3 Days on the Mekong Delta

Trip Start Feb 17, 2010

Trip End Feb 23, 2011

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Vietnam Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Thursday, April 8, 2010

Tired of the long bus journeys and wanting to see a bit of the country I was travelling through I decided to join a guy from Scotland and take 3 days to travel over the border and down the Mekong Delta. This turned out to be a fantastic idea, despite the trip being a little too "package tour" for my liking, its was very relaxing and I got to see the floating market on the river and see the local people just doing life rather than the big cities where the locals are all trying to cash in on the tourist trade.

On the first night me and the Scottish guy went to find a pub and see what was happening in the city. We found one bar that our tour guide recommended and was supposed to play “pop music” it was like being at a cheesy 80s disco! They were playing music like “Geoge Michael (Wham) Careless Whisper” which seem to be a Vietnamese favourite as it is played all the time on busses too

Charlie on the Mekong Delta

! The second place we tried was a nightclub playing Trance music, but the drinks were so expensive they were like London prices… I was wondering why so many Vietnamese people could afford to drink here as I looked around and saw guys with baseball caps ordering several bottles of expensive whiskey, and the girls were crowding round them rather than us (unlike other cities)…. It suddenly dawned on me when I noticed the amount of security in the place that this must be a local hangout for the drug-dealers and pimps of the city. At least this was the only logical reason I could think of considering the way they were dressed etc.

We had a small boat trip the next day to see a village and a fish farm, however when we went to the next pier at the river to board our punt boats, a local guy (who seemed to own the pier) came out yelling and wouldn't let the boats use his pier…. He did not look happy at all and was none too keen on tourists either! So we had to walk down further to the next one, but as we were in the process of boarding another local guy came out shouting and clearly not happy! Our boat drivers just shrugged and told us to get on quickly! It was quite amusing to see just how angry the guy was just because a few tourists walked down his pier!!

The other amusing thing was the tour guide did not speak good English, and he kept trying to tell us stories that either made no sense or were supposed to be some kind of joke, but only he seemed to find it funny… he also said things like “in 15 minutes later we arrive at water” He was brilliant :D

The last leg of the journey was a bus trip to Saigon, we were amused by seeing the number of motorbikes carrying ridiculous loads or people, animals, furniture or all three at once! The best was a guy with 2 pigs on the motorbike or a guy with 4 baskets full of live chickens! – Check out the photo of that one! :D

Eventually we arrived in Saigon and found a snazzy backpacker hostel. It was a good trip!

Hanoi hotels Slideshow