Day 33 until 34: The River (22 - 23 Dec 2008):

Another day on the road with our private driver. Does not sound that bad, but if you remember what we wrote previously about Vietnamese roads and traffic, it is not something to look forward to. To not completely waste the day, we decided to get up early to watch the sun rising from the sea (5:30h) and take a last swim in the waves. Magnificent, as the pictures will reveal. A Vietnamese bride and groom got up early as well, to take the obligatory wedding photo's with this beautiful scenery at the background. Weddings are abundant now in Vietnam - December is the preferred wedding month. In every town we saw wedding parties so far. The Viet attach a great deal of importance to the married status, if you are not married or if you don't have kids, you are to be pitied!

After 8 hours we reached our destination, a hotel at the riverside of My Tho in the Mekong Delta where, how can it be otherwise, another very noisy wedding party was going on. Also the first occasion upon which I saw a Viet man drinking a beer ad fundum as part of a contest. Men never change! The restaurant in town was not our best selection for diner as we found out afterwards. We were alone surrounded by 5 or 6 rude, impolite and non English speaking waiters who tried to play their tricks on us. This time we had to pay for the ice to cool the beer bottles. I had to look for chop sticks and bowls myself. The fried noodles with beef that Steven ordered changed all of a sudden in some seafood dish, I had to bring the plate back to the kitchen myself. And of course it is always nice to enjoy your food when you see rats running around at 2 meter distance of your table. Luckily they didn't had the guts to the list the wrong seafood dish on the bill.

But the stroll through the streets of My Tho made up for the disappointing dinner: People were much friendlier than in the beach resorts, and August was again the shining star of My Tho.

On the next morning we got a lift to Cai Be, where we boarded a the little sampan for the tour in the Mekong Delta. We got our private little sampan with a very friendly and English speaking guide.

After we paid a visit to the Cai Be Floating Market, we visited a family owned factory to make rice paper (for the little nems) and all kinds of candies with local fruit. Very interesting, moreover since none of the people were pushy to sell something, which was a relief. Popped rice is produced by heating small charcoal particles inside a huge wok pan, and adding the rice grains. Due to the efficient heat transfer of the hot charcoal to the rice, the popping process goes incredibly fast and efficient, much faster than with corns. Afterwards the popped rice is separated from the charcoal and the empty hulls with a big sieve The popped rice is then bounded with a mixture off caramelized sugar cane, ginger, fruit and herbs. The result is a kind of Nougat as the one you can buy in the South of France. We could taste all the different sweets; August favourite was the dried coconut, and mine the ginger candy. Steven was not that enthusiastic since his favourite snack stays the (Pringle) chips. We bought a little bag with the coconut candy for August (and ourselves) and enjoyed it until I found some human hairs inside the bag. GMP is one goal too far in this country for the time being. We bought also some flip flop shoes with dolphins on it for August, since we noticed that he did not fit in in Vietnam without it. He is very proud of them and walks around as a real beach boy (strand jeanet)

We were crossing one of the 9 Mekong delta river arms with our sampan, and we entered the little canals of the islands of An Binh and Binh Hoa Phuoc, that are unlike the majority of the Mekong which is dominated by rice culture, dedicated to fruit culture. After an introduction into the tropical fruit of the island, we took lunch in a local house. They served a.o. grilled river fish, nicely presented standing upright with a chilli pepper in the mouth.

The overall relaxed atmosphere of the Mekong Delta reminds us of the national park Kao Sok in Thailand. At the time being we would like to come back (once) for a boat and/or bike tour to the Mekong Delta, and since Pnom Pen is only 7 hours away by ferry , to include Cambodia as well (an Laos?) But that is for next time. In the mean time we continued our touristic boat tour to an ancient house where they presented the local Viet operette (a 4 man orchestra of ancient instrument players and various singers). My mother (Oma) would enjoy this! Our guide was translating the essence of the songs, so that we had at least an idea what they were mooning about. After the session I was heading for the Viet 'guitar' player (to collect a signature of course), and he gave us a solo performance on his one string instrument that would made Metallica blush in all embarrassment. We would have to work on his looks though if we would bring him on stage (we need a good dentist to start with).

The tour ended in Vinh Long, where out driver waited for us to get us to Can Tho. We had to take the car ferry to cross (another) arm of the Mekong river, and there I had the Mumbai déjà-vu: disabled people who where scaring the waiting cars to beg: people without legs knocking on the doors, blind people 'looking' through the windows of the car with glazed eyes, etcetera.

Back in the hotel in Can Tho Steven got a challenge from me: to install our mosquito nets. Last night I was hunted by the f.. beasts until the morning, and since we forgotten our electrical mosquito apparatus in one of the previous hotels, we were exposed to the little cruel insects in the Mekong delta. Luckily we could span a cord through the room, on which we would hang our nets. So we fell relieved asleep.