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Hope everybody had a cracking new year!!
January 2nd 2012.. our last port of call in Vietnam!!
We jumped on our tour bus to Ben Tre Province where we later caught a motor boat to a few attractions along the Mekong river. Our first stop was a brick factory and although it sounds pretty boring.. we actually found it rather interesting and learnt quite a lot. The next stop kept loads of bee's and made their own honey, which we got to try in tea.. Lucy found it really nice but Peter pulled his face. We then got to sit down and enjoy a little performance from a blind performer, whilst enjoying the music they gave us different tropical fruits to try.. yum yum!
Then it was Lucy's favourite part of the day, we went to a coconut processing workshop. Here they made all sorts of different flavoured coconut candy... We got shown the whole process, and got a few pieces to taste.
Our next mode of transport were large tuk-tuks where 8 people squeezed onto each one. These took us through some local villages and lovely countryside. We then reached a small river where we got onto longtail boats. These are very small boats which fit 3 or 4 people in, with a lady on the back end rowing whilst stood up. We were on these boats for around 10 minutes going down palm creek. We then had lunch at a restaurant, this included spring rolls, a big fish in the middle of the table (which they used to make us some pancakes) and somekind of soup!! After lunch we jumped back on our bus which took us to the biggest city in the mekong delta, Can Tho. This is where we stayed the night. We had a walk down to the riverside and ate at a cheapish local restaurant called Mekong. Lucy thought about a snake dish..... but decided she was starving and wanted something she actually might of liked!!
The following day we were up nice and early to visit Can Tho floating market. On the river there's lots of boats selling all different fruits, vegetables and drinks etc. Boats came up along side our boat and we could buy stuff off them. It seemed as though each boat only sold one product.... so a boat would go by with just bananas on, then another boat would go by with just pineapples on it!! We bought a pineapple which looked like a huge lollipop, Lucy boarded the other boat to make the purchase (check out the photos and Lucy's attempt of a pineapple head!)
We then headed to a fruit farm, where we got to try even more tropical fruits!! We later had lunch and then had a long bus ride to a town called Chau Doc which was near the Cambodian border. In Chau Doc we got taken to a local restaurant for dinner..... didn't really enjoy it that much because we were more bothered about all the god damn flies in the place!!
Our last day in Vietnam arrived....
We boarded a small rowing boat, with just a lady rowing stood up at the back. She was a very friendly lady and we got told these people were very poor. She rowed us around a very large floating village where apparently approx 6000 people live. We visited a local fish farm.... not that interesting apart from our guide chucking in food to the fish and they all go crazy. We then got rowed to a village where we could see them making silk clothing and handicrafts etc. On departing our boat we gave our lady rower a 50,000 vietnamese dong tip!!! (about £1.50) .... boy did she appreciate it, she had a beaming smile from ear to ear and start hugging us and waving the 50,000 note around so all could see what she had received. Put a smile on our faces anyways
We then jumped onto a slow motor boat which took us to the cambordian border, the journey was good with beautiful scenery and scorching sunshine! We arrived at the border a couple hours later..... where we had to wait and wait and wait!!!!
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