The trip started off a bit slow... We were cruising down a 3km wide section of the Mekong and it was very hazy and nothing really exciting... except the amazing wakeboarding water! 3km wide of glassy water! The lunch we had consisted of several dishes including elephant ear fish (was amazing), spring rolls, rice paper rolls, marinated pork, steamed veges of some type and some pork stew. We shared our table with 2 couples, one from Canada and another from America, both of whom we nearing the end of their trips. God some good traveling tips from them including places to see and stay in Laos.
The rest of the tour went very well and included Bec holding a massive fat python, tasking some coconut candy and listening to some local 'music'..... i use the term music very lightly here... they singing was very high pitched and shrill.
The trip got us back to Saigon about 4:30pm and we headed to the train station to catch a 7pm train to De Nang. This did not go to plan. The train station was packed with people pre-purchasing train tickets to Tet and there was only one lady who spoke English and she was serving the pre-purchase queue rather than the imminent departure one. We managed to push our was in front of ever hundred people after i told her we we sent to her queue from number 6 because the lady at 6 spoke no English... It was now, after being there a hour or so, that we discovered the 7pm bus was booked out, and same with the 11pm train. We checked for buses and all buses we booked out. We discovered from a British traveler that there is a tropical cyclone headed to Saigon and i guess everyone wants to get out! It was shortly after this we met young couple from the UK who were also trying to book a ticket and after helping each other out we managed to push in again and both buy tickets north on the 7pm train the next day. Unfortunately no sleeper tickets available so we are in seats overnight.
We shared a taxi back into district 1 with the UK couple, Mark and Caroline, and purchased a room for the night in their hotel, which was actually a lot better than the one we had been staying in... and cheaper... and headed out for dinner with them. The $2 chicken burger was amazing and the $1 600ml Tiger beers were a nice end to the long day.
Retired to very hard beds for the night and have to check out at 12pm and not sure yet what we will do until the train at 7pm. Big city thought so im sure we will find something to do!
Local selling donuts
Bus ride to the Mekong. Was quite a good bus with good Air-Con
So many young kids on scooters. We have seen 2 adults and 3 kids on one!
Boats we took down the Mekong
Me...
Crazy job. These guys were like 100m up and i could only see one of the tied on
On the boat ride
Floating hotel. You can stay here... not sure that i would.
Heading down a small creek
Us on front of the boat. Kindly taken by our great tour guide.
We manager to get the same guide as the day before!
Travelling though the jungle. The creek was just over the width of the boat but we routinely had to pass other boats and the tour guide was call out 'arms in the boat' and there was may 2cm between the boats and both getting smashed by the palms on the sides.
Some of the bees at the bee farm. Tried some honey tea but it was very sweet.
A nice flower bec found...
Bec made friends with the house, of course, of course
The local music group on one of the islands
Bec with the snake. It was huge. Looked like it just had a feed!
Little American girl was very interested in the snake
Paddle boating.
Got sunburnt on this in like 10 minutes....
Not sure how paddling on the side make this thing go straight... but they go perfectly straight and very fast.
The making of coconut candy. We ate it still warm and it was amazing. I had to wash my mouth out after trying a chili one that looked like strawberry... It was hot even for me!
Random water buffalo on the island
