Mekong Delta, Vietnam

We caught the local rattley bus out of Saigon, which travels fast - not like the lazy Lao busses, which go at about twenty km per hour, stopping every five minutes. These Vietnamese buses go like the wind, hitting every pothole with relish. The whole area is densly populated, including the delta, where we cross over river after river, until we reached our destination. After we left the bus we decided to ford the river and go to an island called Ben Tre. We discovered that a huge bridge had been built, since our guide books were written, so the ferry no longer worked. We walked to the bridge, under the beating sun, where we hoped to pick up a bus, instead of which we were picked up by a couple of motorbikes, not something I had intended to do. But Diana shamed me into it. It´s quite safe, she said. Everyone travels like this. And so they do, whole families on one bike, bikes carrying chickens, entire roadside stalls, toilets, even live pigs. They carry loads many times bigger than the bikes, sometimes hiding the bike almost completely. So I sat on the back of this bike, driving over bridge after bridge, over river after river, past forests of coconut palms and houses.

Ben tre is not the sort of place tourists go to, which pleases Diana enormously. We seem to be the only non-Vietnamese in this hotel, which is the most luxurious hotel I have been in the whole time I´ve been travelling. We have a huge room with a river view, air conditioning, fridge, TV and bathroom, all for seven dollars each. Teak furniture in the lobby, inlaid with mother of pearl flowers and birds - very kitch. A breakfast room open on the river side, with river views, full of Vietnamese families eating noodle soup with pork for breakfast. Cargo boats ply the river, carrying all kinds of cargo, including coconuts, which Ben Tre is famous for. Yesterday evening, Diana drank the milk of two fresh coconuts.


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