So, we're still enjoying Can Tho and we like the ordinary, slower pace of life here. Although maybe its only slow because we miss a lot of it by only getting up at 8-9am - for the last few days we have been woken up at 6am by a marching band! Perhaps it's a funeral or religious thing, we're not sure. But it's nice to listen to, and we can easily go back to sleep through all the hustle and bustle.

While we've been here we have been busy but also relaxed. We have had a drunken night out with a Vietnamese/Australian guy, Vu, which ended up with Lawrence gorging on his (Cadburys!) chocolate and Ben trying to cycle home on the wrong bike. We also ate some amazing shrimp and drank snake and banana wine. Snake wine tastes a bit musty by the way. We've met lots of people and got a feel for life here. We've heard the story of Huyen's 27 year old neighbour who has no job, still lives with his mum, "looks worse than an AIDS patient" and who just plays online games all day. She apparently asked him 'What are you going to do when your mum dies?' and he said 'I will kill myself'. We've heard the story of her friend whose parents died when she was twelve, who had to become a sex worker to support her younger brothers. But when she was 28 Huyen set her up with a single man she knew and they got married, had kids and set up a business selling pho so there was a happy ending at least. It was really interesting hearing all her gossip and views on people, Vietnam, teaching etc (there's loads more that I haven't mentioned).

What else has happened?

We rescued a kitten that tried to shelter under our motorbike, and Ben took it home to care for it. It was a sickly little thing, but after Ben's tlc and a few visits to the vets it was getting better… but then Evan (Ben's housemate) opened the big metal doors whilst Moto (the kitten) had its head stuck in them and hence got a broken neck and died. It was quite sad, Ben and Evan are both devastated. But maybe not too badly, as after keeping it the fridge for a day, they fed it to the nextdoor neighbour's snake. But at least its end days were good.

I've been to Can Tho Museum and another temple, both of which were excellent.

We've learnt some Vietnamese, though just a few words really. The words we've learnt pretty much sum up our activities; iced coffee with and without milk, iced lemon juice, chocolate ice cream, noodle soup, coconut, rice, noodles, egg and petrol, as well as a few numbers, greetings and asking for the bill.

On Tuesday we got the bus to Chau Doc (near the Cambodian border). Everything fell into place quite easily - we got there early, found a hotel for the night, rented a motorbike and were on the road to Ba Chuc by 11am. The two hour motorbike journey to Ba Chuc was great - beautiful weather, scenery - lots of rice paddies and palm trees, stilt houses next to the many rivers and canals in the delta, pagodas, interesting villages and scenes of daily life. We went to Ba Chuc to pay our respects and see the memorial to those killed by the Khmer Rouge here when they crossed into Vietnam. It was upsetting, not only seeing all the skulls and bones of those killed (men, women and children), but there was also a room of horrific photographs taken soon after the massacre - mutilated bodies everywhere, even babies. So that was quite a sobering experience, and there were also quite a few beggars there which is always distressing too. That reminds me, we saw 'The Fever' back in Dalat - I had not heard of this film, which shames me as a sociologist. It was a surprising and brilliant film, with Vanessa Redgrave in the starring role (and unfortunately Angelina Jolie in a small part). Maybe it was because we came across it by accident, and it was infinitely better than the other films on cable we have seen, but I decided to show it to all my sociology students from now on. I have encountered all these emotions and moral issues a lot. Has anyone seen it? Why haven't I heard of it before?

But anyway, in Ba Chuc we had more pho and a nice conversation (if you can call it that when neither person speaks the same language) about wearing sun block. Then we rode off to Sam Mountain to visit more pagodas and see the sunset. Yet by the time we made it to the top the weather was turning. It's more of a hill than a mountain, but you could see the delta for miles and miles, and we could actually see the rain approaching us. It came upon us fast, and we rose down the road/river with me sheltering under Lawrence's plastic sheet in best Vietnamese fashion. It was good fun but pretty hard to see through all the rain. After making it back and getting a terrible meal (miscommunication meant we got meat and seafood of any and every kind instead of just some beef and noodles) we went out for some more (it's a daily thing) kem socola. I have found the best chocolate ice cream, a bit like Feast but without the chocolate in the middle, and its also really cheap. I'm worried about not being able to get it in the future… Anyway we only went two streets away but ended up getting lost. At this point Lawrence was wearing a sarong (his shorts were soaked) which was a bit too transparent and liable to coming undone. But although we got a few funny looks it was ok in the end.

The next day we went on a boat trip with an Aussie couple, saw a Cham village, fish farm, mosque, floating market and some sweet girls selling stale waffles. We ate the most amazing tofu and vegetarian stuff which was made to look, taste and feel like meat and then wandered round the market before yet more iced coffee and then 'home' to Can Tho.

We were up at 5am to go on another boat trip through the Mekong Delta with a German/Austrian couple we met on the way back from Chau Doc. It was great to be just the four of us on a little boat, just relaxing and seeing daily life in the delta - floating markets, noodle making, growing plants etc. They were into jazz and electro-improv avant-garde music and she was a sound engineer, and they were also recording the sounds of the river and around. Good fun, can't wait to hear what they do with the sound of being underneath two metal bridges with a succession of cars and motorbikes crossing it - it was pretty techno.

So I have enjoyed writing this sitting in a cheap roadside café drinking iced coffee (with the obligatory green tea to finish). Lawrence is off fishing somewhere with Ben. Sorry if its too annoying reading all this, but we're having a great time.