Mekong Delta – 9th – 11th January 2012

* NEW PHOTO ALBUM - CLICK 'VIEW MY GALLERY' ON THE RIGHT OF THE SCREEN *

Mekong Delta

I’ve just finished a three day tour around the Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is in the south east of Vietnam and is well known as one of the biggest areas for producing rice in the world. We went to a number of towns on the tour including My Tho, Ben Tre, Can Tho, Long Xuyen and Chau Doc which is pretty much all the major town in the delta. I was expecting it to be very underdeveloped but it wasn’t.

Lunch with some good people I met

We saw a number of things over the three days. On the journey we saw lots of rice fields before the first stop which was a pagoda with two giant statues. We then had lunch on one of the 4 Islands called Tortoise Island. We didn’t see any tortoises which was disappointing. The other Islands are called Dragon, Phoenix and Unicorn Islands so I doubt there will be any of them on those Islands either.

Floating market at Cai Rang

For the rest of the day we went to see a coconut candy factory and saw some Vietnamese folk music. This was pretty funny – not the best entertainment but I’ve added a video so you can watch for yourself.

On the second day we went to a floating market followed by a visit to a rice noodle making factory and an orchard garden. It’s a sign of the times when you find rice noodle making factories and coconut candy factories interesting!

Dragon fruit in the orchard garden

As I've not left HCMC for 5 months it was very nice to have some peace and quiet. I was surprised how much I’d missed it. In the orchard garden there were some amazing fruits being grown including dragon fruit and jack fruits which are huge.

We also went to a crocodile farm which I was really up for but didn’t realize that the crocodiles are raised so they can be sold for meat and made into shoes and handbags. There were over 4,000 crocodiles on this farm some of them were enormous.

Fitting in with the locals

On the last day we went to visit a fish farm and a minority village. Minority villages create images in the mind of places miles from anywhere. This one was just of a main road and maybe a kilometre from a big town so its a bit like someone visiting Poole and taking them to Lytchett Matravers to visit a minority village. It was still very good as all the houses were on stilits where the Mekong river floods.

I've still got another three weeks off work and am in the process of planning a trip to Cambodia to stay by the seaside.

Folk guitarist - not happy.

Finally - my ‘picture of the week’ this week is of the guitar player at the Vietnamese folk music place. He looks like he really doesn’t like his job. It’s probably the same expression I had on my face when I worked in the Bank.

Ive uploaded a new ablum so have a look at some of the pics. They're pretty good.