The Mekong Delta is, as it sounds, the large Delta area of the Mekong to the far South of Vietnam.\u00a0 I went on a boat trip into the Delta which was brilliant.\u00a0 We started on a boat for about fifteen people and went across a large section of water before going into the smaller waterways.\u00a0 We stopped at a place where they processed coconuts and made various sweets etc.\u00a0 They were really nice but slightly sickly for my liking.\u00a0 There was also a very dubious spirirt which, to be honest, just tasted like pure alcohol and not a lot else.\u00a0 After the tasting session we went on a bike ride around some of the villages.\u00a0 The paths were bumpy and narrow and I, somewhat foolishly, made\u00a0 a joke about riding into the river.\u00a0 Although I wasn’t the casualty a Scottish guy fell off his bike and then was really ill.\u00a0 I think it was the shock of the fall combined with the heat but he could not carry on.\u00a0 Luckily we were next to a local’s house and they kindly let him go and sit in the shade of their living room.\u00a0 One of his friends waited with him and we cycled back.\u00a0 He was then picked up on the back of a motorbike.\u00a0 As with all things Vietnamese, the actual time the bike ride took seemed to be somewhat different to the time we were told.\u00a0 When asked whether we wanted to go a 30\u00a0minute ride was quoted but it actually turned out to be at least an hour.\u00a0 Other than the aforementioned casualty (he was fine by the way) the bike ride proved a great way to see the local villages and villagers.\u00a0 There were some odd contradictions along the way like houses which looked like dishevelled shacks blaring crazy music out.\u00a0 There was also something which was quite upsetting involving animals but I won’t elaborate as I think it might upset some people who may read this.<\/p>\n
After the bike ride we had lunch at a small restaurant.\u00a0 The food was awesome and I was, again, embarrassed at my inability to use chopsticks.\u00a0 Following lunch we got back in the boat and went to another part of the delta.\u00a0 A couple of people held a python while others took photos and then we were given fresh local fruits and treated to local music.\u00a0 When I say treated, the combination of out of tune singing and bizarre screeching instruments actually sounded more like a cat being strangeld slowly to me but other people seemed to enjoy it.\u00a0 When one of the crowd was given the stringed instrument to play the locals\u00a0 and musicians laughed hysterically which I found slightly confusing as, to me, there was no audible difference between this and the first performance.<\/p>\n
\u00a0After having our my eardrums punished we were taken on a boat ride down a small channel.\u00a0 It was a large canoe like boat with a woman propelling us forwards with an oar at the front and\u00a0a man\u00a0at the back.\u00a0 We seemed to be going faster than everyone else and kept overtaking peoplel.\u00a0 When we went past one boat a German lady said, “Ahhh, Schumacher”, I replied, “No Hamilton” and she completely blanked me.\u00a0 Hmmmm!<\/p>\n
\u00a0The small boat took us back to out boat and we made out way back to the mainland.\u00a0 On the way back in the bus we had a blow out which was a bit of a pain but it was okay in the end.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mekong Delta is, as it sounds, the large Delta area of the Mekong to the far South of Vietnam.\u00a0 I went on a boat trip into the Delta which was brilliant.\u00a0 We started on a boat for about fifteen people and went across a large section of water before going into the smaller waterways.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}