After trapsing around Can Tho Riverside for a while, we found a hotel with a cheap fan room and started to get our bearings Nik was pretty unsteady still and we took it easy, in addition I was beginning to feel horrendous I didnt complain tho!! That evening western food was required we thought that would do the trick. It didnt. I had to get back to the hotel very quickly with Nik supporting me and I became very familiar with the bathrom for the next few hours and through the night... (I wanted my mommy!)


It is at these points that you really appreciate your other half being ill is no fun but being on your own and ill is worse. We had planned to visit the floating market in the morning however my close relationship to the toilet put an end to that. Nik whilst mopping my fevered brow and doing her best throwing up impression to a local chemist for tablets managed to rearrange the trip for the next day. Oddly enough we didnt go anywhere that day and I managed a short walk in the arvo. By evening my appetite was returning and a meal was in order. Vietnam is building up to "Tet" their new year on the 6/7th Feb and there is a real buzz in the air. the markets are manic, full of colour, flowers, bunting and people rushing everywhere. From our restaurant balcony we watched the world go by it was a real sensory experience.

By next morning I was a new man and was ready for anything, we met our guides to take us down the Mekong to the famous Cai Rai floating markets and arrived on the river to find we had our own private longboat which seated 16 - now we know why it cost us quite abit! T he river journey was an experience to see all the river house boats and way of life...then arriving to the mayhem of the market was just fantastic....

Boats everywhere, manically selling every fruit and veg you can think of.


For the next few hours we toured around - to get our huge boat to squeeze through all the market boats was a test of the driver to say the least! Nik took many pictures of the market as it was a truly brilliant part of our Mekong / first Vietnamese way of life. .










After the market our guide took us along the rural riverways fo the Mekong and I (Ads) even got to drive the boat! The river ways were beautiful and seeing the way in which the Vietnamese farmed was like going back in history, it was wonderful, a real constrast to how the city people live.... We got to try some fruit and the local tea at a 'Fruit Garden' on the river where we saw some crocodiles and other assorted wildlife in pretty appalling conditions - Nik was trying to work out a way how to release most of them!


On route the local 'shop' floated passed us which was a pretty fab photo to get... then we came to a local bridge and almost lost the top of the boat! We had a really good trip seeing the lives of the Mekong people and were really looking forward to our second trip to that afternoon via another form of river transport - an express speedboat to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) through more of the beautiful Mekong Delta......