Day 62 19/11/2014

It's hard to believe that it's two calendar months since we left home.  In lots of ways it feels significantly longer.  It's already difficult to remember what we did in Moscow, on the Trans Siberian etc.  We'd booked to go to the Mekong Delta today.  There's a Starbucks across the road from our hotel so we popped in there for coffee and croissants and then went to join our fellow trippers for the bus journey to the river.  The Mekong Delta is known as the rice bowl of Vietnam - a water world where boats, houses, restaurants and markets float on the rivers, canals and streams.  We transferred on to our boat at My Tho and sailed across the river to Dragon Island for a walk through the islands fruit gardens and then had lunch, locally caught cat fish, at a local restaurant.  Back on the boat we sailed further upstream and then docked to visit a rice paper, coconut candy and honey workshop.  After a ride in a horse drawn carriage we were rowed down one of the subsidiaries back to the boat.  All in all an OK day but not quite what certainly Diane had expected.  We didn't really see much evidence of life on the river and there was a lot of opportunities for shopping!  Still it was good to get to see the vast expanse of the river and learn a little bit about the area.  Back in Ho Chi Minh we had a quick drink before heading back to the hotel.  We initially went to a bar that's in Lonely Planet until we realised that the drinks were 3 fold the price of the local bars (still very cheap compared to prices at home but felt like a rip off).  We had dinner at a restaurant on the same street as our hotel, OK food but nothing memorable.  Another early start planned tomorrow with a trip to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels.  Hopefully it will be better value than today's!

The fruit gardens on Dragon Island

Lunch (for Simon!)

Local fishermen

A friendly water buffalo

Our luxury river boat!