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Published: January 15th 2008
We left our beatuiful stretch of beach in Mui Ne and arrived in Saigon to the ridiculous number of motorbikes that clog the roads. We checked in to our last fancy hotel, courtesy of Diane and Jess, for their last night. The next day we went to Cu Chi to see the tunnels used by the VC during the Vietnam War (called the American War over here, which isn't that surprising when you think about it). We crawled through one of the tunnels for about 30m before chickening out and using the first exit. Some people went more than 100m, the looneys. As well as the tunnels we got to see lots of elaborate and horrific traps that the VC set to kill the "American killers" as they kept to refering to them as. There was also a shooting range where you could choose your weapon from a selection of guns, including AK47's, and shoot at targets. Mental.
For Diane and Jess's last meal in Vietnam we obviously went to an authentic Vietnamese restaurant...... actually we went to a Vietnamese version of pizza hut! It was sooooooo good though. Sometimes you really just crave some good greasy western food. After
our meal and an emotional goodbye we waved them off in a taxi to the airport and checked out of the nice hotel and headed for the backpacker area. We ended up spending far too much time in Saigon. The cafe next door to our hotel had a proper cinema upstairs, with sofa's and table service and showed new western films all day and night. We literally lived there! After 4 days of doing very little we managed to leave the cafe for long enough to book a tour to the Mekong Delta, which is the area in the south of Vietnam where they grow an insane amount of rice.
We left at some crazy time in the morning, we think it was around 7am but can't be sure. The bus took us to My Tho Province where we got into one of about a million boats we caught over the next few days. We took a trip in a Sampon, rowed by little Vietnamese women in a canal lined with coconut trees. It was beautiful. We then took a boat to Ben tre Province and cycled around for a few hours. Thankfully there was some cloud in the
sky or we may not have made it. It was a really good way to see the area, and our guide, Flower, stopped occiasionally to buy random fruit from the side of the road for us. Rich loved the Cocao fruit which felt like slime but tasted like lemons. All the locals in this area are very friendly and wave and say hello to you wherever you are and point us out to their kids, which is a bit weird. We went to see how rice is made and realised how much work it is to grow.
We got another boat to Vinh Long Province and went to meet the family that we'd be living with for the night. They were really nice, although couldn't speak a word of English and so were hard to communicate with. We learnt enough Vietnamese to be able to say our names, ages and where we're from. The three core questions every Vietnamese person asks a westener. Once it was dark we took yet another boat trip, this time to see, and catch, fire flies. Rich was rubbish and didn't catch any but Kate did. We went back to our house for the
At 'Everything is bun'
Meaning everything has noodles with it!night and slept on wooden beds, comfy! Rich thought they were tables untill the family put pillows on them! We got up at the crack of dawn and went to the floating market. Our guide bought us sticky rice parcels for breakfast which were really good. Once we'd had some ice tea (Kate) and ice coffee (Rich) and had woken up a bit we spent the morning in the town where our Vietnamese family live. We went to a brick factory where they earn 20,000 dong a day (about 60p!). This is where we bought two little (live) chickens for our family. They were only 30p each! After saying goodbye we left the village and set off to Rach Gia where the boats to Phu Quoc Island leave from. Bring on the beautiful white sand, palm lined beaches!
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