South to Ben Tre

Time to head south into the Mekong Delta, where water is king.  Mekong is the river of the nine dragons, represented by the nine largest arms that make up the delta.  We found--not without some difficulty-- a tourist office that was willing to sell us a one-way bus ticket to Ben Tre, which translated into taking a cab to the office, being whisked away by one of the shop attendants, dropped off at a “bus station”, and then once again whisked onto a microbus, which left immediately after we boarded, already being almost full with locals.  Small, but comfortable enough, we headed through the labyrinth of HCMC and eventually out into the countryside.  Only about a two hour ride later, we were again dropped off at some unknown point, had barely left the bus before being swooped into a taxi and to a rather nice hotel on the Ben Tre river. 

At the public market, we were pounced on by an enterprising cook who had a sheet with 5 items on a “menu”, and luckily for us, some semblance of translation into English.  Lovely food, calm atmosphere, and a remarkable absence of squalor.  Then headed down the street bordering the river—the usual motorbike and bicycle madness swirling around us—, as we checked out the endless vendors, and eventually settled in a small stall where we thought we were going to get some sort of a fruit juice, but ended up with a sort of strawberry smoothie, made with a tad of condensed milk, strawberries and crushed ice—loads of it.  Delicious and refreshing.  Wandered by a local school, checked out the downtown pagoda, and eventually returned to the hotel with bags of fruit to consume in the evening.

We had also made the acquaintance of Phi, who was eager to sell us a dreamy sounding 3 day romp around the countryside on motorbikes, making our way to CanTho—one of our next destinations in the Delta.  We did agree to have him take us around in a boat, and to visit some local islands the following day,--holding back on the longer commitment-- but after completing the harrowing 30km trip(one-way) on his motorbike to reach the boating area, (I rode on the back of Phi’s), Andres was immediately dissuaded from this dream—.  (As was I.)  The traffic is intense and chaotic enough as a pedestrian.  As a motorist it’s nothing less than nightmarish.  So when the day was over, we were entirely at ease with NOT doing this motorbike trip, and instead doing some more low-key exploring of our own.  Probably a valuable lesson in Vietnam—at least, for us.  Check out some pictures of our first two days in Ben Tre.

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