Blogs from Mekong River Delta, Vietnam, Asia - page 4

So in the not-so-cold light of day the hostel has a few drawbacks. In the bathroom basically everything is hanging by a thread, including the actual door, although it’s better since Sam had a go at it with my Swiss army knife. Now we can close the door. Hanging up the washing line was a challenge, without all our smalls and the fixtures crashing down. There were 3 handy nails in the bedroom wall holding up ridiculous hessian bags with twigs in them, aka decorations. Sam also hung her v big washbag from one. It stayed there for 24 hours, then fell offf and we have lost the nail, after trying to bash it back in with her shoe. We booked in October through booking.com and the price included breakfast. Bargainous! They’ve since stopped doing this, ... read more

After a good nights sleep woke to find the homestay was over the water due to the high tide. After a short boat ride back down the river, we started a long day in the saddle starting with a 40 km ride to lunch passing intense agricultural activities utilising the fertile rich soils of the Mekong delta. Lunch was a superb small village menu being the family home of our tour bike mechanics followed by another 40 km ride in quite warm conditions. We then had a short bus and ferry ride to Long Xuyen to end our 2 day Mekong experience before travelling to our last overnight stop in Vietnam at the Chau Pho Hotel. After dinner we had a rickshaw tour of the town to end our Vietnam visit.... read more

Man made canals are really smelly in low tide. Fish house factories are another pong to the area in the main waterways of Saigon. The combination of sewerage and waste, is especially offensive when the tide is low. Houses run along the bank, held up by stilts, are only 20 - 25 meters square with 4 - 7 members in each one. Many people have disease, dengi fever is high due to mosquitoes. Other pests are rodents, rats and cocroches. High tides come in the houses, it is always damp. Most Vietnamese cannot swim. They take ferries across the river for 25 cents. Helmets are a regulation on the ferry and children have a school in the Mekong Delta. Commuters take their motorcycles or bicycle transport across with them. Barges have two eyes because there are ... read more

Hi readers, So this morning I’m catching up on some blogging. Tuesday was a full day with being collected at 7.30am in the minivan as were are in the district 1 that’s the inner city. We headed out to pickup others total 11 all up with us today plus our guide. We were going to be driving for between 2-2.5 hours depending on traffic. Our last pickup was at an area or suburb known to locals as new Singapore as that’s where most of the money came from to build this outer suburb of 5 star hotels and flash apartments and shopping centres. As we headed out of the city south we came to more tolls on the highway. The government couldn’t afford all the infrastructure to be upgraded so our guide was telling us they ... read more

After Chua Hang the next place I wanted to visit in the Rach Gia area was the U Minh Thuong National Park. I had been really looking forward to this - it was possibly one of the national parks I was most wanting to visit in Vietnam. Unfortunately it was a major disappointment. There were several specific reasons I wanted to visit, and all of those reasons were mammalian. Although the park is probably a paradise for wetland birds there wouldn't be anything there I hadn't seen elsewhere. On the mammal front, though, there was a mixed colony of Lyle's and large fruit bats; small-clawed and hairy-nosed otters; fishing cats; and pangolins. The last three are nocturnal which meant I had to stay inside the park to have any chance of seeing them. There is little ... read more