After Cao Dai, we spent 2 days in the Mekong Delta. Thats the southeastern portion of Vietnam, incase youre fuzzy on geography. The Mekong area is one of the leading rice producing regions in the world, having very fertile land. Many villages in the area are accessible only by boat. The delta area is also quite poor. Most of our time in the delta was spent on boats (motor or row) and islands. We went to a place called Unicorn island, where we got to hang with ginormous snakes (I wasnt as happy about it as I look in the photo), visit an outdoor coconut candy making operation, a bee farm, and a banana wine making place, all run by local people. After wandering around the island, we hopped into Vietnamese canoe-style boats to row back up the canals to our motorboat. Here are some shots taken from the canoe. This boat ride was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. The little canals were covered with huge palm-ferny things, giving me the feeling that a dinosaur was going to pounce out of the bushes at any moment.
That night, we slept in the city of Can Tho. We were supposed to go to this one hotel, but they didnt have room, so we were sent to 3 different ones before we ended up in an old dirty shack of a hotel about 10 times less comfy than the one we had reservations at... but oh so much cooler. In the course of hotel hopping, we had been pushed off the normal tourist track, and found ourselves getting a real taste of the Mekong. We were the only foreigners at this hotel, the front room of which was a family run restaurant.
When I say we got a real taste of the Mekong I meant it: we ate stir-fried snake at this restaurant. I found it to be quite tasty, though not everyone agreed with me there. The next morning we set out early to the famous Can Tho floating markets. They had already slowed down considerably by the time we got there (being full-bustle around 6am I believe) but it was still a lot of fun. People on little boats selling wares would grab the sides of our boat and pull themselves alongside, waving pineapples and such in your face. If you wanted a pineapple, theyd peel it right
there in front of you in 2 seconds, in a pretty spiral pattern and hand it to you upsidedown so that you could use the stem as a lollypop stick of sorts to munch your fruit from. An entire stick o pineapple would put you back 12 cents. Was that an inflated tourist price?
After Cao Dai, we spent 2 days in the Mekong Delta. Thats the southeastern portion of Vietnam, incase youre fuzzy on geography. The Mekong area is one of the leading rice producing regions in the world, having very fertile land. Many villages in the area are accessible only by boat. The delta area is also quite poor. Most of our time in the delta was spent on boats (motor or row) and islands. We went to a place called Unicorn island, where we got to hang with ginormous snakes (I wasnt as happy about it as I look in the photo), visit an outdoor coconut candy making operation, a bee farm, and a banana wine making place, all run by local people. After wandering around the island, we hopped into Vietnamese canoe-style boats to row back up the canals to our motorboat. Here are some shots taken from the canoe. This boat ride was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. The little canals were covered with huge palm-ferny things, giving me the feeling that a dinosaur was going to pounce out of the bushes at any moment.
That night, we slept in the city of Can Tho. We were supposed to go to this one hotel, but they didnt have room, so we were sent to 3 different ones before we ended up in an old dirty shack of a hotel about 10 times less comfy than the one we had reservations at... but oh so much cooler. In the course of hotel hopping, we had been pushed off the normal tourist track, and found ourselves getting a real taste of the Mekong. We were the only foreigners at this hotel, the front room of which was a family run restaurant. 
When I say we got a real taste of the Mekong I meant it: we ate stir-fried snake at this restaurant. I found it to be quite tasty, though not everyone agreed with me there. The next morning we set out early to the famous Can Tho floating markets. They had already slowed down considerably by the time we got there (being full-bustle around 6am I believe) but it was still a lot of fun. People on little boats selling wares would grab the sides of our boat and pull themselves alongside, waving pineapples and such in your face. If you wanted a pineapple, theyd peel it right 
there in front of you in 2 seconds, in a pretty spiral pattern and hand it to you upsidedown so that you could use the stem as a lollypop stick of sorts to munch your fruit from. An entire stick o pineapple would put you back 12 cents. Was that an inflated tourist price?
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