Thursday 9th January

The bus journey to Can Tho was interesting… we get to the bus station around 9.30, J goes in search of breakfast whilst I keep an eye on the bags. Breakfast ends up being squid, shrimp and quails egg with noodles. The bus eventually arrives and the crew spend a lot of time loading cargo. We climb on board and all the seats are sleeper seats (just as well as I hardly slept last night). We get as comfortable as we can and settle in. We thought it would be a two hour journey but it becomes four, with many stops and cargo drops along the way. Eventually we are dumped at the side of the road just outside Can Tho and manage to get a Grab to pick us up. They take us to our hotel (Nam Bo Boutique hotel) and they’ve very kindly upgraded us to a corner suite, it has all round views of the Mekong, we can only stay one night unfortunately as Can Tho seems to have become full overnight. After sorting out another hotel for the other nights we’re here, we venture to the night market for some street food, and a general wander around. The streets are busy and noisy with mainly locals and Asian tourists, only a few Western tourists, lots of the locals keep calling out or waving at us! Once we’ve eaten we head back to cozy up in anonymity of our suite. I’m shattered and despite the noise outside have no trouble sleeping.

Friday 10th January

Leisurely start to the day (I’ve managed a 12 hour solid sleep to make up for the previous two nights where I had very little). Kick off with some yoga to stretch out whilst J goes for a walk and then we pack up and move down the street to our next hotel, fortunately we can stay for the weekend without having to move again. We move to The Lighthouse and have a really nice large apartment, once again with direct views on the Mekong, it’s noisy and crazy outside but strangely I rather like it. Once again we head out for a walk around the streets of Can Tho. This makes Ben Tre look like a quiet town… we eat at the hotel restaurant for a change (it’s ok) and then wander the streets again, we’re up at 4.30am tomorrow so need an earlish night.

Saturday 11th January

We’re met by our boatman, Mr Viet at 5am. He takes us to his small wooden boat, still very much in the dark and we’re off up the Mekong to visit the floating markets, for some reason the recommendation is to go early before it gets light and too hot. It takes about 40 minutes to arrive at Cha Rai (along with all the other large tourist boats) which is the area that the floating markets start and then we weave in and out of the large boats with their various cargos. Basically, Mr V points out that you can see what each boat sells by the bamboo mast with whatever they’re selling attached to said mast. It’s fascinating and frenetic! He takes us onboard a pineapple seller’s boat just as it’s getting light where we munch a bit of pineapple with chilli salt (delicious) whilst one of the women on board naturally tries to sell us a pineapple cutter amongst other things. I ask Mr V to explain that we are travelling and have no space in our bags for more stuff (I really don’t feel the need for a pineapple cutter either). Mr V magically comes up with some Banh Mi for breakfast which we also wolf down on the pineapple boat, back into our small wooden boat he soon finds the floating coffee boat and J enjoys his Vietnamese breakfast coffee. I have to admit it smells amazing but I’m still keeping off caffeine. We then head further upstream and we visit a noddle factory in some backwater off the MKD. J has a go at lifting the hot noodle off the skillet, moving it to the drying area (basically a pallet made of woven reed) and then we both have a go at cutting the dried noodles into strips, apparently hand cut noodles are far more desirable, although I’d argue against that with what I manage to produce! Back on to our wooden boat to make the journey back to Can Tho which takes about an hour and then we’re back on dry land. We head back to our hotel for a bit, it feels like lunchtime already but it’s only 9am! We’re off out again exploring Can Tho, dropping laundry, buying stuff we’ve run out of and I get my hair cut, risky on reflection given the language barrier but it comes out ok (and costs me a fiver!). We head back to have a nap, I then join a live yoga session. We then manage three rounds of Jaipur (I thrash J 3-0!) and then head our for food (again not particularly memorable). The streets are even busier on Saturday night, all the preparations for New Year (or Tet, as they call it here) are in full swing, I think people have started celebrating two weeks early, it’s definitely not going to be a quiet night, ear plugs at the ready!