Early bus pickup at the hotel to drive 1.5hrs south to the Mekong Delta or more accurately the 9 Dragon Delta.
In Saigon the motorbikes have their own lane or stay to the side so the driving feels a little safer. The shops and the feel of the city are "just another capital city" not as "natural" as Hanoi.
We saw lots of rice fields and farms with graves and headstones often in the middle of the field. Before 1975 people were buried on the land where they died.
We were expecting to be in the midst of farms and orchards and fresh fruit markets but we were soon in a built up area, finally arriving at a major port. There were 5 islands nearby Ben Tre, Unicorn, Turtle, Dragon and Phoenix and several rivers converging. We are 17kms from the sea and 110kms from Cambodia.
As we queued to embark out vessel the step up looked somewhat challenging..... A sign of things to come!! Fortunately we had a lovely entertaining Cambodian captain (who sounded like he'd been inhaling helium) that made the crossing fun and he did his best to make our landings as easy as possible for this mobility-challenged tour party.
Once we arrived at Ben Tre island it was off to the coconut toffee making "factory/ grass hut". It was yummy different flavoured coconut toffees.
Walking through the different types of fruit trees we then arrived at a lady making rice paper.
Another short walk to these poor little horses and carriages. And yet another high knee lift onto a little metal step to get into the carriage. Don't worry about any smart remarks about cruelty to animals as we said them all!!!
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