Day by Day Travels

Another early morning- although our 8:30 departure actually seemed quite late compared to some of the mornings we have had. Our guide- Jung, talked us out of this busy city as we headed south for the Mekong Delta.  We drove through the streets of Saigon – along with the hundreds of scooters on their way to work.  There are a lot of “grab” and “uber’ scooters too- which is amusing to me- being that Vancouver can’t even get “uber” cars, never mind scooters.  Out of the city and we seemed to be on a main highway- all along the highway is garbage- scattered for miles and miles- very sad to see how much trash this country has, consuming the beautiful countryside.
Three and a half hours after we left Saigon we arrived at a type of boat launch – which was in the Cai Be District. The Mekong Delta, the place where the great river splits into trails, paths and waterways, is supposed to be one of Vietnam’s most beautiful attractions.  I’ll be honest – while we’ve done so many wonderful things in Vietnam, our Mekong Delta tour was a bit of a let down- the river – the lifeblood of this area is so dirty and there is so much garbage in the water and on the river banks, it is a little difficult to see past this.

After a short boat trip, we made our first stop – a beautiful church- appearing to be catholic, strange amongst all the buddhas!  It was as we got on the river that I realized that I had forgotten my memory card on the bus- thank heaven’s Michlle had her camera so we could capture this place.  After the church we took a short walk to a fish sauce factory- oh the smell.  Turns out fish sauce is layers of salted fish, which are pressed down under heavy weights and as they ferment the “sauce” runs off into huge ceramic urns-gross! Back on the boat and off to Cuu Long  a coconut candy factory. The entire village seems to centre around this factory and there are people selling artwork, snake wine, arts crafts and tons of coconut candy! The candy had a bit of an odd taste, especially since it was wrapped in (edible) rice paper, but it quickly became addicting! We also had a bee pollen tea- different types of pollen make many different types of tea.  A little further down the river- we stopped for lunch at a place that is famous for the “elephant ear fish”- we weren’t brave enough to eat the fish, as we were not sure if it was from this river and had eaten all the garbage we see floating by!
Once more on the long boat and then we stopped and then we came to the best part of the day – a canoe ride through gorgeous waterways. Now, THIS was the Mekong Delta that I had imagined. We even got to wear the cone hats. We were 3 to a boat and began our venture through the canals.  All was going well, until we were hit by another lady in a canoe- who was texting and lost control of the canoe.  Thank goodness we didn’t tip- but our oar was sheared right off! The oarsman uncovered a motor and we carried on via motorized canoe down the river. After our excursion we were handed a tasty coconut shell filled with coconut water.  Then the last leg of our river journey was to the city of Can Tho. Our bus picked us up and we were at the hotel and settled in with enough time to spend the afternoon at the pool.  There was not another soul at the pool other than us and we had the place to ourselves. An afternoon of relaxing was perfect.

Our hotel was a little way out of the main area of Can Tho- but for dinner we decided to walk the 1.5km’s in and have dinner at one of the TripAdvisor top picks. We made our way to Nambo and lucky for us we managed to get a table for 8 on the sidewalk. The meal was pretty good- they even have a full snake menu here if that should whet your appetite?! A wander to the night market after dinner- proved to have not much more than some cheap clothing and street food we probably would never eat.  We caught an electric cab (an elongated golf cart if you will), back to the hotel and to bed as we are hitting the floating market at 6am tomorrow.