Mekong Delta

We left Saigon and travelled by bus for a few hours to the Mekong Delta. We met up with our guide, Fu and got on a boat. Fu was a great guide, very funny and always chuckling at something! We were taken on a little tour of the Mekong Delta area which is where the Mekong River meets the sea and there are little islands dotted about and everyone travels by boat and everything is transported by boat. It's a really lovely place. The people are very self sufficient and there are no restaurants or hotels or anything like that, just people living their lives and making a living the best way they can. Of course they get tourists like us, but we didn't see any others and that just made it nicer. We visited all manner of 'workshops' and 'factories', things being made in a simple / traditional way, bricks, roofs, rice paper, coconut toffee, tools, it was all very interesting to see. We stopped for lunch at the home of Mr Baa, who gave us all some rice ouzo (very strong stuff) and fed us a fantastic meal of fish, spring rolls, rice, noodles, and other tasty stuff.

We went to this one bonsai farm (like japanese bonsai except the trees are much bigger) and they had a python there, I had a go at holding him, he was very heavy and strong but i liked him! We were also treated (I say treated, it didn't feel like a treat!!) to some snake wine. The foulest tasting stuff on earth. It is what it says it is, wine made out of snakes.......yuk. Apparantly it's really good for you. They can keep it, that's what I say!

We arrived at our guest house for the night. A local family's home. They had made an upstairs room into a big dorm and we all slept in there, was like being on a school trip!!

That evening we took a walk along the river before dinner which was so nice. It was like being back in Fiji, not a tourist in sight, no souvenir shops just people doing there thing and all saying hello to us, many of them stopping Rich to touch his hair and then giggle!!

Dinner was pretty much the same as lunch but we didn't care because it was equally as delicious. We spent the night all playing cards and drinking beer.

On the way back to Saigon the following day we passed through the floating market where the locals come to buy and sell their wares, mainly foodstuffs. The boats stick a sample of their products to the top of a bamboo pole so that everyone can see from a distance what they are selling! It was all very hectic there and we didn't stop to shop as no-one wanted to buy pineapple or sweet potato!

So back to Saigon where we hung around for a few hours before getting an overnight train to Nha Trang.