Can Tho Guesthouse

I collected Sarah &amp; the kids from school, end of term, and we took the long drive from HCM to Can Tho, the main town in the Mekong Delta. Mark had to be there for work, so we tagged along too, just for the weekend. <br><br>It's a long old drive (4-6 hrs depending on traffic), with not great roads, and not great drivers, so we were all glad to arrive at the hotel. Once again Sarah &amp; family had the ...

It's been a roller coaster couple of days. Friday we left Saigon in the <br>morning to explore the Mekong Delta &#8211; the plan was simple take a<br>bus to the area hop on a boat and travel the Mekong into Cambodia. <br>However, five minutes after we pulled away from the curb we were<br>informed that all of us had bought &#8220;standard&#8221; boat tickets. The<br>standard boat to Cambodia takes 8 hours, has no English speaking<br>operator, and no bathroom. But if we each paid ...

... hats. The final stop for today in the Delta was a food and music performance. We enjoyed eating the pineapple, mango and dragon fruit but found the wailing music a bit weird! Back on the bus we split away from half of the group as they were going back to Ho Chi Minh. The rest of us carried onwards for a couple of hours until we reached Can Tho. The queue for the ferry over the water to town was huge so we got out of the bus and carried our gear up the long vehicle line to ...

... paddies&amp; pineapple plantations stopping to watch them harvest the pineapples and ate a freshly picked one. <br><br> <br>For lunch I had frog cooked in batter which tasted like chicken but made me feel queasy after. Nath had another embankment encounter on his bike and slipped down one, but didn't hurt himself ...

... from nearby towns and villages jumped on their boats buy the local produce. We had seen a floating market before in Bangkok however this was completely different, there were no concessions at all for tourists and the lack of tourist paraphernalia gave us a true insight into the people of the Mekong delta. A view into a fantastic and truly different way of life.<br><br>Here are the Photos.<br><br>Next stop the Hoi An.

... what they are selling by attaching an example to a bamboo stick at the front of the boat (have got some photos to put up when I have time). It is pretty much unorganized chaos there are boats everywhere big and small all trying to squeeze past one another! <br><br>We then went to another smaller fruit market where our driver bought this strange grapefuit ...

... over a hole on the back deck of a boat that jutted out over the water. As you can imagine, it was obvious why he was squatting and we saw it plop into the water. He jumped up and looked over the edge of the boat, pointed and proudly yelled to his mother to come and see what he had just done. It was a little disturbing to see how the river was used as both a source of food and bathing as well as a dump for garbage and sewage. <br><br>We left the market to ...

... taking photos' throughout and generally trying not to get involved, he did pipe up when the guide said that by praying we would have a happy prince or princess within the year !!! All over Vietnam people have asked us if we are married, Lan didn't seem to know the words girlfriend and boyfriend and spent the whole trip referring to us as husband and wife ("here give this flower to your wife"). At one point when Lan was pushing us to tell him when ...

... little man however charged us a premium on the ticket due to this fact. We were picked up from the hotel and driven to ... the normal bus stop. The bus finally stopped at the outside Mien Tuy bus station (as all other). With hind sight, it would have been best to simply go directly to the bus station as many many buses head to HCMC a day. I hate hind sight ; ) . Oh well, once in HCMC, we found lovely little place and downed a beer...or two

... was one of those genuinely happy, salt of the earth type of guys who always tried to make you feel welcome. He started our dinner with an aperitif shot of his homebrew banana wine and gave us an additional shot for when we finished our dinner! We got a whole spread of food that evening. Elephant ears fish to start with, along with some rice paper rolls, cucumber, mint, lettuce, noodles and a nice fish sauce for a make your own rice paper rolls! We got some smoked fish ...