Mekong Delta

We started the day quite early in order to be in Cai Be's floating market on time. We were ready at 7.20 am but the bus left almost an hour later. Vietnam guides and buses have a strange system where you are given different pick-up times regardless of the departure hour, two girls from the same hotel were given two different departure times for example.

I tried to sleep during the morning ride but at one point the guide Leng started cracking jokes and gave us some history notes. I caught something about Vietnam's sacred animals being the unicorn, the dragon, the turtle and the phoenix and something about the driver racing motorbikes, getting arrested and now being called Alonzo like the F1 driver.


We took a boat around the market in Cai Be. The floating market is pretty self-explanatory except that I think we arrived too late, when there wasn't much to see. Plus it was raining. I liked the idea of putting up a high bamboo stick on the boats to show what you are selling, we saw pumpkins, potatoes and fruit being shown off like that. See the sticks on the below photo:


After the market we hopped on to smaller boats and took pictures with the traditional hats. Somewhere in Europe or Asia is where mine is. I am starting to reconsider my career in politics with all these photos around the world.

By the time we got some food everyone was starving. We cycled around the village and rested a bit in hammocks. If you come and visit the area I recommend stepping away from guides and tours and setting off alone or with another traveller. You can also enter Cambodia by boat which is pretty neat. The nature is stunning as it has been all over Vietnam.