We bypassed Saigon, and carried on south. This part of trip was a little more tiring as we had felt we were ready for a break from the bikes, but to carry on with our guides we couldn't stop, so we pressed on. We stopped off during the midday heat at one of the many roadside coffee shops, which had become a daily habit. The coffee in Vietnam is really delicious. They use a tiny filter which is put on top of your cup and gradually drips through, when it is ready, it is extremely strong and sweet, almost syrupy, and gives you a nice buzz! There were no chairs, only hammocks for you to lie back and relax in, it's a very hard life!! At this particular one, one of the women came up to me with a big smile and just gave me her baby!! I didn't understand her at first but eventually got the idea and took her from her, she was very cute and didn't really know what to make of me, she kept looking at her mum to make sure I was safe, her mum said something to reassure her then she looked back at me and grinned!! I was a bit embarrassed really as I was totally filthy and sweaty (nice) holding her child. I pointed at my black feet and tried to convey that it was horrible, but I didn't think she understood!! Later on I noticed that poor baby was being given a bath out the back, and was put in some really cute clean clothes, before being given back to me!!! I really hope she didn't think I said her baby was dirty! I took some photos of her, and the whole family gathered round to see, it was really sweet!! At another coffee place, the family we all sitting in the hammocks next to us, and didn't stop smiling and staring and taking about us, 2 little kids came up to us a couple of times all shy, but I couldn't work out what they wanted, the whole family kept laughing,then the mother tried to tell me what it was in actions, I eventually noticed that the coconut sweets we had seen being made and had bought had fallen out of my bag, and they really wanted one, so I gave quite few away (Craig wasn't too pleased as he loved those sweets!!hehe!!)

One of the worst things about the Mekong Delta was all the ferries. The Mekong is the second largest river in the world (after the Amazon) and there are a lot of other rivers and canals around this area, making the ferry the only way to get around (the bridges haven't been built yet) The motorbikes were so packed on you could barely walk between them, and we were stared at so much it started to get a bit intimidating as you were so close up to so many people. People will stare and stare, even if you look at them they don't turn away, and it was pretty much the whole boat! A lot of people were very friendly saying hello and shaking our hands, but as we were a lot closer to the capital city of the Mekong Delta, people seemed a bit less friendly than in the remote countryside. Apart from the ferry crossings, we had a really good experience again, and were taken to places other tourists don't see. We came off the ferry at Ben Tre, and followed our bikes down these tiny little winding backstreets to get to a small dock, where we left the bikes. Another baby was fascinated by us, and when the dad brought him over the cheeky monkey tried to grab my boob!! I think he was confused/hungry!! This sent everyone there into hysterics much to my embarrassment!! We got a little tiny boat over to an island where we were to stay that night, and came back across again for dinner, where we ate at a family's home down one ofthe little backstreets. They cooked us a delicious meal of piles of huge prawns, and elephant fish which was deep fried and propped up on the table whole, and then shredded for us to put into fresh springrolls!

The next morning before we set off, we had a look around the hotel grounds which for some reason had a small zoo, crocodiles and emus mainly. This was also where the coconut candy was made, so it was pretty random!! When we drove off, a group of school students who volunteer around the area started shouted hello at us, which quickly turned into a chant, then a full blown song as we drove off down the road!!! It was bizarre!! Our second Mekong day was to see the countryside, and we were taken off down these tiny little dirt track roads, all through the forest and along the canals. We saw so many different types of fruits being grown, and a guy gave us some freshly cut rambutans he was collecting.We stopped off in a tiny little village as An needed some petrol and we saw some Durian fruit being sold, the family invited us in and gave us some to try, they didn't ask for any money, just wanted us to enjoy it! Their children were so lovely and were jumping around in the background shouting 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 over and over again!! We have eaten so much fruit over the last few days as people have just kindly given it to us to try, we went to a little market after a huge noodle breakfast one day, and the other easy rider we met bought us so much, tiny sticky rice and banana cakes wrapped in banana leaves, huge chunks of pineapple, little doughnut cakes, dragon fruit, I was so stuffed!! Before the durian, we had stopped at a coconut "factory" (not really a factory as everything was done by hand) where they remove the shells of thousands of coconuts all day and peel the second shell, there was even a 5 or 6 year old peeling them with a pretty sharp knife. We were given some to try here too (washed in tap water, eeek!) which was much tastier than what you can buy in England.

After our lovely countryside trip we ended back on the huge dusty main road, which was were we spent a lot of the rest of the time in between stops, the dust really stung your eyes, and the sun was scorching hot (we burnt every day) We arrived in the town of Can Tho for our second (and evermore random) evening. We had dinner on a huge tacky cruise ship, full of twinkling fairy lights and a stage for karaoke!! We though this was a big tourist place or something (as Can Tho is where everyone goes on the Mekong Delta tours), but again there were no tourists in sight…it was just a big Vietnamese Saturday night out!! It was manic, the open deck top floor was crammed and our guide practically fought over a table with someone else!! It was quite expensive so we didn't eat that much, but drank lots! A couple opposite us kept staring and smiling, and eventually asked if they could take a picture of us!! Weird!! An eventually got drunk and started talking to them for the rest of the night, but Xuan, the younger guide (who was trained by An) came into his own when away from An, and when he gots drunk!! He rambled on and on, and was really funny…the conversation got a little bit too serious at one point when he started saying how bad his government is, and how lucky we are to have seen what we have traveling and he would love to take his wife and children even to this part of the county on his bike, but he cant. It was really sad…and made us feel very lucky…but as quickly as that conversation had come up, it stopped and he became hilarious again, taking the piss out of An, calling him a Farmer(apparently that's an insult!!) and saying how grumpy he can be and that lots of other easy riders don't put up with him!! An took it upon himself to do karaoke (pretty badly). So far everyone who had sung had sounded pretty good, but not An, he warbled on and on, but it made everyone laugh at least, and was in front of 100's of people which takes some courage!

The next day we though would be the standard river trip every tourist pays for when they come down here, to see the floating markets. It turned out that for 5 pounds in total, we had a long boat all to ourselves, and we counted 22 tourists in the other boats, we had our own little private tour, and even got to go onto one of the boats, selling pineapples, which we bought 2 of, and were happily munching on top of the tiny boat, watching the other tourist saying "how have they got to do that?!!" The rest of the tour was pretty much the same as everyone else did, all down the little side canals, and was really pretty. We got back to the hotel by 10.30am, and set off back in the direction of Saigon (more ferries!), stopping for a night in My Tho, a waterfront market town, for another yummy dinner of springrolls and stuffed Vietnamese pancakes. We wrote our entry in their recommendation book as we were leaving the next day, and I was so sad that our adventure was over, I actually cried a little bit!!(oh dear!) The whole thing has been such an amazing experience I really didn't want it to be over, even though we were both total exhausted, and sunburnt! It felt really nice not to be treated as just a tourist everywhere we went, and for people to be genuinely excited to see you and say hello, rather than just trying to sell you something, you felt really welcome, despite you really being an intrusion.

Our last day was the journey back to Saigon. We had our usual Pho for breakfast (spicy noodle soup, with lots of herbs) and rocket fuel coffee! We stopped off at the famous snake farm of the area, which was pretty scary as it turns out there are a lot of deadly snakes in Vietnam! The zoo was pretty horrible though, and they had 5 black bears there, in the smallest cages…they were just rocking backwards and forwards. The farm uses the snakes to get antivenin, and apparently the bears produce something which is used in medicines (I think he said gallstones) they are only allowed out into the grassy enclosure once a week, and for the rest of the time have to stare at it from their cage, it was horrible. There were cats, otters, a very rare yellow turtle and tons of snakes all in very confined spaces, so this wasn't a highlight.

We also stopped at a few other places along the way, before being driven into the manic Saigon. Apparently much worse than Hanoi which we have already experienced, but this time on a motorbike. It is amazing, but there never seems to be any problems despite traffic zooming in from all directions, the thousands of bikes just seem to weave in and out of one another without collision. It was still pretty scary!! We arrived at the hotel at about 1, and said goodbye to our guides, before crashing out for the rest of the day…Today we didn't get up until about 1, and are finding it hard to adapt to the craziness of this place, it is so hectic, and of course we are back to saying "no-thank you" every 2 minutes again!...I want the bike back!!