We were off to the Mekong Delta today - we had booked a tour as the logistics of organising boats and buses yourself was a nightmare. The tour started at 7:30 with a ride out to a delta town (Ca Mau) where we alighted onto a boat to see a floating market. As it was now nearly lunch time, the market was over and there was very little trading activity. After this it was the obligatory visit to see Coconut candy and Rice paper production. Then off to an island where...

We had decided to take the bus to Saigon - the alternative was a six hour trip down the mountain and then a day's train journey versus a 7 hour bus ride. The ride was OK - down through the mountains past front gardens, most of them full of coffee drying in the sun, then onto the plain where we struggled to get through the urban sprawl of Saigon.We had a pleasant surprise when we arrived - the hotel was a block away so we walked to it without the normal hassle. We...

We left Nha Trang this morning for Dalat - a hill station in the central highlands that had been established by the French. The bus left at 7:50 for what we thought was a 3 ½ journey. The route taken didn't follow the signs for Dalat and the road we were on was bad - lots of pot holes and areas where it had been washed away. We had a very steep climb up into the hills with views over the plain - it looked like a patch work with all the flooded fields b...

We were off down south today - to see if we could find some sun! We were headed to Nha Trang - a beach resort about 500K down the coast. The journey was uneventful - just long.. The ride down was through some very flooded countryside - most fields seemed under water and some houses too. Every river was swollen and seemed to have burst it's banks. This seemed normal for the time of year but it looked pretty miserable if you lived near any river. Arrived in Nha Tra...

We left Hue as we found it - pouring with rain. We had booked a train to go to Da Nang (on our way to Hoi An) as the views were supposed to be good as it goes down the coast. We arrived at the station 30 mins before the train only to find that the train is delayed by at least 2 ¼ hours. We decide that it may be better to get the bus, so after taxi rides and various negotiations we were off on a bus to Da Nang. The bus journey was OK - the seats were d...