Mekong Delta

I haven't written much about our time in Nam so far, mostly because I've been having too much fun. Also most of the things I have to say are about what the country is like (which you can read on Wikipedia) or how much relaxing I've done (which will only serve to make you jealous) or how warm and nice the weather is (and I would lose my entire Melbourne readership).

I know you much prefer stories like, say, if we went to get a massage but the massage parlor also doubled as a secret brothel... Or if we suddenly found ourselves on the back of random motorbike with a man who speaks no English taking us to who knows where for about 25 minutes and losing each other on the roads. You know, fun crazy stuff like that.

Well both happened. So keep reading.

The first story doesn't have much more to say except Toby was asked mid massage... "I massage your pee-pee now?" to which he replied a firm NO I'm married thanks, to which she replies "awwww please why nottttt it will be our little secret... Shhhhhh". A firm no thanks returned, the massage ended and she left with a much smaller tip then she was originally expecting. Toby was a little harrowed as was Matty, however I still can't help but laugh at her use of the word PeePee.

The second story has no ending yet. We booked a tour through the Mekong Delta, two days, spending one night at a homestay. One of our tourist friends on the bus described today's tour as 'fucking boring' (sorry for the language kids) and I had to agree. The 30 of us just got herded around from bus to boat to bus to pretty much no scenery and only seeing tourist stops. To add to the annoyance, we met up with some tourists who joined our tour group that afternoon who said they had an AMAZING time in the morning, remote cool locations and awesome things to see with only 6 of them on the tour. The most annoying thing about that was that we all had paid for the SAME tour at the SAME price with the SAME company... Um please explain??! True Vietnam style nothing gets explained you just go with the flow.

So after complaining most of the day we hadn't seen the real Mekong experience at all (we hadn't I assure you) our tour friends agree together we will all look forward to tomorrow with positivity and we can sit around at the homestay tonight (which is really more like a hostel) drinking beer and swapping stories.

Suddenly however, Toby and I are shoved on the back of bikes to go to our night homestay. Do they speak English no. Do we know where we are? No. Are our tour friends there with beer? No.

Oh well, one 'cooking class' later (really it was a lesson in wrapping pre-made spring rolls and frying them) and an awkward dinner that we ate alone being attacked by mozzies (hello 95% DEET bottle) we are now in our little squat reading and looking forward to a day on the floating markets in Can Tho tomorrow.

Ps. This all sounds quite dramatic... Apart from a couple of 'holy crapballs I'm gonna die' moments on the road, the motorbike trip was good fun!! Here is a pic to prove it. And we also got to see heaps of the cool city and the locals all hanging out in their shops and the river.

PPS. Tank! I lost my Louvre dress! I know you will empathise. It's in a bag on a train somewhere along with my Vans, and my nice retro-ish bathers and Toby's board shorts. The bathers were a bit scungy though so oh well. BUT THE LOUVRE DRESS TANK!