Exploring the Mekong Delta
Trip Start
Oct 28, 2007
1
5
33
Trip End
Nov 21, 2007
Vinh Long,
Vietnam
Thursday, November 1, 2007
For anyne who is looking to travel around Vietnam, Sinh Cafe is a great travel company to use. They don't just provide transport, they try to ensure that you also get some culture and fun in there too!
So, we left HCMC at 8am and drove for 2.5 hours to a petrol station at the northern most Mekong Delta province. After stopping for a short break and to share a pineapple, we moved on to the Cai Bei province, where we boarded a riverboat to a local village along the Mekong River. We learned how puffed rice is made, along with coconut candy and something slightly more strange......local rice spirit, complete with whole snake, scorpion and dead bird in the bottle. Doesn't that sound grand?!? John had a shot of it.......
We then enjoyed lunch and a Vietnamese singing "concert" .....
After lunch, we boarded the riverboat again and travelled further down the Mekong to Vinh Long. Here we boarded a bus for a 4 hour journey. So, the first 2.5 hours was spent driving up a being built highway (eventually, you will be able to drive between HCMC and Phnom Penh via this highway) which also had many bridges. It was 4 wheel driving in a bus! We then got back on the bus for a slightly less bumpy 1.5 hour drive to Chau Doc. Chau Doc is the last big Vietnamese town before the Cambodian border. We arrived at our 1 star (!) hotel about 7pm (after the driver and guide "popped into" a temple and a pagoda on the way). At 8pm, most of us on the bus went to a local restaurant to try some traditional Vietnamese food washed down by Saigon export king browns. Yes, you'll see that Natalie has developed a taste for beer because there is a distinct lack of "bubbles" in Vietnam.
Eventually we went to bed around 11.
