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Home/2005 photos/Vietnam/Mekong Delta boat trip

From Saigon I took a boat trip down to the Mekong Delta The Mekong Delta trip that I booked left just across from my hotel. We loaded up on a great little boat (about 16 of us in total) and spent the better part of the day just lazily drifting along, watching the river go by and the scenery change as we left the city behind. Lunch was served on the boat and later in the afternoon we split up into groups and left our larger boat in exchange for smaller craft which ferried us around to some tourist sites like 'traditional villages' where we could see 'traditional crafts' and pole through canals 'just like the locals.' While really touristy, it was still nice to have a little variety in the day, and to see some glimpse into how things used to be (even if it's not really accurate to how things are today). We spent the night in Can Tho, which we got to by taking a short mini-bus ride late in the day and then a ferry over to the city. Our hotel was pretty cheap, which was fine by me and dinner was at a cheaper place as well but the food was fine and was accompanied by some snake wine. The next morning we boarded a longtail boat which took us upriver to the floating markets which is quite a sight to see. It was really interesting to watch the commerce in play at this scale - smaller farmers selling their goods to local aggregators who then either trade up to a larger ship or truck or take the goods down to Ho Chi Minh. After visiting the floating markets we saw more local industry - this time a little more accurate to modern times - including a rice paper 'factory' and a rice processing plant - both very manual setups that seem to work just fine with the locals. In making these visits we also got a better glimpse of village life along the river. Then it was back to the bus where we got a ride back to Saigon.