On the River

Trip Start Sep 03, 2004

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Vietnam Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Monday, September 19, 2005

After s long drive down to the delta we finally got to go on it. The first thing that really strikes you is just how brown the delta is. As we all know water is blue/clear right?? Not so, here its brown, like mud really. Anyway we boarded a boat and took a trip round the floating markets. These are very different to the ones in Thailand as these are less for tourists and more for local folk. It was starting to slow down for the day by the time we got there at 11am seeing as the markets start around 5am. Its just really amazing to see how these people completely live on a river as food and clothes are just strung up along the side and out the back of the boats.

The next day it was back on the delta but this time on a smaller boat. This was because we veered off from the main waterways to a side one to see how some of the people further back from the main delta live. Lots of tiny shacks really, some on the river some just off it. It is really strange how you can just see into some peoples houses and how they use the river for everything. For example as we were going along I noticed a lady washing her bowls and pans out in the water. Two doors down a bloke was having a wash in the river and just a few more metres down a cow was being bathed. As we were going up stream the lady washing her pans was doing the equivalent of us running a bath, washing a cow in it (not sure how you would get a cow in your bathroom but run with me on this one!) then having a quick wash yourself then finally get the dirty dishes from your previous meal and soak them in the dirty bath water!!. I don't know about you but it just sounds unthinkable and a bit disgusting but its just normal and part of everyday life here. Saying that I guess when you have no running water and can't afford to have any then you just have to go with what you have got really.

We didn't just stay on the delta we also got off a couple of times to experience some local food and music. We also tried the local specialty of Snake wine. Its basically rice wine but really strong. The reason its called snake wine is that they put venomous snakes into the bottle with the liquor and leave it a few months to soak in. Apparently the more venomous the snake the better the wines healing properties. So some of the bottles have 3 or 4 really poisonous snakes and a couple of scorpions in them just for good measure. The drink itself is quite potent and seeing as i'm(Rob) not a big spirit drinker it almost made me gag just smelling it. I tried it anyway and again almost gagged, to which the locals found very amusing. Nic fared a little better as the hardened spirit drinker of the two of us.

Overall the delta was really cool even though it rained for a lot of it, but hey what else can you expect during the rainy season eh!!

Hanoi hotels

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