Our trip started in Saigon and after a few hours we adopted to the vietnamese behavior of ‘snacking through the day’ – just like the hobbits in middleearth. Our record were 8 food/cafe stops in one day … Besides the food (which is amazing) we enjoy the open-hearted and superfriendly vietnamese people and the beautiful landscape.
Ok, enough writing – check out some of the photos

We booked a local minibus trip from Saigon to Can Tho. The trip was a very comfortable ride in a new car. The driving was still crazy, but the highway was a bitumen road all the way at least. We arrived in Can Tho and were determined to make our way do find the house of a distant relative of Yen. Supposedly they knew who we were ..

It took us a while to find the place. Finding the road was not so much the problem. We managed that quickly with the map of Can Tho in the Lonely Planet. Finding the house number on the other hand… luckily we knew the name of the suburb and found out that number start from zero again in each suburb. So we arrived and Yen did her best explaining who we were. Luckily it was Sunday so a distant aunt of Yen was at the address and she knew who we were… she called up Yens aunt and her uncle picked us up with another uncle. On the back of two scooters we went down to Phung Hiep and further into the country to saty with Yens aunt.

The next days we spent with Yens relatives before we flew out from Saigon to fly back home. In Saigon itself we just spent a day exploring museums, shopping at the markets and hanging out. Saigon was not really our cup of tea, but the days before in the country were very memorable and revealed a lot about the local life in Vietnam. Following is a mixture of stories and impression from those days in no particular order:

On the first evening I became part of a men’s drinkng session. I had a few rice wines then. It seemed to be important to be a good drinker to be accepted. I didn’t have a problem with that ;-) . In fact during another evening with local Saigon beer I acquired a bit of a taste for it.

One evening Yen’s uncle had some snakes for a drinking session. Funnily he said that he bought two but while he killed and prepared one the other one escaped. I asked how it is possible to still buys snakes in Phuong Hiep althought it is illegal. The answers was ‘I didn’t Know that. But that is probably why they are a lot more expensive then they used to be’. In fact we could see street stand with snakes for sale in Phuong Hiep during one of our day trips.

Nearly every plant you can see is actually planted and can be used for something. The Mekong delta is amazingly fertile. Grass growning along the street is actually lemon grass. There are coconut palm trees everywhere. Sweet potatoes, pineapple, papayas and all sorts of other fruits are growing in every corner. Even the floating plants on the water are used for fertilizers.

The canals and rivers are a central place for everything. Unfortunately this also means that washing is done in the same river into which the sewage runs untreated. Due to the heat it is still nice to have a splash. but sooner or later this is going to be become a problem. We both had a swim though. No local seems to be aware of this though, and they wouldn’t beleive a tourist either. When a woman sprained her ankle and we told her to put ice on she just believed us for a while. Half an hours later the local advice was more valuable again and heat was applied. Not surprisingly the swelling and pain got worse. I actually broke the plank of a jetty with my niece in my arms due to the rotten wood and fell. The ice worked fine for me ;-)

Drying anything on the road is very common. You will see rice, incense sticks, coconut leaves, coconut shells, and all sorts of other stuff is dried right on the highway and all other roads or concrete surfaces that are available. And the trucks, buses and scooters drive by in about 10cm distance, while people are sorting, turing around, collecting and spreading out things.

A lot of reuse of resources is already happening though. ane from pigs is used to runa gas cooking system. Most chicken feeding huts seem to be above a little pond full of fish living of the chicken . At Yen’s grandma the toilet for everybody is a mini jetty over the same pond. My first test was a wet and painful exercise. I had to go in the evening, so as soon as my pants was down mosquitoes attacked my bum like crazy. And then I got splashed from the fish a o. They only told me afterwards that the fish are a lot more active in the evening. Thanks ;-)

We also hired a bigger boat and took quite a few people to a trip to another part of the Mekong delta to visit some other relatives. It was all a party when we got there. Like everywhere the dogs were running around but a little while later we didn’t see one particluar dog anymore… and found out that a special treat for dinner was the dog. The kids and everybody seemed to love it. Yen refused and I am vegetarian anyway. We kept to all the other goodies including yummy fruits like mangoes, lychees and so on.

Being a vegetarian in Vietnam was a interesting experience especially in Can Tho. One of Yens uncles bought some vegetarian meals for me to take along and it had weird type of tofu things in it. It turned out to be fake meat in different tastes and forms. I had roast pig, chicken giblets, all sorts of mock seafood and a few other ‘treats’. Definitely an experience not to be missed for any vegetarian (and also non-vegetarians). There are a few very nice places that offer these dishes near the temples in Can Tho. The coolest thing I found was mock vegetraian s with some seafood … hahah .. like s aren’t vegetarian already.

Two evenings Yen and myself went spearfishing with a few kids. Our head torches were a loved goodie. The boys had little self made spear and tried to catch anything that moved in the dark in the water. They also used bowls succesfully. It was a lot of fun to see the kids all hyped up about chasing some little crab and participating in the whole action. I didn’t catch anything though ;-)

After all these adventures going back to Saigon just showed us that we were tired and exhausted. We explored the big city and its markets a bit but were happy to leave and be able to relax at home for a while before we go back to work ;-)

All summed up we had a great time in Vietnam and will probably be back at some stage. If there wouldn’t be all these other countries we also want to see…

Meanwhile stay tuned for some pictures from our Vietnam trip on this site sometime soon.

Past the Nha Trang cathedral along the train station we went to visit the Long Son Pagoda. We checked out the local temple complex and went up the hill to see the gigantic white seated Buddha statue on top of the hill.

From there we went through the hustle and bustle of the center of town over the Cai river bridge to visit the Po Nagar Cham Tower. This temple showed us a glimpse of what My Son must have been like in the past. Relaxing with a nice ice coffee in the shade of the trees around the temple and a view over the river we had a nice break past the hottest hour of the day. Around midday most locals usually find some shady area for midday nap or so, since the heat from 11:30 to 13:30 can be quite unbearable.

Afterwards we jumped on the cyclo again and went a bit further north to Hon Chong Promontory, where a little rocky peninsula protrudes the sandy beaches. Scrambling around the rocks and marveling at the giant hand print on one rock we had a great time in the sea breeze. A nice fresh cold baby coconut for each of us after our rock scrambling and walk was heaven.

Before we headed home again on the cyclo I had a few meters of a test drive on the cyclo with Yen on the front seat. My legs are WAY to long for the geometry of the cyclo and Yen definitely didn’t trust my cycling skills. Although there were not cars around at all ;-))

After a quiet evening we left Nha Trang the next day heading south along the coast to Mui Ne beach. We were hoping to find a nicer beach and a quiet atmosphere there. Our dissappointment was quite big when we got there. Onshore winds brought all the rubbish floating around at sea onto the beach and made it anything but appealing to relax there. We stayed at the Austria Vietnam house and enjoyed the pool … our curiosity of another Vietnamese/Austrian couple lead us to this place.

The next day we went for a cycling trip to the fairy canyon and wandered along the river there. The cycling got us to look forward to the pool again. Mui Ne seems to be a nice place. You could even hire a proper windsurfing or kitesurfing equipment there. It seems to be good for windsurfing normally. Check out http://www.windsurf-vietnam.com/ for more. Unfortunately luck was not with us and we decided to head on. We left Mui Ne the same day heading south towards Saigon.

The bus trip to Saigon took the rest of the day and we arrived exhausted in the big city. All we did was get accomodation, organise ticket to Can Tho, eat and fall asleep. The next day we left with a local mini bus to Can Tho. This local transport only cost 35000 dong and was a lot more comfortable than the tourist trips we had in the days before…
and it got us to the Mekong Delta just fine.

The access to the site was under construction so we got to be driven up the road with 4WD jeeps. Nice! Then it was another short hike to the overgrown ruins. That was all we needed to get more wet from sweating under the plastic than from the rain. Plastic raincoats in the tropics ar e not a good idea. Eventually the rain lessened a bit too we stuffed these crappy raincoats back to where they belong. In their own little plastic bag… what a relief, our skin could breathe again. The ruins themselves are a bit scattered in a tropical forest setting at the back of a wider valley. There wasn?t really much to see at the ruins themselves though. Everything looks like a pile of red bricks left in the jungle, which over the years have been overgrown with the local vegetation. We enjoyed walking around nevertheless and even found a wild star fruit tree ;-)

On the way back from My Son to Hoi An we boarded a boat and went on a river cruise with a stop at a wood carving workshop in a local village along the river. We marveled at all the wood work available and the good prices you can get. An advantage is that you can do personal orders from overseas as well. Something to keep in mind for the future, when we want to buy a nice garden furniture set or so.

Back in Hoi An we went for a dinner and prepared for departure again. The bus to Nha Trang was waiting. The trip started at 7:00 in the evening and proofed to be a hell of a trip. For sure the worst bus ride I ever had in my life. The road from Hoi An to Nha Trang is mostly a gravel road with the exceptional stretch of bitumen. There are potholes like you wouldn’t believe on highway number one in any country. In addition the overnight traffic is busy, fast and definitely dangerous. There were a few accidents on the way and some near misses on our behalf. We could constantly hear the suspension of our bus going wild and our bus driver going crazy with the horn and overtaking. I don’t think anybody really slept on this trip. The only cool thing were the views we got now and then especially towards our arrival.

You can imagine what we felt like when we arrived in Nha Trang .. ready for a shower and bed. This is exactly what we did. At least for a while anyway. Then we went to eat something and explore Nha Trangs beach. Nha Trang itself is a bigger town with a long beach strip and islands scattered in the sea in the surrounding area. The really nice thing about visiting Nha Trang is actually not Nha Trang, but the islands. This is why we booked a island hopping day trip for the next day.

So the next day we joined a group of local showmen on a Mama Linhs boattrip and had a ball. We went for some snorkeling and were less than impressed. This also decided for me that going for a dive trip will not be worth it either. But we enjoyed the band on board playing musically wrong and singing badly, but with all their heart and soul. They sang an Australian song for us .. a kanagaroo song they called it… Waltzing Matilda .. hahaha… and then the Austrian song had to be replaced by a German one … Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht. And yes.. we had to sing along. And yes, people started dancing on board. It was just crazy. We had an awesome time.

We also went for a swim around a floating bar with some bad wine everybody drank delightfully. We went for a ride in the local basket boats and hung out on the beach of one of the resort islands. All in all a great day. We got plenty of food during the day but when we got back we were hungry anyway … luckily we made a discovery the day before. We found a local vegetarian restaurant called Au Lac, which provided some great meals for incredible low prices. It was even cheap for a local eatery. Au Lac actually means eating vegetarian, but that didn’t really give the food enough credit.

The next day we stayed in Nha Trang to check out the town a bit more.