Mekong Delta and the motorbike mafia

We started our Mekong tour with an organized group from Saigon, so the first places we visited were really touristy, but still we could get a nice insight into different things:

Visit of a old-fashioned brick factory

Inside of a brick oven

Concert of sleepy folk music

But it quickly got better as we jumped off the AC-bus into a weird kind of local tuk-tuk and then into a rowing boat.





The rowing boat took us into tiny canals of the Mekong, were we had great views of the palm mangrove.

The rowing lady

Mekong Canals through palm mangrove

Lunchbreak was great too just on the side of the canals, with fresh fish and fresh shrimp spring rolls!!

After that, we had chosen the option "homestay", which just turned out to be a hotel with nice wooden bungalows just outside a small village. We took a walk to the local market, still lively just before the night.

Local market, everyone does the shopping on the vehicle

skinned frogs, looking like miniature humans

(maybe that's why we use to play with them in biology lessons...)

Local Bánh Bao dispenser (sweet bun stuffed with pork and eggs, yummy!)


Dinner at our Hotel: again fresh fish and fresh roll-your-own spring rolls

The next day, we went to the main floating market of the region near the city of Can Tho.

Local fisher on the way to the market

Dragon fruit wholesale!!

Pineapple seller

Unmotorised boat going shopping

Just before lunch, we went to a tropical garden. That's where we found out how pineapple grow, but also dragon fruit: in a cactus?!

Baby Pineapple: 1 fruit for 1 plant

Dragon fruit cactus-like tree

But the real backpacker adventure started when we left the organized tour to slowly make our way to the Cambodian border.

Getting on our first bus after the package tour

Some 500kg of local fruit being loaded on the local bus on our way to Ha Tien,

the last town before the Cambodian Border.

We were received in Ha Tien by the "Motorbike Mafia". We had been warned that it would become more serious as we approached the Cambodian Border: we arrived at the local bus station after dark and there was no Taxi in sight to bring us to town (2km from the station). With our big backpacks and the 6 of us, it was out of question to go with motorbikes to town, but each time we were asking someone to call a taxi, the boss of the motorbike mafia would force him to say "no" which was becoming kind of scary. Luckily some "guarding angel" stepped out of a bus and ask us in perfect english what was going on. In spite of the obvious threat of the motorbikes mafia, he called us a taxi (and immediately left with his bus, afraid that something would happen to him). The Taxi brought the 6 of us to town to 1 USD (a motorbike would have cost at least 2 dollar per person...). We quickly found a good hotel in the center of town were we had a good night rest (though sometimes checking the streets if the boss of the motorbike mafia had follow us to town...).

Before taking a taxi to the Cambodian border (we had noted the number of the Taxi company after last night ride...), we went to the local market. The fish market was amazingly clean and interesting.