We stared the day super duper early and caught our bus to take a tour of the Mekong Delta. Neither Tara or I had much idea what to expect as she was fourced to use our tour brouchure as tissue paper in a dicey bathroom before we actually got on the bus! One thing we knew we were planning on seeing was the famous Vietnamese Floating Markets!!
We drove about an hour and a half with the rest of our group- a great German couple, a Danish couple, two elderly American sisters, a British guy who was enroute to becoming an English teacher and a French guy who wasn't very personable. Our guide was this kooky little Vietnamese girl was our guide- she was cute, but kinda flaky!
We drove to this little town where we boarded traditional Vietnamese boats (with the eyes on the front to scare the "Rockadiles") and traveled along the Mekong till we got to Unicorn Island. The Mekong had an amazing amount of activity. It's honestly like a highway- tons of boats carrying all different types of cargo (clothes, food, sand, gravel, people, etc.) going all different speeds. There was also tons activity happening along the riverbanks. Native homes and businesses are set up right along the banks and people are buying, selling, swimming, cooking and sleeping everywhere!
Unicorn Island was an island where we got a glimpse of traditional life in the Mekong. We hiked along little winding pathways, stopped and sampled many goods (primarily beverages...hehe) created by local people- honey tea (I got past my mortal fear of bees and held part of a hive!), banana wine, rice wine, and my favorite- snake wine! I also held a python! We hiked some more, and stopeed to listen to traditional music and have tea and fruit. Next we hiked to a little cannal and hopped in little two-man boats and were poled through the water by some ilanders...the water level was low so it was a bit hectic at times! We got back to open water, hopped on our big boats and tarvelled to another island where we obsereved the making of cocunut candy (yummmy!)had lunch, and biked through the coutryside! Over lunch we had some interesting chats with the Europeans about the Danish comic scandal.
Finally, at the end of the day we hopped on speedy boat for our two-hour ride up the Mekong to Siagon harbour. The sun was setting and we saw beautiful sights including hundreds of kites flying along the bank (popular hobby here) and I was really enjoying the trip when our boat broke down...
We waited for a while with our emotions going up and down...at one point we thought we were going to get rescued by a big ship passing by- no dice!
Everyone was pretty light hearted, by as time passed, things got a bit tense. I for one was getting worried as I drank a ton of water after our bike ride and the possibility of having to pee over the side of the boat in front of an audience of 12 was not looking appealing! Additionally, after about 30 mins, we had drifted clear across the river into the brush on the other side!
Finally, with some type of magic, our mechanic managed to get the old boat going and received a huge round of applause! What a hero!
We travelled into Siagon harbour, where there were huge container ships and tons of crazy stuff going on! After the cab dropped us off in the backpacker viallge, we did some shopping, grabbed supper at a little Italian place and then had an awkward encounter with Christian (one of the African guys that we met our first night) who was pretty angry that we didn't meet them the night before (a plan that had been discussed)!
All in all, we were happy we didn't as Tara and I both received weird e-mails from them that indicated they were a little intense!
Now onto the bus for our trip to Mui Ne and some fun in the sun!!
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