We started at HCMC, getting picked up from our hotel in an air-con mini-van. I suspect using air-con doesn't help with the transition to this climate, but there is nothing so lovely as actually cooling down at the end of a hot sticky day of sightseeing, or on a long journey to a new town. In the minivan were our two fellow travellers, Jenny and Anna, a lovely pair of friends, also from Britain, who turned out to be great fun and good company over the next day. Together we all zoomed up to Cai Be, which is a small town where we were supposed to see our first floating market and join the boat.
After a non-existent market, we were taken to a settlement where we were to see the making of some Vietnamese foods. I'm a bit wary of these after the kung-fu demo on the Hué trip, but this one was really good. Because there were only four of us who were english-speaking, we were able to ask more questions and get a better tour than the larger french group, and it worked out really well. Hom, our english-speaking tour guide, was really helpful and keen to answer our questions, plus he was more laid back so that was much nicer. He explained how the sweet rice cakes are made (taste a bit like rice krispie marshmallow cakes) and coconut candy and rice paper. Then we sat down and had some green tea.
How proud do I look on this photo? Hom suggested to JP that he could try the snake wine, which is rice wine with snakes and scorpions and who knows what marinated in it. It is alleged to have medicinal properties for virility and back pain. JP mentioned it to me and it seemed an ideal opportunity to try it without having to buy a bottle - after all, I've drunk water from a stream with a dead sheep in it before, so how bad could this be? Granted I didn't know about the sheep at the time, whereas this time the snake's glassy dead eyes were staring at me from the jar, but still, this is what travelling is all about. 
Of our travelling companions, Anna was game, but Jenny took a little persuading, but in the end we all tried it. It was very like whisky and I don't know about medicinal properties, but it certainly warmed the insides.Then it was onwards to meet the boat; it is fantastic. It is a large boat with about 15 cabins, each en-suite, quite similar to the one we went on in Ha Long Bay, but this one is better as it had a separate lounge, plus two sun-decks with more seating on. We also had a balcony in our cabin. This was especially useful for leaving shoes on, thus saving the air in the cabin, and also later turned out to be a great way to slowly come round after the 5:50am awakening from the engine.
The itinerary after joining the boat was to go sailing on the delta whilst having lunch then relaxing on the sundeck, then to have a wander on shore to carry out what Jenny referred to as "a scratch and sniff tour" of a local farm and try some of the fruit grown in the delta, before dinner, when we'd be sailing again. It was wonderful, sailing down the rivers, waving to the children on the banks, looking at the brick kilns and fish farms, seeing the strange Cao Dai churches with their "all-seeing eye" painted on the front. The delta is really different to the rest of the country; both of the strange home-grown religions of Vietnam still have their heartland here, Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, and the reliance on water makes traditions more important somehow, as life still follows the patterns laid out by the wet and dry season and regardless of a changing world, these seasons still decide how life is lived here.
At the farm tour we saw banana flowers on banana trees and pineapple plants (I was very excited by both of these - I always wondered what their plants looked like and pineapples were a big surprise). We tried jack fruit, pomelo and another fruit I didn't catch the name of, but reminded JP of a cross between a peach and a fig. My favourite was the jack fruit, but since that was sweet as candy, there is no surprise there.
Dinner was fun as the four of us Brits were company and kept ourselves entertained swapping stories for the evening, and then it was time for bed, especially as the sunrise would be at 5:50am and is one of the must-see's on the delta apparently.
Dutifully I arose at the appointed time to find JP was far too perky, having been awake since 3am, thanks to "passing traffic" as he put it. Clearly the earplugs didn't work this time... anyway, he was lively and all set with camera in hand to go do his David Bailey impression. We went out onto the balcony and it was beautiful. The misty light and the red sun on the hoizon made it seem magical, and grumpy though I was, I agreed it was worth it.After a leisurely breakfast on the sundeck, we transferred onto a smaller boat to go to the floating market of Can Tho. This was fab, a flotilla of boats all gathered to trade their wares. The bigger boats of the farmers come in for a few days at a time with their crops, and then the market traders come in their boats and buy the crops to take to the land markets in the region. There are smaller boats of people, mostly women, who provide cooked food or drinks, and given the large number of tourists who visit, there are boats serving the tourists refreshments too. It's a lively show.
After the floating market, we had a wander round Can Tho, and then had lunch on the big boat again. JP and I were then off on our transfer to Chau Doc, a town near the Cambodian border where we'd pick up the boat to take up up the Mekong to Phnom Penh.
I can't believe we'll be in a new country tomorrow and starting the Cambodian part of the adventure!
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