South Vietnam & The Mekong Delta

Trip Start Jun 20, 2010
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Trip End Dec 23, 2010


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Where I stayed
Floating Hotel

Flag of Vietnam  , An Giang,
Saturday, October 30, 2010

We arrived in Nha Trang and weren't sure if we had boarded a plane to the wrong place. We seemed to have arrived in the Vietnamese equivalent of Ibizia. Not exactly what we were looking for but we had headed to Nha Trang with a purpose ... for Kate to get her open water PADI diving certificate and Ivor his advanced. We spent the next three days diving (and for Kate studying - yuk) and after three days both successfully passed. While we were in Nha Trang we decided to indulge ourselves a little bit and to ease our tired, cramped muscles so off we went for a massage where Ivor got offered a bit more than he was wanting to pay for! We also went to the mineral mud baths which was a fun afternoon of wallowing like hippos.


We braved another night train to Saigon (also known as Ho Chi Minh City). We had been warned that the scooter situation was worse than Hanoi and while there are certainly a lot more of them on the road somehow the city seems better equipped for them (or maybe after nearly a month in Vietnam it is us who is better equipped for them!)
Kate putting her equipment together
Kate putting her equipment together
 
Comments!
. We spent our first afternoon walking around the city and visited the War Remnants Museum. Despite what we had heard from other travellers, neither of us were quite prepared for some of the images that we saw while we were there – they were horrific.


The next day we travelled to see the Cao Dai Great Temple and watched their noon ceremony (Cao Dai is an indigenous religion to Vietnam and a combination of Christianity, Muslim and Buddhist beliefs). We then stopped at the Chu Chi tunnels (the tunnels were a part of the network used by the Viet Cong to fight the Americans during the Vietnam War). The primitive looking traps that were used were brutal and the tunnel system truly amazing. We decided to try and do a 'tunnel run’ (approximately 100m underground). Ivor had to crawl to get through and Kate managed to stay crouched and that was in tunnels that have been reconstructed to three times the size of the original ones. Ivor did try and got into an original hole ...you can watch the video to see how that worked out!


We wanted to take a trip to the Mekong Delta so opted for a three day boat trip all the way to Cambodia. The trip took us up the Delta where we saw people living their everyday lives. We travelled to islands, through floating villages, went to the Cai Rang floating market, a rice factory, a rice paper factory and stayed on a floating hotel (although it was very near the shore if it had sunk – and there were times during the night when that seemed like a possibility!)


Off to Cambodia we go, we are crossing the border by boat and don’t have our visas yet ...
Slideshow

Comments

Ali T. on

Ivor got offered a Rub & Tug? Amazing.

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