Mekong Delta - Vietnam

Travelling back to Saigon on another 3 hour bus trip taking but took 7 hours we were all rested to head to the Mekong Delta. We took a 2 day tour which started with us waiting on the side of the road in Saigon at 7am with bus drivers shouting out destinations and us being very confused.

Arriving in one of the towns in the Delta we swapped to boats and spent the rest of the day and the next cruising along water ways seeing the way the delta people live, work and generally go about their life. The kids were pretty excited to see us and the arm got a bit sore from all the waving. It felt a weird, like we were peering in the window as people washed their hair, dishes and brushed their teeth in the river. While there were a couple of interesting stops from the boat including to see how coconut candy is made and Todd drinking snake wine (rice wine with a fermenting cobra in it) it was overall a bit disappointing as we didn´t get much of a feel for the place, more just moved from tourist spot to shop etc..... Not at all what we expected or what the lonely planet seemed to suggest. We stayed the night in the biggest town in the Delta which is Can Tho, just another city really - a homestay would have been better we think.

We met an aussie couple (Adam and Renee) on the bus back to Saigon and ended up having a bit of a street side drinking session that night. Todd and Adam were keen to sample the beer hoi, which is tapped out of a steel drum on the side of the street and costs 40p for a litre. A few of those and a few more mojitos later it was time to call it quits. I think Renee and Adam must have fely worse than us the next day especially since they were off to the tunnels.