Meager Markets

This morning we got up at 7am to make use of our last full day in Vietnam. We were picked up at 7:30am (ish) to get a bus to do a Mekong Delta day trip. We had the same driver as yesterday but thankfully a different guide, called Lan.  

Our first stop was to be a floating market, which is made up of people who live on boats selling their products. Lan was telling us the pros and cons of living on the river. He made a comment about how on land no money means no honey, where as on the river you can still have a honey without any money.

We arrived in Cai Be where we were to catch the boat at around 11:20 and we sailed along to the floating market. We had read reviews of the market on TripAdvisor before we booked the trip so we weren't hoping for much as many people said there was by a couple of boats selling their fruit and veg as the market is dwindling due to new bridges being built making it easier to access the main cities. We still managed to be disappointed by what we saw. There was a couple of boats moored up in the middle of the river,  but you wouldn't know they were selling anything. If Lan hadn't have said that was the market I would have thought we missed it out all together. We didn't stop at any of the boats or even get near them, just sailed past slowly. So it was a bit of a disappointing start to the day.

After what was supposed to be the market we stopped at a place to see various rice products being made. We were shown how rice paper, caramel popped rice and rice wine was made, as well as candy made from coconut. We got to try all the different things. Neither of us tried the wine but I thought all the other things were really nice. The coconut sweets were like caramels. Then we walked along the road to a place to try lime and honey tea which was actually bearable. It was very limey.

Next we got back on the boat and sailed to an island where we got on smaller boats, 4 per boat, put on the pointy hats and were rowed by a Vietnamese lady to another island where we had lunch. Lunch was chicken and rice, and soup.  After lunch we had to (motor)cycle 10 minutes down the road to get back on the boat. We sailed down the river which was lined in some parts with houses on stilts and in others with lots of greenery. 

The boat took us to our last stop which was a little homestay where we were treated to fruit (of which neither of us had any) and a few songs by a Vietnamese family. We then hopped back on the boat and went back to the bus for the three hour journey back to the hostel, arriving around 7pm. We went back to the hostel and spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

Cu Chi Tunnels

Today we went on a half day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, which are left over from the Vietnam war. We were picked up from our hostel at around 8:15am and set off towards the tunnels. It was quite a long drive. Our tour guide looked utterly miserable when he picked us up, despite wearing a tshirt that said 'peace and happiness' on the back. He turned out to be a bit of a nutcase. He told us he was a veteran of the war who fought alongside the Americans for 'dirty money'. He kept saying all Americans were fat and ugly, despite there being American people on the tour. But he also kept saying he spoke American, not English, and anyone who spoke English was stupid. Mr Bin, (sp?) as he told us to call him, claimed numerous times to have famous American friends and kept saying 'do you believe me? I'll call him now', without ever actually calling anyone.

Mr Bin showed us round the tunnels and above ground area which had a lot of interesting features that we weren't really told much about. We saw dog traps, booby traps designed for humans and tiny entrances into tunnels. Every now and then we would hear gun fire and it later turned out this was from the shooting range that you could have a go at.  Neither Lauren or I did. At one point Mr Bin was showing something to us and suddenly declared "don't make jokes. 4 of my friends died here. So don't make jokes". I'm not entirely sure anyone was making jokes, and during his explanations Mr Bin kept getting overly animated and emotional to the point where it felt like he was going to start flipping out. He was almost shouting whilst staring directly at people at some points. The whole thing was a bit of a disappointment. I felt it could have been a lot more interesting if we had had a different tour guide which was a shame.

One cool thing though was that we got to go through the tunnels for about 100m. The tunnels are really small and dark and you had to be almost doubled over and crouched to get through them. I didn't make it all the way through as my legs hurt so much but Lauren did. After this we watched a 15 minute film which was overly biased and a bit boring, before heading back to the bus.

We got back to the hostel around 3pm and just collapsed onto the beds. The weather was so hot this morning that even just walking was a lot of effort. We did some planning for the Cambodian leg of our trip, went for dinner and retired to bed.

Sightseeing in Saigon

Today we got to our last stop in Vietnam. We got a flight to Ho Chi Minh, formerly known as Saigon at 10:10. We got picked up from our hostel at around 8:15 by an airport shuttle that took around 45 minutes to get to Da Lat airport. We checked in and whizzed through a very relaxed security check. The flight took about 40 minutes at most. The bus would have taken six hours and after hearing reports of a horrendous journey we thought better of it. It was 34° when we landed. We were picked up from the airport by a shuttle from our hostel and we arrived at around 12:30. We had to hang round for a bit before checking in as the rooms weren't ready.

Once we eventually had checked in, we planned our two full days here, booked some trips and headed out for food. After eating we headed to the big market in the centre. Or at least we attempted to but we couldn't find our way despite having a map. We obviously looked lost as some nice girl who was visiting the city stopped to ask if we were OK.  We told her we were looking for the market and she told us to follow her. On the way we passed to other girls who also looked lost. I told them if they were looking for the market then to follow us as we were headed that way. It wasn't actually that far to the market, just down one road. We thanked the girl and said goodbye. The market was rammed and very stuffy. It was full of stalls selling clothes, shoes, coffee, food etc etc. We wandered round for a bit before I had to leave as the lack of fresh air and the heat was making me feel ill.

After the market we headed to the reunification palace. It was first built in 1871, but after being bombed in 1962 was rebuilt with a different design. After looking at pictures of both designs, we concluded it was more fancy before the bombing and now just looked like a big posh hotel. We wandered round the rooms and the gardens and then headed up to the roof. We sat for a while to cool down as we were very hot, then we headed on to the next sight to see. 

Just down the road from the palace was a fairly big church with a big statue of Jesus outside. It was right next to the post office, which was quite a grand building. Then we wandered down to the committee building which is basically the town hall. It was very fancy, more so than the palace. Out the front was a statue of the man himself; Ho Chi Minh.

After seeing all these sights we wandered back to the hostel, absolutely knackered, and collapsed onto our beds.