During the few days in Ho Chi Minh City we investigated going south through the Mekong, then by fast boat across to Cambodia. The district we were staying in was dotted with many agency’s, each offering two distinct versions of a popular trip. We would have preferred to do an independent tour, rather than be lumped with 40 others in a bus, however finances just didn’t stretch that far (costing 5 times as much). It can be done independently, but it is difficult to get to smaller areas, and renegotiating transport costs every stop would end up costing more. We ended up going with a smaller tour operator, but as with tourism in most of Vietnam, we ended up on a bus with a company we had actively tried to avoid. Piling into a massive bus, we headed towards the Mekong along highway 1 (number 1 for massive pot holes and incredibly slow traffic). We visited a large Buddhist monastery in Ben Tre, famous for its huge statues of Budda in various forms. It was interesting to see southern asian Buddhism compared to the Tibetan form in Mongolia.

After a couple hours driving south, we caught a rather large slender boat at My Tho and headed down a branch of the Mekong Delta. It was amazing seeing fishing houses perched high on large drums with huge nets holding catfish being matured for market. Many large barges laden down to the point of near sinking. We headed for Turtle Island (ironically with no turtles), for a ‘mass’ tourist lunch, and a walk through a local village. The islands are effectively massive sediment banks, reinforced by years of flooding in the delta . Huge palm trees reinforce the banks, while paddy fields and fruit orchards dominate the interior. The offer of fish from the restaurant was a genuine attempt to up-sell the lunch provided, however the huge net of dying fish in the canal as we walked in turned us right off.
We visited a coconut sweet factory, learning the process behind the creation of a favourite local Vietnamese treat. It was an impressive hive of micro-enterprise, a large family effectively employing the village. We then went for a short ride in a small canoe, paddled along small canals to another village where they had many fruit orchards. It was a good opportunity to see small pockets of life in the Mekong, although we were tempted at many points to escape the horde we travelled with.
Off again in the bus we headed towards our first nights accommodation, a great one star hotel which had a vaguely unpronounceable name. Considering we had to get up at 4.30am, it was a perfect ‘star’ – aircon, hot water and clean beds. The road there was interesting, punctuated with many bridges over canals and rivers – each however had a very bumpy ‘approach’ and ‘exit’ as the sediment islands moved around solid foundations.

Following a cheap and delicious dinner on the riverfront, we bought some fruit and took some timeout in the park along with water. Some children approached us with advertising print outs and proceeded to make boats and hats. I got in on the action with a paper crane, ending up teaching a group of kids and making one for each of their parents who giggled on the park bench next to us. It was a nice touch to a long day travelling.