Billabong Fiddling - Outpourings of an exuberant mind: Day 13

Despite a terrible night's sleep (turns out Milla likes to sleep sideways), we were up bright and early today to join a tour to the Mekong Delta. We had booked the tour at the last minute through our hotel and were impressed with the price ($20US) but perhaps we should have heeded Frommer's words of warning about tours like these: "...for that low, low price, expect little in the way of good tour leading and explanation. One gets the sense of being on a cattle drive (as cattle, not cowboys)." And sadly, that's exactly how it felt. From the moment we got on the bus, the day was a comedy of errors, which of course, eventually stopped being funny, no matter how optimistic a face we painted on it.

After catching a bus to the touring company, we stood waiting on the street corner for almost an hour, unsure of what was happening, except for the realisation that our hotel had slapped on an almost 50% commission charge on top of the tour price. But on the upside, we were able to watch the world of Ho Chi Minh City roll by and buy some fresh mandarins from a lovely lady walking by.

Finally our bus tour arrived and we all piled into a tiny little "air-conditioned" van. Again, we chose to fall on the side of good humour, thinking of the van as "character-filled" (rather than the rusty broken down health hazard it actually was) but when it stopped to pick up the fifteenth passenger and our tour guide was forced to catch a coach bus down to the Mekong to meet us there, we began to wonder.

Once again knocked out by the motion-sickness pills/horse tranquilisers, I missed most of the ride but woke up in time for our arrival in Mekong City and the boat deck where we would climbe aboard our touring vehicle. Now this part of the tour I was excited about. Although it was a bit of a feat to make it safely into the questionable boat we were taking without falling into the Mekong, the water was creating a cool breeze and a whole different world of water culture awaited us. Fun!

Sadly, the breeze coming off the water was pretty much the highlight of the trip from here on in. Each of the sights - the coconut candy production, the bee farm, the small village, the traditional music and the Bonsai farm were really just shops disguised as cultural experiences and little was done to show us life on the Mekong Delta as it's really lived. I realise that perhaps this is impossible, by our very presence we're treating the residents' lives as a bit of a spectacle, but there was no exchange of any sort between the people and ourselves, so it felt very zoo-like and I just couldn't get comfortable with that.

Nevertheless, seeing the Mekong itself was pretty amazing, knowing what it means to the people of Vietnam (the centre of rice production), and as always, any mishaps along the way will all end up as fodder for the travel "war stories" collection. My falling in the boat for one - enough said. But after today's experiences we did decide to skip Day 2 of the tour and head back to Ho Chi Minh.