Touring

I’m not sure what i expected from the Mekong Delta, maybe a cruise on a wide river estuary, past some floating markets or maybe it was seeing some Viet Cong hiding in the undergrowth. Either way, and not in a bad way, that is not what we got.

The trip from Ho Chi Minh City, South West into the Mekong Delta felt a bit like all the trips up the M5 over the UK summer. S.L.O.W. And like I might have to punch a child.

Eventually we arrived at the Mekong Delta Tourist Boat drop off point. The usual collection of specially priced hats, t-shirts, Labubus and pocket knifes where thrust in our faces on the way to the happy room. Feeling happier, we jumped on a really new Mekong Tourist Taxi Boat, strapped into another Decathlon life jacket (King Kong size) and set off for the quickest of quick-fire food safaris.

In 60 minutes we sampled, at different locations:

1. Local fruits and jasmine tea (pineapple is local to everywhere apparently, despite not seeing a pineapple tree/plant all tour)

2. Komquat and honey tea at the honey farm (special price Royal Jelly anyone?)

3. Local chocolate (lovely but @ A$11/small bar, there wasn’t a roaring trade)

4. Coconut candy and husk art with a side hustle in high-quality paintings and dead snake liquor (no shit, it looked rank).

This whirlwind was followed by a Tuk Tuk to a canoe jetty (‘oh, we only use the Tuk Tuks for tourists‘), where said canoes took us down a back water sewer (oops I mean small river) for lunch.

Needless to say the girls weren’t overly fussed about the fish noodle rice paper rolls.

Please tell me it did not come out of the small river.

Next back on the bus to the Mekong Delta home stay experience. A pleasant little place on the river where we whiled away the afternoon reading our books, a refreshing Saigon Lager or two and getting eaten by the mozzies.

For dinner was some more local cuisine (washed down with some Saigon Lager) and a particularly special live theatre performance from the girls (cue more Saigon Lager). Alas, it was time for bed, praying to your preferred diety that the local karaoke party shut up soon (this is Vietnam, take your pick of the World’s religions, or mix and match).

The best thing about staying in someone else’s house is always working out where the toilet is in the middle of the night. The Saigon Lagers made sure that by day break I knew how to: get out of the mozzie net; find my flip flops; open the bedroom door; go down the corridor; go past the motorbike by the table; undo the lock (the classic move the chair from under the door handle); out onto the porch; round the corner; over the bridge; into the ablutions; find one with a toilet; and then do all in reverse. Other than that, the beds were not (quite) the worst of tour.

This morning we got up, had breakfast and whiled away a couple of hours reading our books, paying for the Saigon Lagers and getting eaten by the mozzies. Roxy has three on her face…

This morning we did see some lizards with two arms but looked like fish and then we also saw this water hyacinth dragon, which was pretty cool.

I could understand if you think my Mekong Delta experience did not live up to expectations, but despite it all, I enjoyed everything but the bus rides. The tour through Vietnam has been super easy and neither Kel nor I have had to organise or arrange anything. On our own we could not have done so much, in such a short space of time.

The girls and I heading out into the chaos to buy some knock-off t-shirts…