Saigon

Well up even earlier and at the tourist office by 7:20am (the time we were supposed to be there for a 7:30am pickup.) It got to about 8:10am and I asked where our bus was and she said they came but you weren’t here so they will come back at the end and get you…she could have told us this 45 min earlier so we could have got a coffee! Anyway I was now angry and not long after the guy came to pick us up. We headed on a small bus to the Mekong Delta which was supposed to be 1.5hrs and was over 3hrs. We made it safe though so that’s all that matters. Our guide wasn’t very good and didn’t really like his job so he was a little short with everyone. When we arrived at the Mekong I bought a conical hat to get in the mood for the days excursion! We boarded an old motor boat and headed over to one of the islands, Unicorn Island and went to a family’s house where they are bee keepers. They showed us the bees and Rudi and I stuck our finger into the honeycomb covered in hundreds of bees to get some honey to taste….not so sweet as our honey. A few others braved the bees but not many! We then had some honey tea and then Rudi and I had a wander around. We saw a big python in a cage which was quite beautiful, they had it out when we arrived for another group but we didn’t get to touch it! We then saw the bottles of snake wine which is wine with a dead cobra in the bottle and often a scorpion as well. Rudi and I both tasted it….it just tasted like really strong, cheap and nasty wine! We then headed to the small canal and boarded small row boats to get back to our bigger boat. The canal was crazy…tourist peak hour with hundreds of these boats in the small canal. Would have been quite beautiful with a few hundred less people! We then headed to another island to another family who made coconut candy….supposedly “better than chocolate in your country.” It wasn’t! We got to taste it and see how they made it! We also found a bottle of coconut wine so of course we had to try it, wow was it strong! Definitely not what we would call wine. We then got lunch which was average but ok and then headed to watch some traditional Vietnamese music…it was terrible! I think it was the people who didn’t make Vietnamese Idol…it was hard not to laugh but we kept it together pretty well! A few of us had chosen to boat it back to Saigon and some were getting the bus back so we left to a faster boat which was pretty good. The view was beautiful, lots of boats and it was about 3hrs back on the boat to Saigon. We headed out for dinner and now home just packed our bags for an even earlier start tomorrow! On the bus at 6am!