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The air was already hot and sticky as we sat down for our 6:45 breakfast on the rooftop of the hotel. My camera worked perfectly last night-but won't turn on this morning. I'm bummed, but I have my phone and Molly has her camera. Soon after, we began our bike tour under a grey, cloudy sky-the kind that looked like it could open up into a torrential downpour at a moments notice. Biking in Vietnam is interesting to say the least. There are no traffic lights or stop signs... it's a chaotic mess where the person with the loudest horn always has the right of way(which as Molly pointed out, means EVERYONE thinks they have the right of way). We've gotten used to it-finally realizing that the key is to keep moving and stay as close to the edge of the road as possible(I'd rather land in a bush than under a bus!).
Passing babies in bicycle baskets and motorbikes hauling carts full of pigs, we weaved our way through the narrow streets of Saigon(Ho Chi Minh City) to open country roads on our journey to the Mekong Delta. The road is sporadically paved, but constantly bumpy (thankfully we're on mountain bikes today). At first we pass the (now)familiar rice fields and small markets, but the farther south we travel it starts to feel as though we just stepped into the Jungle Book. The greenery so thick and dense, emitting this mysterious vibe that leaves you feeling like a tiger could be lurking mere meters from you. After about 20km(our bums are going to be sore tomorrow!) we finally arrive at the docks to board the motorboat that takes us to the coconut farm. The yummy coconut and peanut candy didn't make up for seeing all of the dead snakes in a pickling jar(our tour guide offered some to us-can you guess what my answer was?). After that we walked to a little hut for some fruit(they had my favorite- rambutans!) and ba ba ba's while we waited for the row boat to take us down the canal. Here there was a humongous, real(ie very much alive) python chilling about a meter from our table. Thankfully it was in a cage, but every few minutes some kid would kick the cage and/or take it out for a picture...needless to say I was standing up a lot in preparation for a quick escape.
Rowing down the canal(see uploaded photos) was one of the coolest things we have ever done. The muddy river below us and the thick canopy of trees above us-we were enchanted by the beauty and serenity. However, the canopy could not hold out the water that suddenly flooded from the heavens. As we were stuck(up a creek-but we had a paddle) we started to sing "In the Jungle" (
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