Mekong Delta

After crossing the boarder I could feel the difference between the two countries at once. It was as if Vietnam was more lively in a positive way of both countries. It was more people here and the country was more developed. Even so I was suprised that they spoke rather pore English. I thought they spoke better English in Cambodia than in Vietnam. I also thought that one month in Vietnam would not be enough. It was so much to see, and so much to do, the country had so much to offer. How could I fit everything I wanted to see and do in the one month I had a visa?

The Mekong Delta is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River meets the sea. I wanted to go on a tour to see this region on my way to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). So Irene and I booked a 2 day trip with a homestay with a local family. We were excited.

The first day we went to a fish farm outside of Chau Doc.

Some of the fishfood they buy and some of it they make themselves out of dead fish and I think it was some kind of flour

There are a lot of Cham people living in this area. The Cham people originally occupied the kingdom of Champa in southcentral Vietnam from Danang to Phan Rang. They were "squeezed" between Cambodia and Vietnam, and eventuelly lost their land to Vietnam. They converted from Hindu into Islam and still there are descendants living in this area who practice a flexible form of Islam.

From a school and a mosque we visited

A woman weaving scarfs. And man she did it fast!

The result

After the fishfarm we took a minivan to Can Tho where we were going to spend the night in a homestay. We had lunch right after we arrived to our new "home", but there were not that many people there.

We tried to talk and play with some of the kids, but they weren't that interested in talking with us. They had some bungalows in the garden and by the river, so we thought that they probably had a lot of people staying there in the highseason. We got to sleep inside the house, I think it must have been in their livingroom.

The house

We walked around in the village a bit.

Suddenly there was several people coming, and now we understood why the children didn't want to play with us. They were propably tired of the tourists coming there everyday. We thought we were going to do something special, authentic; staying and eating with a local Vietnamese family - but actually it was more like a hostal or a home buildt for tourists.

But there was this cutest baby there, underneath the mosquito net. It was only 6 weeks old.

The next day we went to a floating market outside of Can Tho, I am not sure if it was the famous Cai Rang market or if it was some other.

Each boat had a pole where they hung up the things they were selling.

Cutting the pineapple

Afterwards we went to a noodle fabric, where we got to see how they made ricenoodles.

Then we had lunch before we drove to Saigon. I was a bit disappointed that much of the transportation was in a bus/minivan and that we didn't get to be more on the river. But the tour was nice. I would recomend it to others, but if you have the time, maybe it's better to go on your own with local transportation.