In the Mekong Delta

I have always looked on tour-bus travelers with a mix of amusement and contempt... but we opted for a tour of the Mekong Delta with Sinhtour, my first on a huge, lumbering bus which was handled with grace and delicacy, skillfully edging though tiny, scooter-jammed laneways. Eventually we were deposited on long tour boats, to cruise the mighty Mekong River.

Our driver powered us along the big muddy, looking for all the world like an old warrior (this was the centre of Viet Cong activity, after all!) -- with foot in one century, cell-phone in this one... but we saw amazing sights in this water-world: river boats all the with the traditional eyes on the prow, houses seemingly tottering on high mangrove poles, as the river floods every year; local people on boats buying, selling, exchanging goods; living on some, and traveling speedily around with long motors at the back of their graceful dugout "canoes". We paused at a fruit farm,and marveled at the strange and exotic forms before we sampled them, at an airy thatched hut. Peter was brave enough to walk across a single rail bamboo-pole bridge. A good, watery day.