M:

Let me confirm that the camera is officialy RIP. The dear thing had hung in until the last stop before home. Having done a bit of research online it seems that the prices in Vietnam are not so special that you would forego your warranty. Pix from here are from the trusty iPhone.

On Saturday we had breakfast on the lovely cool rooftop at the hotel - literally right outside our door. Nothing elaborate - either by way of furnishings or of cuisine. A screened off corner for the cook, and a handful of well worn tables and chairs which disappear during the day. As for the food - either pho (pronounced fur) the Vietnamese soup we so often eat for lunch and dinner in Australia - which is a breakfast dish here, or eggs any way with a fresh french roll and fresh fruit and tea or coffee. The guy who looks after this area of operations - Duc - has excellent English and a lovely manner.

As we had arranged with the ever helpful Nang, we were ready to leave at 0720 for the full day Mekong River tour. Like many aspects of life that we have already noticed in Vietnam, the organisation of this is a masterpiece of synergy. A taxi collected us from the door of the hotel right on time. This took us to the Vinatoday Travel agency, with whom Nang had made the arrangements. We waited a few minutes in their office, were given a receipt, and then were walked a few metres to a waiting bus, which seemed to be gathering passengers from a whole range of different agencies. In fact the whole street is made up of cafes which are also travel agencies, hotels which are also travel agencies, travel agencies which are .. you get the picture. This is backpacker travel central, and somehow along with a fair share of HCM's 5 million scooters, they shoehorn in mid sized buses, and even overnight intercity coaches.

Our guide, Dien, introduced himself by trying to teach us the difference between the three ways of saying dien - two of which are not his name. Between the traffic noise and the somewhat scratchy PA, I don't think too many of us got the hang (not hung) of it. (A: Dien told me in conversation during the day that he would love to come to Australia but his government won't issue a visa because it is frightened people won't return if they leave.)

The drive out was about three hours. We spent most of the first half making our way through mile after mile of busy main roads, averaging about 30kph through the most extraordinary traffic, which, except for red lights, almost never stops. Somehow, in a kind of osmotic process, scooters, buses, trucks and some cars share the road, turn across each other, back up, and avoid pedestrians and hardly ever come to a complete stop. This clip will give you a sense of it.

We stopped for a "water stop" after about 90 minutes, by which time we had been driving through a succession of rice paddies. Vietnam is the world's second biggest rice exporter, Thailand being the largest, and if what we saw on Saturday and subsequently is typical, it is done almost without machinery. I have so far seen one mechanical plough and not even a buffalo. Simply people planting, harvesting, tending to irrigation, spraying - all by hand.

It was very difficult to catch the names of the places we visited. The first place of interest was a workshop where rice is turned into popped rice, rice paper and rice wine - all fascinating processes, and again, no automation here. The rice is popped by dropping it onto hot black sand. This is then winnowed to remove the sand, then winnowed again to remove the husks, which in turn fuel the fires.

Next was a floating market at Cai Be. We got there in a powered boat that would seat about 30 I guess. The market is nothing like the famous markets in Cambodia, being mainly a place where "wholesalers" moor for a week or so until they sell their stock of fruit or vegetables. You can tell what a boat sells from what is suspended on a pole above it - quite straightforward. We then sailed on to an island called Vinh Long, completing the last stretch in smaller, paddled four seater boats. The rowing style is that rather unusual standing position (a little like the gondoliers except they have two oars whose handles cross over).

Lunch was incuded in the price. This may have been an exaggeration as a way of describing three tiny pieces of chicken (and in Anne's case mostly bone) and a small serve of rice. Still, given that the whole exercise cost about 17 dollars, there is no real ground for complaint. There were bikes available for a very short ride on the island, and the plan was then to get the big boat back to the bus. The tides were not cooperating, so we all (except for one Polish woman) had to climb on bikes and pedal a kilometre or so, then walk the next little bit to the next feasible mooring.

The whole time on the water there was a passing parade of different boat types, and on the river banks, people carried on all kinds of activities in their ramshackle looking homes and premises. Unlike the Cambodian floating villages, the homes here are permanent, despite their flimsy and makeshift appearance.

We walked through a large market - a real one with food and produce of different types before boarding the bus and settling in for the ride back to town with a rest stop on the way. At about 8 pm we were dropped back off in the street we boarded the bus, found a place to eat, and headed for bed.