We wanted so see the renowned floating market of Can Tho in the Mekong Delta and so booked an overnight tour. The travel agent commented that we could take a boat from another town- Cau Doc – to Phnom Penh so we settled on that crazy way of getting to another country. Not as simple as we thought but with help from our tour guide (David ) it got all sorted out (hopefully).

Yesterday’s tour…

• There were six of us and David, our guide. We first visited Vinh Trang pagoda and spiritual center
• The next few stops were from a tourist boat used regularly on the Mekong river. We visited island towns with shops and something of interest – raising bees, making coconut candy, making rice noodles – some of which we’ve seen before on this trip but every version if different. We had a good lunch during the day and later had a long drive to Can Tho and to our lovely hotel that could use some face-lifting.

Visiting island towns

We had dinner on our own.. and enjoyed the surprising activities of this town. (See side bar below).

SIDE BAR: Never assume! The city of Can Tho is about 4 hours south of Saigon in the Mekong Delta River. We are here with a tour and staying overnight,and once again I’m astonished by the size and popularity of the city. We are staying a block away from two huge street sales and there are lights everywhere! The street is next to the Mekong River and that’s a busy park here too. Amazing! I now understand that there are many large cities in the Delta. I knew it was a agricultural area so was surprised!

Day 2 of the tour was to visit the old floating market which required getting on our boat by 4am! The good part of this tour was being on the water and seeing the sunrise. But there is no more floating market!! When we got “there” we saw only a few small boats as shown in the brochures and older photos. Instead there are various boats seemingly hired to provide some food or drink to the 20-30 tourist boats willing to enjoy it anyway – like us. Kinda silly. And we visited another local shop  where rice noodles were being made. 

We decided to buy a four hour pass for an “on off bus” so we could see more of of Ho Chi Minh City (District 1) before leaving tomorrow. It’s quite warm- it went up to 96 today. Our first “off” was just kilometer from the Bitexco Tower aka Sky Deck tower –  we wanted to see more of this city of 10 million people (and 8.5 motorcycles!). See below. 

We waited a bit for the next bus and went to the other side of District 1 to visit the War Remnants Museum. The museum has three floors and is focused mainly on the America war with a little bit of history about how they ousted the French in the 1950s. There a room with a descriptions and photos regarding the worst of the bombing in the 70s, another on American war crimes ( massacres), another highlighting the effect of agent orange and, among the reports, how the Vietnamese met the challenges in various ways. That’s just some of it. Of course the reports are one sided but there is much sad truth that it hurts to see it. The information is in Vietnamese and English and the museum was quite full with both locals and tourists. Outside were various war planes, tanks and helicopters. It was hard to take. 😟

Returning to the hotel we were surprised to see live entertainment for tea time!  The guitar & violin duo were a lovely treat. We relaxed, enjoyed roof top deck and though about our next plans to head south to see some of the Mekong Delta and then to head to Cambodia.

We left lovely Mui Ne at 8am the 2nd, looking forward to a regular sitting up bus promised by the tour agent across the street. Oh no – another sleeping bus! Foiled again, and not happy but away we went. Turns out the lower seats are not bad, but since we hadn’t reserved that one I had to move to up bunk again. For a while I sat next to a Vietnamese women who spoke English and sang with her two year old – that was good. The bus stopped for breaks twice and once in Ho Chi Minh City we were transferred to a van to take us downtown, and then a taxi…! We arrived at the Silverland Yen Hotel – very nice – around 3:30!

We walked a bit, found food and later retreated to the rooftop area to relax and enjoy the view. Later we headed to dinner at nice restaurant called Soul down the street that we heard about from other travelers from Minnesota.

Yesterday we started a little late and it was pretty warm by the time we went to the Reunification Palace. Before we went in talked with a large family touring together -staying in Hanoi and now HCMC for a month at a time. As usual we all talked about our travels and then we went in. I was expecting some more like a museum but it really a large, formal government building that formally housed the president of So. Vietnam, and has many formal rooms. The interesting part for Dirk was the bunker with the old radios.

After tea at the hotel (!) we checked out the well-known, very large Ben Thanh market very full of clothes, inexpensive souvenirs and some expensive jewelry (I wanted silver earrings but they said they were gold and want $100!- nope!) I did buy one inexpensive scarf thinking about the cold on the way home in March.

We joined some women we met in the roof top for dinner – nice!

We have been dragging our heels a bit in terms of moving on to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) (previously known as Saigon). It’s peaceful here and we enjoy hanging out on the beach with our young friends Kiki and Andy and one year old Lino when we walk that way in the afternoon. And we know Ho Chi Minh City will be loud and busy, although interesting too.

Yesterday our goal was once again to find a laundry and my goal was to finally swim in the ocean. After leaving our laundry we wandered to the kite surfing shady spot on the beach and relaxed and later Kiki, Andy and Lino arrived. Andy later went out kite surfing and I swam in the ocean and played with Lino a bit.

Today, February 1st, we started out slow due to stomach concerns but still walked a mile or so in new direction  and found a lovely beach and some interesting wall art.

After a cooling swim in the pool and lunch we found what we thought was a pharmacy but was actually a doctor’s office and pharmacy. Dirk was diagnosed and given five different medicines to cure his digestive problems… for $35!

We found Andy, Kiki and Lino at the beach – we were sorry we had missed their kite surfing earlier. After a while we headed to their favorite dinner spot where I again had veggie Pho (4 people, $10) and later said our goodbyes since we are traveling in the morning. We were lucky to have been able to enjoy their company!