The main purpose of the trip to the Mekong was to go to the floating markets of Can Tho and see how people have adapted to living on/next to the river. As soon as the morning boat entered the market another boat attached itself to ours and began selling things to people, mainly fruit and vegetables. Also on offer was cooked food, prepare in a wok on the boat and drinks. The atmosphere was energetic as we floated through. We took our opportunity to get involved and jumped to another boat to get some pineapple. There were so many traders and for some of them the journey to the market is two days long.

The trip gave us chance to see how people who don't have access to machinery manufacture products but the most fascinating was the rice vermicelli factory we visited mid morning. The process was inventive and the end product earns a factory of ten people around $600usd per day.

We then had to cross a monkey bridge to get to a fruit plantation. This is one piece of bamboo spanning a river at 2m high with one more piece as a hand rail. It was about 4m long and Matt struggled massively.

At 12pm we got back on the coach for the 5 hour, 170km, bumpy journey to Saigon. It is beyond us why it is so difficult to join to sections of highway at the same level. Every 100m stretch the coach encounters a sudden half foot drop or rise which makes sleeping and bladder control impossible. We ate the Vietnamese classic Pho Bo for dinner - noodles, beef and vegetable spicy soup. It is now a new favourite.

M & C xxxx