Apologies for the delay – its been hard to get anything written and posted while in Vietnam. I’m in London now so the next few posts shouldn’t be too far between.

On our third day in Saigon, we did a tour out to the Mekong Delta. This trip was via bus and was about 4 hours each way out there and back. Along the way out we stopped at a few different locations to see the locals.

One of the places we stopped at was a small village where we sampled the local honey, played with snakes and went for a row down a small canal that ran through the middle.

Id have to admit, sitting on a bus for so long does get a little bit boring and rather tame (mind you, that can be good at times). It is, however a nice way to watch life as you pass by and see some of the key constructions along the way.

When booking the tour, we had the option of a Standard, 1st class or Superior Hotel Suite (why its superior is anyones guess…), or a homestay. We opted for the latter, and oddly enough, we were the only ones out of the 30 or so people on our tour that decided to do so.

Upon arriving at the main tour hotel, everyone checked in, and we were told to wait outside. Then Hung, our home stay host who’s family were staying with, turned up with 4 scooters and told us to get on. This was my first experience on a scooter and for the initial few moments, it was shitting myself. It takes a little to get your head around sitting on the back of a small bike, holding on behind you while you dodge people, busses and other scooters and pass through 4 lanes of intersection without any traffic lights. But once you resign yourself to the fact there isn’t a whole lot you can do about it and just to trust your driver, then its a bit of fun. Its by far the best way to see the area and fortunately Hung was my driver and he talked me through all the locations as we passed. Kind of a personal tour guide type deal.

Anyway, we took off for a 20 minute ride through the city and down the highway then we turned off onto a bumpy little dirt road that eventually led us to our homestay. The place was perfect. The whole village was an 8km strip of huts/houses that ran along the river and our place was opposite Hungs family house in a row of little huts that overhung the water. There was about 8 huts, so it looked like it could accomodate quite a few people, but as we were later told, the area isn’t too popular in the wet season. Thankfully we were the only ones there.

After settling in to our huts for an hour, we were told to head over to the family house for dinner and a little bit of a cooking lesson. This was actually just a lesson in spring roll rolling which we did a good job of butchering. After doing our part in the dinner, we sat around and had a few beers before the food was brought out to us. We were given our spring rolls that had been fried, rice, salad and a steamed Elephant Ear Fish, which tasted fantastic and was quite possible the wosrt smelling fish I have ever smelt. Something akin to a sewer. It didn’t kill us so it couldn’t have been too bad.

That night we slept under mosquito nets, though oddly enough there weren’t any around. I slept really well, it was so quiet and peaceful out there. Well that was until about 6am when the boats started up and down the river, and they’re all powered by 50 year old diesel engines that sound like trucks which inevitably woke us up.

At about 7am Hung came and got us and we went for a walk through the village to say hi to the locals and to make our way to the local market. It was a nice reprieve from the relentless hounding of the locals in Saigon trying to sell you something. You learn pretty damn quickly to say no and walk away. But there was none of this here.

At 8am we took off on a little boat to meet up with the rest of the tour group who were floating out on their bigger tour boat and after jumping aboard we took off to have a look around some more sights.

We went via the floating market, which is essentially a farmers market but on boats. This place wasnt without its people trying to sell you water/beer/bananas/their child. We then went up one of small rivers to see how rice paper is made, the rice factories, and a number of other interesting local attractions that my brain fails to remind me of at the time of writing this.

After finishing the tour we all hopped back on the bus as the rain kicked in and headed for home via some new Buddha statues that have recently been built.

The ride back was initially uneventful. 2 hours passed and the usual bus sleepyness kicked in and we all dozed off (with the exception of the really irritating English girls that were madly flirting with the two Scotts). As we were cruising down the highway in the rain, the bus suddenly braked hard locked up and turned hard right before smashing into a concrete barrier on the side of the road. After the initial shock of what had just happened, everyone piped up and tried to work out what had happened.

We all piled/jumped/fell off the bus into the rain and to the shelter of a little road side shop/hammock shelter (much to the luck of the owner I’m sure) to discover we had hit a concrete barrier and torn the front door off the bus.

As best I can understand, a truck hit the concrete barrier on the other side of the road, pushing two of them out in front of our bus. Surveying the damage post crash, it was obvious shit really could have hit the fan and we could have been touring the inside of a hospital. So to our bus driver – nice work. Not only did he hit the barrier that was square on to the bus, he missed all the scooters that were hanging around the bus like flies. I was impressed.

Thankfully, it only took about 45 minutes for a replacement bus which was a bit of a surprise given how far we were out of Saigon. The rest of the trip after that was back to the same old boring uneventfulness, however there was still a mild paranoia on the bus every time we braked a bit harder then normal (which was 90% of the time).

The next day (and I’m going to keep this paragraph short because I forgot to write it the first time around and Im too lazy to write anything detailed), we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels to see some of the tunnels from the Vietnam War. The site was quite interesting. We had a strange 20 year old dubbed movie talking about the war before hand which was slightly anti American – and fair enough too. We were shown around the different styles of traps and other goodies the had thought up and we got to crawl through some pretty dark and cramped and highly claustrophobic (for those that way inclined) holes in the ground. There was no light, it was stuffy and it kept changing in size and elevation. Its not hard to see why people would get lost in there. Apparently the tunnels we went through were widened for westerners. Which even then was pretty cramped.

Anyway, thankfully that tour bus got us home safely and uneventfully and went out to dinner to sort our plans for the rest of the trip.

Our plans were to ditch Saigon and head up to Hoi An, and have a look around there for a while at a slower pace as we had done all we wanted to in the South. It was decided that we should bypass the rest of the south of Vietnam and head straight to the middle, and the easiest (read: cheapest) was to catch a train.

Now the trains in Vietnam are quite like their traffic. Slow. Here is what I wrote on the train.

Well, I’m currently on a train from Saigon to Denang. I’m in an air-conditioned “hard sleeper” birth which has 6 people. Well, 6 beds and 7 people, there is a young Vietnamese couple here with their baby. So far the baby hasn’t made a noise, but then again it is midnight. I hope it stays that way.

This train is proper old school. It’s an old diesel train pulling a half a dozen carriages (I guess, I was crammed in here so I am just estimating).

The bunks are not quite westerner length, so I have a choice of head-butting the bar above me, or toe-poking the bar below me, I’ll leave asleep Luke to sort that one out.

There are two stacks of 3 bunks, and I’m in the middle of one. As a result, I have a pretty awesome view out my window for sunrise. The train bounces around quite a bit, but it’s somewhat therapeutic in an blender kinda way.

Truth be told, this is awesome, I’m loving it, although it is 15 hours long, so I may change my tune. Mind you, something smells stale in here, and I’m not sure if it’s me or the blanket. It’s could very well be either.

I will continue this in the morning as I’m shattered, and I think I won’t be allowed to sleep in.

Its about 3am. I have been woken by the train breaking hard and a thump. I think a cow just copped it. We are on our way again, no delays here. Back to sleep

Well, it’s now going on 2pm, so an hour left as we are roughly an hour behind. I caught up on a heap of sleep and have spent the last few hours playing cards with Tim while the girls slept with a bit of Creedence Clearwater Revival pumping out on the iPhone in all its tinny goodness.

Sleeping last night was good, the baby kept relatively quiet, but I slept with my headphones on so it made no difference. To our luck, the others in our room got off at morning so we have had our stuffy little cabin to ourselves. I’m about ready to get off though.

After finally arriving. We all had to depart while the others tried to get on. This lead to a bit of a problem. There is no etiquette when it comes to this. Basically, me and my bag take up a walkway, which is fine when everyone is single filing it out the door. The problem arrives when the locals want to push on while your getting off. I had a guy push through me with his bags ultimately pushing me back and crushing all the poor people behind me. Id have to say that somewhat pissed me off and abusing him achieved nothing as he didn’t speak English. I did have the rest of the crowed on my side, and they backed me up. So my yellings I think were roughly translated and conveyed to him by the rest of the crowed.

Once outside safely we had to find our way to Hoi An, but I’ll save that for a later post. Hopefully the next one won’t be too far off.

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