Today we boarded the buses for an hour plus trip out of Saigon to the Mekong delta. The river at this point is huge. In fact there are several arms with many small islands in the area. This is set up fully as a tourist attraction for locals and overseas visitors.
We boarded a boat that is uniquely Vietnamese in design (naturally) and headed downstream for several hundred metres, the flow is very fast and this is the dry season. After heading downstream, we then headed back upstream, past the point where we had boarded the vessel and headed across river to visit a small orchard. This has everything, and we sampled several l fruits that we don't get in Oz like dragon fruit, as well as familiar fruit such as mango and bananas (eaten dipped in salt and chilli which was surprisingly very tasty.
After we were back on the water we headed for a canal and transferred to smaller boats (6 + driver) and headed up a canal to a coconut sweets factory. We sampled the wares and all bought some coconut based sweets. If we can keep our hands off them we will bring back our purchases to share.
We also had a several course lunch which was magnificent, the main item being deep fried fish
Had the usual shopping experience here as well, and Win bought up big on handicrafts - no surprise here! The we re-traced our steps, with the usual afternoon downpour just startomg to commence as we got back onto the bigger boats, our timing was impeccably as it was torrential for all of 10 minutes.
Although we enjoyed this my expectation was that we would have explored the mighty Mekong delta in greater detail. NOt too worry still a great experience
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