Mekong Delta continued

So here is some more photos. The biggest city on the Mekong was called Can Tho (as I think i mentioned in the previous post, and its accessible by ferry only since there is no bridge to the city across the river. So as a result, all the vehicles in the area must take these ferry's. This means the queue up is ballistic. Unless of course you're a motorbike. Then you an skip the queue and go stright on.



As seen here. Think a ferry filled with over 100 motorbikes.

Here is a daytime photo of the bridge that is being built to replace the ferry crossing, I have no doubt it will bring a great change to the reason. I can't help but think about the comment that the top gear guys said that vietnam is sooo traditional interspersed with major engineering projects dotted across the landscape. Its really inte


We boarded the boats on the Delta, and they provided us all with the trendy life jackets, something that certainly gives you alot of confidence in the old wooden boats, but I guess there is legal requirements. It seems at times that the law has no power on somethings. Like traffice lights are almost universally ignored. However, almost everyone has bike helmets on, and all the boats had an oversupply of life jackets. Can't complain though.

The Boats were noisy on the river, with the vast majority of them running without a muffler. And they seem oblivious to the fact that the noise is almost unbearable.



There is nick above on a seperate boat, we were a group of about 40 odd people.


Here we got the pleasure of a boat ride down what could be best described as a creek. With which the sole purpose seems to be to give tourists a feel for life on the river. Interestingly/annoyingly, the boats we passed all seemed to expect us to tip them, for what I am not sure, considering they were doing nothing. But hey, it must work, else they wouldnt do it I guess.

Here is where all the vietnamese catfish comes from. Under peoples houses, they keep a cage and grow about 20,000 fish to about 1Kg, then they get US$1 for each one. Then they start the cycle again. They estimate that it earns them about US$6000 every 6 month period after food.


Here is something I found interesting, rather than using a water pump to get water out of the river to cool the motor, they just put a funnel in front of the prop, and used it to pump the water back up. Simple yet effective I guess. :P (you can tell I'm an engineer.)



So, this kid must have been about 5, puts on quite the show as he comes up beside the boat, gets everyones attention looking cute, then about 1m away from the side of the boat reaches down and lifts up two softdrink cans. Child labour works the treat here in Vietnam, seeing it used everywhere. In fact, today in Nha Trang, I was told that if I didn't buy from this one girl, (aged 8) she would either kill me.... OR cut off my banana and make me into a lady boy. Great tactics I don't think. She then proceeded to hassle us including stamping on our feet, pinching and pulling our hair.


But yeah, this kid was young and already living life on the river.

More to come, particularly from our trip to Cu Chi tunnels, Mui Ne, and now Nha Trang were I am writing this from. Heading out to a big Party tonight supposed to be good, but not before we head to a restaurant that offers free drinks for 2hrs with any meal purchase. Then there is our A/C room, with own bathroom etc, for US$5 each a night. Or the beers going for less than a dollar. Im spending less than $30 a day here (easily) and living very comfortably.