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Author: foreverintravel

Day 1

A decent breakfast in the Sky Bar on the 8^th floor overlooking Saigon river got the day off to a flying start. From here, we were picked up to join the Mekong Eyes tour – two days and one night on this lovely boat cruising the Mekong Delta . It was a 2.5 hour drive from Saigon to the boat departure point, and it was a direct trip, surprisingly, with no random stops at places like the Handicapped Handicrafts shop, which were a prominent feature of my first trip to Vietnam.

The 39-metre Mekong Eyes, once a traditional rice barge, is a fine looking boat with 15 cabins, a spacious restaurant and bar area, and a large sundeck and outdoor restaurant. It has eyes painted on the bow for good luck. It’s a tradition for boats that ply these waters. That the eyes were painted to scare alligators wasn’t particularly believable, but that they provided sight for vessels returning home was. The eyes make the journeys fast and safe, and the crew alert, apparently. Vero and I were shown our cabin – small and cosy, with a double bed, a little wardrobe and a shower area with sink and mirror. A wandering cockroach caused us brief concern, but the crew soon eliminated it. There were 19 aboard for this trip, so there was ample space to move around

We met an old Australian couple from Adelaide, Bill and Marilyn, tattooed, rough and ready. Bill is ex-Air Force – a real bloke, but very amiable. Bill told us they were travelling for 3 weeks in ‘Nam, then going to Bali to stay in their timeshare in Nusa Dua. Then they went to the bar and got stuck into the 333 beers and remained there for most of the next two days.

Vero and I chilled on deck, then we were treated to a nice lunch of pumpkin soup, fish and other things. After lunch, there was more relaxing on deck watching the world go as the Mekong Eyes cruised slowly down the Delta. I had to grab a beer too…..it was the perfect time and place for one

Later, we got on a Sampan to a little village of 20 farmers and their families on the riverbank. They grow rice here, which takes 3 months to cultivate, which they do by machine here. They sort it, send it to get polished, and the husks are sold back to the farmers. Nothing is wasted.

The lovely guide, Tranh, took us around, explaining life in the village. I took a photo of her and Vero, then she said she wanted one too, to ‘put on facebook.’ Even on the Mekong Delta, Facebook has dug it’s social network claws in. It was a lovely scene here in the paddy fields – a relaxed way of life in the village. They had a bar with a pool table too, which was possibly the only source of entertainment for the local chaps

Back on the Sampan and back to the Mekong Eyes as the sun began to set on a river full of life. Boats were chugging back to the city after a day at work selling or trading or whatever it is they’ve been doing for centuries.

We enjoyed a couple of Saigon beers as the sun set, and it was one of those beautiful, magical moments one tends to remember for a long time. We had dinner – beef, BBQ pork, and, of course, rice, washed down with a couple of glasses of red wine, then it was time to head on deck, where I fell asleep under a blanket of stars set in the clearest of skies. While I had the luxury of dozing off, poor Vero had had a Vietnamese coffee after dinner, strong, black as tar and sweet as candyfloss, and she was wide awake, head darting around, listening to music, hyper. When I came around from my doze 2 hours later, she was still buzzing. Retired to the cabin and fell into a deep sleep

Day 2

Breakfast at 7:30am on the deck of the Mekong Eyes, the endless Mekong delta stretching in front and behind us, made for a very special start to the day. Muffins, toast, and omelette with fruit to finish. Wonderful. What a way to wake up. All too soon, we had to pack and vacate our cabins. We got a sampan to take us around a lively, colourful floating market, where hundreds of boats were gathered selling fruits, corn, drinks. Some boats were transporting huge logs slung over the front of the boat in the water, which required a boy to keep running from side to side of the log holding a rope to stop the log sliding down the side of the boat. It looked like a new extreme sport to me, Mekong log-surfing. As well as this, there were numerous boats transporting bricks from the brick kilns up the river. The whole thing was very much for locals, and has no doubt been very much in existence for hundreds of years. This was, thankfully, not a tourist trap. We were not overwhelmed by people trying to sell us things. In fact, we were largely ignored as the locals went about their daily business. Vero bought an ice coffee with less sugar, and I bought a regular one which tasted like condensed milk with a hint of coffee instead of the other way round. We headed down a small channel to a place to see how rice noodles are made, and it made for an interesting diversion. After this, we headed back to Saigon, and to District 1, to the infamous Pham Ngu Lao Street backpacker area.

It was chaotic, to say the least. A woman who had an ‘official tourist helper’ badge on, took me to a hotel I asked about – something cheap and cheerful. She then asked me for money for doing so. Brilliant. I fell straight into the trap. I didn’t have any loose dong about my person to give her. She screamed in my face, called me all the names under the sun, then walked off to find another victim. It left me a little shaken, and I hoped she wouldn’t be waiting outside the hotel late at night for me. This was the kind of person I met a lot on my last trip to Vietnam, but it was a surprise as this kind of person doesn’t exist, or at least doesn’t outwardly show their disdain for foreigners, when you are out of the budget backpacker circles. Welcome to backpacker life in Saigon.

We found a clean looking hotel with no windows down this little alley that seemed bursting with local life. Small shops everywhere, people in the streets, women cooking from big pots in the road, chickens running amok, motorbikes….authentic enough. The room was windowless, which was probably a good thing, and it was fine for a night. We went out that evening to a few bars. In one bar we were sat looking up at a skyscraper on the other side of the road, and saw what looked to be disco lights from the top of the building. Could there be a cool rooftop bar here? 15 minutes later we were in it, Chill Skybar, atop the AB Tower on the 25th floor. It was a brilliant bar, full of the beautiful people. The outdoor area had a circular bar and looked over the city. It was intoxicating at street level, so this made for a nice change. It was a cool spot.

We wandered back around the hotel area, and had a sheesha and beer outside the popular Buffalo Bar. It was a lot of fun sat here people watching. So much life out there on the streets….then it was time for bed – we had to catch the boat to Vung Tao in the morning for some beach time.