Finally a bit of time to try and catch up on some blogging and it’s back to Vietnam.

After our day trip to the Cao Dai holy sea and the Cu Chi tunnels we spent a couple more days sightseeing in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City before heading off to the Mekong Delta for three days.

The Mekong Delta stretches from the outskirts of Saigon southwest to the Gulf of Thailand. The fertile land of the Mekong Delta make it Vietnam’s rice bowl, growing other crops such as sugar cane, coconut and fruit the Mekong Delta annually pumps out 38 per cent of its food crop from just 10 per cent of its land mass.

When we arrived in the Mekong Delat it was raining and this was to become a common theme through our three days. Getting off the bus we donned our rain jackets and boarded a boat taking us down the river. We disembarked at a small local village – well collection of shops and stalls set up for the tourists – where we were given some delicious honey tea and home made sweets. Whilst sipping our tea we got chatting to Portuguese lad who was travelling along a similar route to us but was only away for 10 days.

As with all organised tours we were barley given enough time to relax before the guide ushered us along to the next stop. We walked along a dirt track lined by souvenir stalls and fruit trees to a place serving fresh fruit and while we listened to Vietnamese folk music. The music left a lot to be desired and had that familiar sound I’ve come to associate with a lot of traditional Asian music of a cat being strangled!

Our next adventure was being rowed along palm lined. We needed four people per boat so looked up our lone Portuguese friend to share with us. The river was very pretty looking like something out of a program about the Amazon. Along each side of the river were tall palm trees with no habituated land in sight. It would have been a very relaxing ride but it was a tourist superhighway and as we went one way empty boats that had already taken their load of tourists came back to pick up more. From each passing boat there was a shout if: “Give money!” and by the time we reached the end I felt like not giving money just to spite them because of the continual hassle.

From here we got back on the large boat and were taken to Turtle Island for dinner. Dinner was perfectly edible but nothing to write home about and whilst the Island was supposed to be pretty (although it didn’t appear to be an island at all) we didn’t get chance to see any of it other than the inside of the restaurant.

We transferred back to the big boat and were taken a short distance to a place where we got into a smaller boat for a trip: “Up a beautiful part of the river.” As we bored the small boat it began to poor with rain and by the time I got on the only seat left was already wet and the only one not under cover. The short trip really wasn’t worth getting wet for as the small river we’d already rowed along was much prettier.

The last stop in an action packed day was a place making coconut candy. We walked in an a woman was offering tasters, they were creamy coloured, shiny and slimy looking – the reminded me of maggots only a different shape – but surprisingly were  scrumptious. We were shown the candy was made but being fed up of tying to peer over the heads of 25 other tourists we spent most of the time hunting down more free samples. Before we left we’ were each sucked into buying a packet of our own.

The rain had got heavier and heavier as the day went on and we were all glad to board the bus for the two and half hour drive to the hotel in the city of Can Tho. Can Tho appeared to be a small town and didn’t obviously offer anything in the way of entertainment.  However according to the Vietnam rough guide Can Tho is has a population of almost half a million, is the Mekong Delta’s biggest city and Vietnams fifth largest city.

We arrived at the hotel, had a brief wonder around but weren’t taken with the place then grabbed a cheap but disgusting dinner in the restaurant beside our hotel before retiring to bed.

* Posted by j150vsc on 07/09/2007.