15/03/09 - Saigon to Mekong Delta

We meet at 7:30 for our bus to the Mekong Delta. Today is upposed ot be the last day of our trip but as Mekong is a favourite place of our leader and he has organised an ovenight trip for us and he is coming along!

It takes around 3 hours to get there and on the way we stop at a beautiful garden for a wee break. As soon as we arrive we meet our local guide and get straight on the boat and off to the brick making factory to see the large firing kilns. Becuase there is a lot of rice produced in Vietnam they use the husk of the rice as fuel and it is what they use to fire the kilns, it's really good becuase nothing is wasted.

Back on the boat we head to another place for our lunch, but before we sit down and eat there is an opportunity to hold their 'pet' python who weights 30kg and is massive. Mattie goes first and I don't want to but I do, in my photo I look terrified and I am becuase it's so strong it squeezes my shoulders really tight! We later find out they feed him a live duck a week and he's due a feed!

We have some lunch then some tea whilst we're entertained by some local singers. It's 1pm now and soo hot we're sweating as we sit in the shade, thats when you know it's hot. They have a little shelter with hammocks so we all spend and hour or so there sleeping, it's so comfy that Mattie sleeps with his mouth open and I dribble a little, truly a deep sleep!

After we wake up we hop on a smaller boats which are designed to go down the shallower canals it's really rocky and you have to stay in the middle or you'll upset it! While we're rowing along a man hitches a lift to another boat so he can go drinking for the afternoon.

We arrive at a beautiful house which has a massive bonsai garden, and we all 'enjoy' some snake wine which tastes like xmas cake. We pick up our bikes and cycle through some rural back lanes and tracks, the bridges are really thin and have no side rails but we cycle over them anyway, cycling through the countryside is really nice, every says hello to you, the kids especially they just run along shouting HELOOOOOOOOO! It takes an hours ride to get back to the boat where we sail to the homestay which is really nice.

We relax for a little in the hammocks there, before we go into the kitchen and help make dinner, my spring roll making in Hoi An has paid off, Mattie even makes some! Outside the kitchen there is a bird and Mattie talks to him, he says hello and how are you and he copies Matties whistling and puffs his feathers up, he's really cool!

Our dinner comes out and they have carved all these little boat men and women out of cucumber, they're so cool. We shower after dinner and then sit out in the garden chating and drinking beer.

16/03/09 - Mekong Delta - Saigon

We get up at 6am and have breakfast of super strong coffee, bread, eggs and jam (not together) and then get on the boat which takes us and hour along the Mekong to where the floating market is, it's so interesting, the farmers come here with their boats loaded up with stuff and can sometimes stay here for up to a month until they sell everything, their advertising is a long pole with whatever they are selling skewered to the top.

We stop at a village so we can see coconut candy, popped rice and rice papers being made, Mattie and I are loving it, this trip has been like a real life how it's made. At the candy shop we have free tea and candy too at 8am in the morning it's pretty cool.

The time has come to say goodbye to Eb and Sylvia becuase they are carrying on but we have to get back to Saigon coz we fly to Bangkok tonight . When we're back in the city we say bye to everyone else grab another tutti frutti and use the internet at the hotel before getting a taxi to the airport.

We're both really sad to say bye to the group and Vietnam, it has been an amazing place to visit and we've been so lucky with the trip that we got to see a lot of extra things. It feels strange to be back on our own again after 3 weeks but we're both excited about Thailand.

Before we go on this one we just want to say thank you to everyone for your messages on the blog, we really love reading them and are glad that you are all enjoying keeping up with our trip xxx