotiate the badly managed traffic of the small canal. I think we spent more time in gridlock than being paddled around the canal...they don't seem to realise the laws of physics still apply and are all very impatient and slam their boats into each other in an effort to try and squeeze through.

We left that island and sailed to the next for lunch. By this point in time we were both rather sick of the overly touristy feel of the place and instead of opting to ride bikes around the island (and probably get hassled to buy more stuff) we sat in hammocks and read our books until the time came to go back to the boat.

The boat took us back to My Tho for a 3 hour long bus ride to Can Tho. After about 2 and a half hours, we came to pretty much a complete stop...along with the rest of the traffic going back to Can Tho after the Tet festival. We sat in the worst traffic i have ever seen for about one and a half hours (to go about TWO KILOMETERS) to the ferry which would take us to Can Tho. We finally made it onto the ferry and to Can Tho (the capital of the Delta region). We checked into our hotel (which was really nice) and went to bed nice and early as we had to meet for breakfast at 6:30 the next morning.

The second day (today) was much better. We had breakfast the got onto a boat which took us to the floating market. The market was still pretty quiet as the Tet celebrations can go on for up to a week, but it was really interesting. We parked next to a boat selling pineapples and hopped into a smaller row boat which gave us a tour of the market. The row boat was paddled by a woman and her very confident 5 or 6 year old daughter. When we hopped onto the boat she insisted that i sit at the back with her and another lady from the tour and was really cute and playful! She continued to entertain me by playing little games the whole time around the market and conned one of the other members of the tour group into buying her a pepsi!

After the market we went to a rice noodle factory...which was shut (because of Tet) and then onto a fruit garden/orchard (we were supposed to go to a rice husking mill...but that was also closed because of Tet). The fruit garden was really nice...we even stumbled across a bright green, very well camouflaged viper! After walking through the garden we went to some huts where they were serving tropical fruits for about one aussie dollar. We found some hammocks and gobbled our delicious (huge) mango...yummm.

We then made our way back to Can Tho by boat, had lunch, then got on another boat for one hour which took us to meet the bus. We spent another three hours on the bus getting back to Saigon. I think the bus was made to accommodate midgets...it was rather squishy and uncomfortable...especially after three whole hours! Our driver was the second worst (after the driver from the Hanoi airport) we've had! He was even more fond of his horn than most Vietnamese drivers, and liked his brakes (but only when used sporadically) and, this is the best part, almost ran up the back of a truck...which we realised as we drove past was full of gas bottles...hmm. Along the way we went over quite a new looking bridge, which turns out, was designed by Aussie engineers and financed by the Aussie government (thanks mum and dad...its a nice bridge!)

We made it back to Saigon safely...its a fair bit busier than it was when we arrived. Its starting to pick up after Tet finally! Tomorrow we are in for a whole day of shopping (yay!) We both have lists...mine is about a hundred times longer than Scott's!

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