Vietnam

It had been a hell of a long afternoon.

We were a couple of days into our road trip around the Mekong Delta, and had left Ben Tre a little later than planned. As usual we opted for the longer, more scenic route, involving multiple ferry crossings and more rutted dirt roads than you could shake a stick at.

Rapidly running out of light and trying to balance the need for speed with the need to not be thrown off the bikes by invisible potholes, nobody was voicing the concern that the last ferry of the day might not either (a) exist or (b) still be running. The idea of returning half an hour back down that road in the dark was simply not one we wanted to entertain.

Luckily for everyone, the ferry was waiting when we finally turned up. Bumping our way onboard, we found somewhere to park the bikes, jumped off and brushed the worst of the road dust from our faces.

Until that moment, I hadn’t even noticed the gorgeous sunset happening out over the river.

Finally, it was time for a photo.

We arrived in Saigon last night, walking straight from the air-conditioned sanctity of the arrivals hall into a hot, humid mass of humanity. Two friends of ours recently started Saigon Street Eats, local street food tours, so what better (re)introduction to the city than jumping on the back of their motorbikes and heading straight for Snail Street?

I can’t imagine why they call it that……

In celebration of the fact that in two weeks I’ll be just about to embark on an epic scooter road trip through Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, I present: these melons.

Back in 2010 I woke up at some horrific hour in Can Tho to take a trip on a rickety boat upriver to the famous floating markets. While I actually found the later parts of the tour more interesting than the markets themselves, there were still a few highlights.

Boats piled so high with produce that they seemed about to sink were commonplace, but not all of them were quite as green as this. Or, come to think of it, quite as melon-y.

I had arrived in Chau Doc late in the afternoon and with rainclouds rolling in and light starting to fade I didn’t have long to explore this colourful town in the Mekong delta.

A friendly xe om driver offered to take me up to Sam “mountain”, a hill overlooking the town and out into Cambodia. My hopes for a beautiful sunset from the top didn’t materialise, but seeing these fingers of sunlight poking through the clouds above the border made the trip worthwhile anyway.

I have a confession to make. It’s kind of embarrassing really. *deep breath* Ok, here goes I don’t have a motorbike license. In fact, I can’t even ride a real motorbike properly at all. For someone who enjoys the freedom of road trips as much as I do that is pretty pathetic, but the good [...]