2 Mekong Delta

---

One thing that I had not seen last time I was in Vietnam was the Mekong Delta so I decided that I would do a 2 day trip through the delta into Cambodia.

Day one it was a mixed group with people on 1, 2 and 3 day trips all on the same bus, but luckily it was still quite a small group. It took about 3 hours to get to the river where we got on to a ferry type boat and headed to our first stop - a coconut candy factory! The day was basically made up of a series of stops at bizarre places, the next stop was a cafe where they had one bee hive and a kid on roller skates came out with a massive python round his neck. I decided that i really should have a go at holding the snake - but I dont think that I will be doing it again any time soon although it wasnt any where near as bad as I was expecting it to be!

Stop 3 for the day was lunch but we got there on tiny little boats that they punted which was quite good fun. Lunch was fairly basic but edible enough. Stop 4 saw us going to watch some traditional music but it unfortunately sounded more like a few cats being strangled. Myself, Robin and Andy got the hysterics during the performance as did a few others who actually had to get up and walk out - generally quite a funny day.

We headed back to the bus and all the different groups then headed off on their separate trips and we swapped email addresses to meet up in Phonm Penh. I then had a 5 hour bus journey to where we were to stay the night. They didnt tell us this though, we were bundled on and off about 3 buses before they finally settled on one and we were told no more. We assumed we would be on there for about 3 hours but 5 hours later, after dark and when we were very hungray we finally arrived at our destination.

The next day was mainly spent on the river heading to the Cambodian border and then onto Phonm Penh with a few of the obligatory sight seeing stops on the way, such as the fish farm which was a house on stilts with a hole inthe floor where the fish were and a minority Cham village which is muslim. It turned out to be another long day with about 6 hours spent on the boat but I got a bit of a tan by sitting on the roof!

We finally got off the boat and had another couple of hours by bus to Phnom Penh where I founf myself staying at the Lazy Fish guesthouse on the lakeside,a little rundown but fantastic views of the lake and sunset.

---