s/v Rachel: Mekong Delta

Location: Saigon, Vietnam

A few weeks ago we booked a 3-day-2-night tour of the Mekong Delta. Five days ago we flew down to Ho Chi Minh City, a.k.a. Saigon, and booked a hotel for the night before and the night after our trip.

Saigon traffic is amazing. In this city of over 9 million people, there are over 7 million motorbikes. At a red light they all jam in and around any cars and trucks that happen to also be stopped, creating this immense blob. Then, about 5-10 seconds before the light changes, people start running the light and the blob gradually sorts itself out into it's disparate parts and traffic begins moving again. Possession of the road seems to be 9/10ths of the law – if you can jam the front third or so of your vehicle in front of another, you win. There are over 14,000 traffic fatalities in Vietnam every year, most of them being motorbikers.

Crossing the street on foot is an exercise in patience, terror and trust. There are seldom any breaks in the traffic, so what you do is find a break nearest you and start out. Make slow, steady progress and the traffic somehow flows around you. Don't falter or stop – everyone judges their speed and route based on everyone else's progress, and if you stop, you're more likely to get hit or cause an accident. It takes practice, patience, trust, and a certain amount of courage to make it safely across. Luckily, we've had almost two months of crossing streets in Hoi An, so we weren't as intimidated as some other tourists we saw.

Okay, back to our trip.

Our hotel told us this was the best authentic Pho in Saigon. We were the only non-Vietnamese in the place. Delicious

We really had a great time. Planned, guided excursions are not really our style but we don't think we could have seen all that we did if we'd traveled independently and certainly could not have done it in only 3 days.

Our first stop was Vinh Trang pagoda, with it's giant Buddha, then on to Ben Tre for a boat ride which included a bee farm and tasting of all the yummy things you can make with honey. A fruit plantation with a lovely flower garden, followed by an amazing lunch at an orchard including a spectacular upright smoked fish that we all flaked away from and ate. We continued on the boat and stopped to be treated to a sampan ride down a small coconut tree lined river.

After a full day of water based activities we were bused to Can Tho where we spent the night in a lovely hotel and enjoyed a hot pot dinner.

On day 2 we started early again as we were going to the floating market on the Song Hau river.

Smaller boats would drive around to the distributors and buy what they wanted then they'd zoom around the river hawking their wares to the tourist boats and anyone else who was out shopping.

There were even floating cafe boats in case you got hungry while shopping.

This vendor has a wide array of produce for sale

We were surprised to see hundreds of boats anchored in the river, some were distributors and had bamboo poles sticking up with a piece of whatever fruits and vegetables they carry tied to the pole so everyone could see what merchandise was available.

Do you think this prop shaft is long enough?

An interesting way of rowing with these very narrow oars

Julie on a Monkey Bridge

Drying rice paper

Our boat dropped us at a rice noodle factory where Julie got to feed in and catch the noodles from the noodle cutting machine.

Pour the rice mixture on a fine silk cover over boiling water

Spread it out and let sit covered for maybe a minute

Roll onto bamboo utensil then off for drying. Then feed in batches through noodle slicer

Menu, we didn't try the rat, it may look expensive but $1 = 22,000 dong

This was followed by what, for many of us, was the highlight of the trip. Tra Su National Forest is a bit like the Everglades. We were taken by boat through the lotus and duckweed covered watery forest and were treated to lots of amazing birds.

Water buffalo

Our guide didn't have a hat so she picked a lotus leaf as we passed and used it, instead.

See the bird

Our boat driver through the swamp, he was great at pointing out all of the birds.

The day ended with a ride to another hotel in Chau Doc near the Cambodian border, another wonderful dinner, and another wonderful, soft bed.

Bikes are used to transport EVERYTHING here

On our third day we were taken out in yet another boat to see another floating market, on the Bassac River, a tributary of the Mekong. We also stopped to see a floating house fish farming operation, visited a Muslim village where we watched some speedy weaving and Julie bought an elephant purse – elephants woven in, of course.