We thought it would be fun to travel the Mekong independently, but with limited time, we decided to book a tour and extend our time at our last stop. So, we got a cheap bus tour from Saigon that would take us to the key cities in the Mekong - My Tho, Ben Tre, Can Tho, and Chau Doc.

The Mekong Delta is formed by the mighty Mekong River dumping its silt as it heads out to the South China Sea. The river splits off into nine branches in the Delta off of the largest branches that enter Vietnam through Cambodia: the upper and lower Mekong. The river travels through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. By the end of our trip, we will either have seen or ridden on the Mekong in all those countries except Myanmar.

The bus ride out of Saigon was nice (the air conditioning worked!), and we saw the suburbs of Saigon, along with beautiful countryside. We were not quite sure what to expect from the Mekong Delta. We had heard that it was much different from the rest of Vietnam. Here, the communities depend on the water for almost all of their needs—food, transportation, and essentially makeshift backyards for riverfront homes.

We had both pictured a very rural area with a sparse population. We were surprised to see that there were fairly big cities along the way—it was much more commercialized and populated than either of us had imagined. It reminded us a bit of a cross between the Maryland eastern shore and the lushness of the Everglades area of Florida.

In My Tho, we got on small wooden boats, learned more about life along the Mekong, visited a fruit orchard, and saw Vietnamese ladies making coconut candy for sale. Their "factory" was nothing more than a few tables and machines that could just as easily have come from one of their kitchens.

At night, we participated in a home stay in the Delta, and it was a real treat. We took a cyclo ride from town to the put in point, got on a boat for a 25-minute ride out to the village, and disembarked in front of a family's home. They had built eight huts along the water in front of their house for guests to stay in. We were assigned one of the huts and headed to the side patio of the house for dinner. They cooked us a traditional Mekong Delta meal of spring rolls, veggies, elephant ear fish, and noodles to wrap into a piece of rice paper to make a roll. It was delicious.

All was going very well until we headed to our hut to get ready for bed . . . we were not alone. A 10-pound (only a very slight exaggeration!) rat was climbing up the inside of the wall. It turned around and headed out of sight, seemingly under the cabin. As we got ready for bed, hoping that our visitor was gone for good, he returned.

I was whimpering in the corner while Sean tried to convince me that it was just a small mouse who wanted nothing to do with us. As we really had no choice in the matter at this point, we got into bed, tucked the mosquito net into the bed as tight as possible, and tried to sleep. Then came the sounds—Sean tried to convince me that they were just a little harmless gecko, but I was not convinced. I took Nyquil (I had a little cold anyway), put in my earplugs, and hoped that the mosquito net was tight enough to keep out unwanted company.

We awoke the next morning and our unwelcome guest had not bothered us in the night—whew! We set out at 6:30 AM to go to the huge floating markets near the town of Can Tho. Because the daily tide had gone down so much, we had to walk about 20 minutes along the river before we were able to reach our boat for the journey. On the way, we passed a wedding procession—they were all on motorbikes because they, too, had been stranded by the low tide and could not proceed by boat as they would have otherwise done.

The floating market is one of the highlights of any Mekong Delta tour, and it really was cool to see. Each morning, the vendors set up their products to sell, and the customers arrive to purchase their goods—it was like any other outdoor market except that it was all on the water! The "stores" were individual boats and the customers shopped by boat! The boats advertised their wares by placing examples of what they sold on a flagpole so shoppers could see it from a distance and head towards the product they wanted. A lot of transactions appeared to be a barter system—pineapples for cabbage, mangoes for carrots, and so on. It was fascinating to watch!

We headed further west towards the Vietnamese/Cambodian border. Along the way, we were delayed about two hours getting across the river. There is no bridge over the river on the route we were taking (a main road through the region), so everyone had to cross on ferries—cars, buses, motorbikes, and people. There was a traffic jam heading to the crossing, so we got out of the bus and hopped on the ferry while the bus lagged behind about an hour, caught up in the traffic.

This is an example of new meeting old in Vietnam. The economy is bustling, and almost every region we visited was on the rise economically. However, their main east-west route along the southern portion of the country is hours longer than need be because they have not built a bridge across the river. (Until a few years ago, there were two spots along this route that required a ferry crossing, but a bridge was built along the first one in a joint venture with the Japanese—hopefully they will be able to fund a second bridge soon.)

We spent our last night in Vietnam in Chau Doc, a town on the Cambodian border. We had dinner and drinks with a mate from Ireland we met on the tour. We explored the markets and enjoyed checking out the city. In the morning, we will catch the fast boat to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.