Ho Chi Minh is a big, sprawling city full of motorbike noise and people squeezed onto pavements so, from time to time it’s nice to get out and see something of the countryside. Last weekend was a long one, a bit like England the week before, but for us it wasn’t a wedding it was May Day coupled with the liberation of Saigon on 30th April. We had Monday and Tuesday off, so to make my escape I joined three other teachers on a two day trip to the Mekong delta where the towns are smaller and the air fresher. These trips are cheap and easy to arrange from one of the many travel agents in the backpacker ghetto of Pham Nu Lao in the centre of the city.
The highlight of the two days came early with a boat ride from the Saigon River through the city down murky waterways cutting through the surrounding countryside to the town of My Tho. For once this was a comfortable boat ride in a speedy boat. Most of my other boat experiences in South East Asia have been long, noisy and involved hard wooden benches crammed with too many people. This one whizzed across the murky water even going past the university on it’s two hour journey to the delta.
The truth about the Mekong is that there really isn’t much to see. They take you to every small scale production facility doing things to the local crops that they can think of. So we visited a coconut candy factory, a nice noodle factory, a plain rice factory ( which was closed ) and a fruit orchard complete with folk singing locals. On day two they delivered boatloads of tourists wholesale to the floating market to eat pineapple and watch the river traffic go by. But the towns are small and quiet, with fewer motorbikes and cleaner rivers. It’s cheap, relaxing and simple and very well organised. We all came back happy and thinking about the next weekend away with the tour guides.
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