The day started with a bit of a panic as we were meant to be meeting our group at 7.45am and we didn't wake up until 7.40am. We got ready amazingly quickly and made it in the nick of time (thankfully our hotel was just around the corner). We got on a bus out of HCMC to the first destination of Ben Tre which is a small town with a few notable attractions. We got of the bus and walked through a small bamboo forest towards one of the local villages.
We reached a local restaurant and were 'treat' to some local music and fruit. Both were good (in particular the tiny bananas which are a specialty of the region) apart from the musicians were insanely grumpy and two of the singers got far too into their faux-romance for people well into their 70s.
After watching the performance, we kindly declined one of the homemade DVDs on offer and we made our way to a small tributary of the river where we got on to sampan boat which is a local rowing boat that took us up narrower sections so we could see the scenery up close. We also got to wear these fetching hats...
Upon disembarking the sampan, we visited a workshop ran by local people who were making candy from coconut. It was cool to see it be made and it was delicious!!
We also got to see these little scamps having way too much fun...
At the same location we got to see another two things. The first was a bee hive with a huge amount of honey bees at work, and we got to sample some of this produce in our honey tea. After enjoying this, the guide brought out another surprise visitor...
From this point, we got on a larger motorised boat and went further upstream into a larger part of the river. We saw some interesting sights along the tropical banks including a variety of flora and fauna, some small islets and a boatload of coconut trees. We stopped at one island, known as tortoise island, for lunch and after a brief rest stop continued up the river where we were meeting the bus to go to another local town.
We went to My Tho to visit a huge pagoda complex. Unfortunately, upon arrival the heavens opened and we had to make quick dashes across the courtyard in order to see the sight. There were three large Buddhas which had been constructed within the last couple of years- happy Buddha, nirvana Buddha and sleeping Buddha. They were huge and very modern which was interesting to see.
We got back on the bus to dry off and headed to our stop for the night which was Can Tho, one of the larger towns of the region. We didn't have a great hotel but it was sleepable (once we had retrieved our sleep sacks from our rucksacks) and after a quick dinner we called it an early night ready to depart at 7am the next morning!
The next day, we managed not to sleep in again although we didn't have time for breakfast. Sleeping in would have been an achievement mind due to the three wake up calls they thought were necessary and the attempts to clean our room at 6.40am. When we left the hotel we went firstly to the morning market. What differentiated this market however was that it was floating i.e. Instead of stalls on the streets, there were boats on the river. We couldn't resist the aggressive attempts of the women to sell their wares and ended up buying some fruit from the sellers who tied their boats to ours and leant over the sides...
The 20 bananas for £1.00 was a good deal mind and watching them chop pomelo was quite the sight and it would give Jamie Oliver a run for his money in terms of knife skills. I also bought a while coconut and drank the juice with a straw as this is what the locals all do.
Upon leaving the market, we went down one of the smaller canals to a rice noodle factory and got to see how hey are made (interesting seeing as we have lived on them for 9 weeks). The furnaces used to break down the rice seem to be set at an intense temperature while the process of making the noodles is very interesting.
Another foody trip was to a local orchard where we saw all the amazing tropical fruit being grown including pineapples, lychees, mangos, pomelo, dragon fruit, chillis and many more.
We walked through there including crossing monkey bridge...
...and tried some of the delicious dragon fruit but declined the rat which the family were cooking on the BBQ and the many kilos of dog being sold at a nearby restaurant!!
We then took the boat back to Can Tho, had lunch then got back on the bus setting off on the final leg of the journey. We were the only ones of the group doing the trip to Cambodia so we had the delight of sharing the minivan with locals travelling towards the border towns. They were transporting some very strange items with different odours and some were even hauled onto the bus even even though it wasn't clear that they actually wanted to travel.
We then met a new guide who was effectively there for our own private tour and went to the highlight of the trip which was Tra Su forest and bird sanctuary, near Chau Doc. On the way to the forest we had the unexpected inconvenience of the driver being pulled over by the police but we got some good insight into how the legal system works in Vietnam as the driver immediately called a mate who managed to talk him out of a fine. One word used by the guide to sum up this exchange was corruption....
Eventually arriving at the Tra Su forest we took a speed boat and then a row boat through the eerie and quiet forest past mangroves growing out of the water and through algae and water lily covered streams. We saw various species of bird including stork, crane and eagle and the whole place has a really mystical feel to it, partly because we were the only ones there...
Finally we headed to Chau Doc to our beds for the evening (again not great) which were rather strange...
We went to a local street cafe for dinner and again called it an early night for our 6.45am start the next day to make our passage to Cambodia. More on this to follow.
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