Trung Nguyen Hotel Chau Doc

... and checked into the Vinh Phouc Hotel. That evening we met a cyclo rider outside our GH and he took us to a restaurant along the river.

The next day we went to the market and wandered up the river and stopped and where we thought we had been the previous night, but it turned out to be a random local's guest house, where they spoke little English, we managed to get by with the extensive Vietnamese vocabularly we'd ...

... to drive and I had never driven a manual motorbike before, and partially because it was time for one of the thrice yearly rice harvests that they have in the Mekong Delta (compared to two in the north). This meant that the roads had temporarily become drying beds for the rice, with a small gap, if at all, for vehicles to pass. Sometimes there was no gap and we were gestured to drive over the rice - so remember people, always wash your rice before you cook it! Other obstacles along the way ...

Ok, I might start to get a bit soppy in this entry (and the next) if so, please send me a virtual slap. I had a bit of a busy day crossing the border from Cambodia to Vietnam. There was a direct bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City which took 6 hours but that was far too easy for me as I wanted to follow the great Mekong river to the end of it's journey. I took one normal bus for a few hours south and then swapped into a minivan to the border. The ...

Touring the Mekong Delta Some things are so bad that they are actually good. Things are different when you're on a tight time budget and I didn't want to waste time finding out about bus times and where different bus stations were. There was an almost full bus of about 30 people, driving around Saigon picking up people along the way. We got to a town called My Tho and took a small boat across the river to a coconut-candy workshop. The guide was a young Vietnamese lad but, unfortunately ...

... for our bags or walking to the tour office from the boat dock. We arrived in District 1, but have not seen our hotel. Finally the driver called dispatch, but they have no clue either. The driver starts driving again and goes by Asian Ruby 2. The bell hop is able to give him the address for their sister hotel! Hurray!! Thank you St Christopher! Bill was right, we are only off by half a dozen blocks. It was after midnight by now and we have been traveling since ...

... we stop off at a stork sanctuary on the way to Chau Doc - we agreed as we hadn't seen much wildlife! Another long tail boat ride - we borrowed coolie hats as it was scorching - excellent cover! And away we went down these canals - very intriguing - lots of kids in the water - but lots of rubbish too ;-( amazing seeing into peoples houses - so close ! The canals were really quite mucky - no way would you want to fall in!! The storks ...