Merry Christmas Everyone. Smile and the whole world smiles with you. Friday 16th December Another early start as we are picked up outside our hotel at 0730 for the 2-day trip to the Mekong Delta. Of the 83 million people living in Vietnam, 18 million live within the Mekong Delta area which is pretty amazing given the size of the place. The two day trip has cost us an amazing 16 dorrar including the overnight hotel. Once more the minibus is pretty cramped, one of those "knees round your ears experiences". The weather is good again at a sunny 30 degrees. We eventually get to our first stop and see how rice paper and puffed rice are made (basically they cook them in a monster wok with some sand and oil) as well as coconut candy and honey tea. All of this is most pleasing and the free samples go down a treat. We meet a nice Irish bloke called Fergus who looks about 25 so we'll get along fine. The boat trip around the delta is pretty cool and relaxing. Everywhere you go all you see is smiling faces (admittedly some people are staring back in wonder as you look like nothing they have ever seen before). The kids here are unbelievably friendly, even if they catch a glimpse of you they just start waving frantically and of course you can't help but wave back. We stop for lunch and go for a bit of a bike ride around the local area. In the afternoon we visited a local village and it was like something out of the Truman show. It was as if everyone had their positions, you know like little kids in position with clean faces and big smiles, villagers tending to their coriander plots in their traditional hats. As we were walking round we felt like superstars as random blokes kept coming up to us, shaking our hand or patting us on the back (no this was not some elaborate stunt to nab our wallets - these people were genuinely friendly and pleased to see us). One of the Israeli guys in our group practically walked into peoples homes whilst they were having a bath and asked to take 'arty' pictures of them - perhaps taking things a little too far. As we were walking round the villagers were obviously having a laugh at us because we looked so different, indeed sometimes we wondered just who was staring more intently at who. We get back to Can Tho, the main city within the Mekong Delta. Dinner consisted of the local delicacy for me, snake curry (well it was Friday night and where else was there for me to get me curry fix in?) and snake wine. I have to say that the snake was pretty tasty and went down extremely well with 4 Saigon beers. Had good craic with the travellers assembled within our group and the mix was quite entertaining. Particularly memorable were the Austrian blokes who kept going on about picking wild mushrooms??? After dinner the Austrian dudes decide to go for the full massage and 'cupping' (where they put these massive glass cups on your back which stick to the skin having had all the air within them removed by passing a flame within it very quickly). After this they looked like giant dot to dot puzzles which was very amusing. Sunday 17th December More of the same today except that first we visit a floating market which was entertaining. It was good to see how the local Tesco's operated in this area. We learn that Fergus is 41 years old and are astounded. Bus journey on the way back is not too bad and we see a road accident which holds us up for a while. Aside 1 We have noticed that the Vietnamese have this great ability to get down on their haunches and virtually complete every daily activity in that mode. Whether it comes from their fabled ability to hide in the jungle we will never know....... Aside 2 Just walking around the place has you in stitches as well as every other shop is called either Auw phuc or long dong or big phoo (ok so I made the last one up) We have an Italian for dinner and and watch the footy scores come in. Tomorrow we are off to Dalat in the highlands, apparently it is pretty cold up there. More concerning are the terrible weather reports we are hearing about in the North of Vietnam. Anyway as always we'll keep you posted. Lost of love Stu & Amy.