My smooth budget tour of the Mekong Delta (Part I)

I  did a 2 day-1 night tour of the Mekong Delta with Delta Adventures… $19! (couldn’t you just cry?) No shocking travel stories or freakouts, all went smooth. When you’re on a tour, everything is controlled by the itinerary. If you’re like me, the only thing you’ll wrestle with that an itinerary doesn’t always allow as much free time to explore a place a bit as you’d like. And with life in the Delta revolving around rice, river channels and riverboat commerce, you’d need time to see what makes these people tick! …if you were me. Still, being on a tour isn’t bad.

(above) Veronica boarding our boat for a cruise down the Mekong River;
(below) me and my bike touring a nearby village during lunch; (bottom) Our hotel room.
Just think– I was going to take the Mai Thay bus to Can Tho for $6/OW!

Boating, biking, transportation, educational demonstrations, an English speaking guide and a hotel… it was near perfect! The bus picked us up early in the morning– a nice large tour bus! For around 4 hours my ass grew roots into the chair. It got me to observing the southern landscape and thinking…

A funeral procession

English-speaking tour guide vs. figuring it out yourself
As a travelers, there are times we take photos of things, which are either curious, exotic or which lends to our “Hall of Freak Show Travel Fame”, only to then stamp it with its country name. “Vietnam”.  Then someone looking at your trip photos asks you, “What is this?” only for you to admit you don’t know what it is but it looked “cool and different”. “Cool and different”. Great answer. Having a tour guide who speaks good English makes a world of difference. They give you that extra ten feet to a mile that bridges “clueless” to informed.

The Mekong River and the Mekong Delta
It’s easy to get the two confused. Last year, I ventured to the northern tip of Thailand to see the Golden Triangle (the point where the Mekong River joins Laos, Burma/Myanmar and Thailand into a triangle and which once was the illicit spot which fed the opium-traffiking trade between Burma and Thailand). There wasn’t much to see other than barren lands, occasional boats and the opportunity to cross into Myanmar to experience this-

(clockwise) Laoan whiskeys: Tiger penis; scorpion; snake; cobra. There were more types of voodoo whiskeys, but I only tried the tiger penis and snake ones. Such virility aided my travels.

This year, I ventured to the southern most end of Vietnam to the Mekong Delta, a region where the Mekong River splits into 9 channels, making for a rural lifestyle whose main source of life is the river. Houses on stilts, riverboats, fishing boats, floating markets,… life in the Delta stands strong and a bit removed from modern times.

(above) map of the Mekong Delta towns (photo by www.travelingvietnamtours.com)

Our tour itinerary: HCMC, Cai Be- Vinh Long- Can Tho- Cai Rang Floating Market

The river’s waters are muddy from bank erosion, but rich in biodiversity. Her fish are said to grow to genetically gargantuan sizes.  If I could see through all that mud, maybe I’d see them! Instead, I saw this…

Aquarium at a village snack shop : this was biggest fish I’ve seen in a while.
About 2-3 feet in size, it looked like it could swallow my foot whole!

But the real blood vein of the Delta is the commerce and trade that happens on the river, the mighty Mother Kong is the 12th longest river in the world.

(to be continued…)