Mekong Delta

I'd slept a little better but was still dealing with jet lag. That's what comes of staying home and not travelling! We had to be up early for breakfast at 06.30 and then we left the house at 07.00 on the house owners boat. We had about a thirty minute trip through some small waterways until we came to the Hau River, where the centre of Can Tho sits, we sat and waited for the rest of our party to arrive and join up with us. It was a nice and restful start to the day although I swear I am not a fan of these early starts, I'm supposed to set my own timetable on holiday! We three transferred to the boat with the rest of the group and we went down to see the floating market. I had imagined that it would be a local market where the locals went to get their daily provisions, that's not the case. It's actually a wholesale market where everyone in the area comes to buy and sell for the local markets. You cannot buy an amount less than 10kgs here of anything and if you see a boat with a coconut shell on it's mast, that means that the boat is for sale. Cool. We went off then on a whirlwind of places, we got to got to a fruit farm, rice noodle making factory and lots more time spent on the boat. We arrived at our stop for the night, Chau Doc about 3pm and I thought that we would be at liberty for the rest of the day. It wasn't the case, again three of us, a different three from the previous night, were due to go off and see a temple and a "mountain". Sam mountain is only about 1000m above sea level but considering that everything else around it is really flat and from the summit you can see Cambodia and look across the rest of the delta, I was happy to go. First we went to Tay An Pagoda which involved a walk up some steps, of course! The pagoda itself is beautiful and without the help of one of drivers I wouldn't have seen half of it. You walk through the main temple, then up some more steps to some rooms carved out of the mountain side, so beautiful and surprising. Then we went to the top of the mountain and had a beer, unfortunately the haze had come in by then and there was nothing to see. When we got back to the hotel Richard and Kate said they were happy for the three of us to have dinner together and we would meet later. I had been given a huge room to myself at the front of the hotel and was glad to enjoy some down time with air conditioning. When I went back down to the reception I bumped into the Dutch guy from the home stay, he decided to come to dinner with us. When the three of us decided to have dinner on a floating restaurant on the Hau River he headed back out by himself saying it was too touristy. I didn't mind, the food was good and the company enjoyable. The next day brought another early start and yet more confirmation of how well this tour operation works. A group of people had arrived from Cambodia and were on their way to Can Tho but first they would do some sight seeing around Chau Doc and I would go with them. Richard and Kate were heading for Cambodia that morning by boat, so going in the other direction. We walked down to the river and were put on a boat to go and take a look at the fish farms on the Hau River. They weren't what I was expecting. The houses look just like normal house except that they sit on these huge wooden pontoons, the fish are confined below the house in huge netted areas. We went into one of the houses and the farmer just opened up a trap door in the floor of the house. At first you don't see anything then he threw in some fish food and they all come to the surface, it looks as if the water is boiling with fish. They raise catfish here, I haven't eaten a lot of that. Next we went to a minority Muslim village on the banks of the river, the people came mainly from Cambodia. The village houses are all on stilts to withstand the floods of the rainy season and on one of the houses you can see the level of the flood waters marked. The village had to be evacuated in 2011 as the water rose above the floor level of the house, that's a lot of water. Then I was back in my usual mode of transit here in Vietnam, a transit van back to Can Tho. We stopped there for lunch and then a few of us were transferred onto a bigger bus for the final leg back to Saigon. I'd had an amazing time and although it was short it included everything I'd wanted to see and I hadn't been lonely during it. Being lonely is one of my fears, but it's not going to stop me from travelling.