Day Six: Vinh Long to HCMC

We walked from our hotel to the bus station and reached there at about 7.30am. We waited a while then an uncle motioned us to a minibus. Wow. This is the newest one we've saw so far. Spacious and clean. Smells new too! The bus took us to another street and the driver motioned us to get down and take a seat. This place seems to be the central office of this bus company. They seems to be running a courier service or some sort. Throughout the 20 mins, we watched many, MANY motorbikes coming in and out to drop or pick up parcels.

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Finally, our minibus came back with more passengers (fr other parts of Vinh Long town maybe) and we are off to HCMC. We passed by the cabled My Thuan Bridge. Think its the nicest looking around bridge already.. but I couldn't get a photo of it.

If i ever visit Vinh Long again, I'll not get a tour. Its possible to just go to An Binh Island and find a homestay and rent a bike and explore the island by yourself! M felt that we had cycled too fast round the neighbourhood that we missed out things.. ya. i agreed. The locals are very simple (on An Binh island).. when we stopped to take pictures, some of them came out of their houses, looking at us curiously. hahaha.

The bus ride is uneventful.. maybe cos we are both tired.. I didn't take much note of the journey too. Anyway, you know when you reached hcmc, the traffic is more heavy :( more buildings, around less trees.. everyone seems crowded. We reached our stop ie. the bus company office in district 5 of hcmc. Once you get down, a swarm of motorbikes drivers surrounded you again. M and i quickly get our bags and head off first. We walked a little then decided to find lunch, to settle down, to plan our route (how to walk to district 1).

We started walking to Pham Ngu Lao Street. Frankly, I'm becoming more sian. Its very city and I don't feel enthusiatic anymore. We reached District 1.. It's very evident with lots of tourists walking around. Lots of locals trying to get you a room also. We went to view one which looks quite dodgy..although its cheap, we decided to try our luck at other places.

Oh, Hong Hoa Guesthouse seems very nice, from the lobby and the convenience of having free internet and a minimart just at ground level! A pity they are full for the next 2 nights. Finally we settled down in Quyen Thanh Hotel. Downstairs, its a shop selling lacquerware. We got a fairly big room for usd $20 a night. The decor is kind of 'obiang'. Bathroom has those olden green & red tiles. Anyway, I didn't took any photos of this room.

Quyen Thah Hotel

212 De Tham St. District 1. Ho Chi Minh City.

We went to Ben Thanh Market to do some touristy shopping.. you know, had to buy some souvenirs back... I don't like the market.. I don't like bargaining too. After buying the 'necessary' stuff, we head off.

Things are generally 2 to 3 times more expensive here, compared to the delta. We tried the coffee, the food, the flavour is just not there. Disillusioned, I decided to better spend our money on not-so local food. We set off to find a nice french restuarant near Thai Van Ling Road, according to lonely planet. We passed by the City Hall, went to the ferry terminal, experienced great traffic jam and crossed the heaviest traffic of my entire trip! Night falls and worn-out, we finally decided to trot into Bibi for authentic french food. The boss is a french guy who married a Vietnamese wife and proceeded to settle down here. We are very hungry. We had onion soup, steak, salmon, Foie gras, creme bulee, 4 glass of wine! The total bill came up to be usd $87. I wasn't too happy with my Foie gras, but i love the soup and creme bulee and of course, the wine is GOOD!

Ho Kd Bibi
17A6 Le Thanh Ton. District 1. HCMC.
Interesting thing to note: the whole Thai Van Ling road seems to be littered with Korean restuarants. There are several service apartments in this area too. Once you right turned to Le Thanh Ton road, the scene changes to Japanese restuarants! Anyway, these are simply food streets.. with restuarants, pubs etc. Dong Khoi Street is one that is full of boutiques and art studios. You'll find your LV, Gucci, etc here.
We made our way back to the Pham Ngu Lao to retire for the night...

Day Five: Vinh Long

We woke up very early when its still super cold and dark. I didn't sleep much the night before because it was freezing! After our coffee, we took our boat to Cai Be floating market. The boat ride took 1h and its freezing cold on the waters too..
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Gradually, the sun rose...

The floating market is not as busy as I thought it is. Even truyen thought its odd. Anyway, we spend sometime roaming around there, then went on to visit some handicrafts village, coconut candy factory, pop rice factory. We spend some time drinking tea, sampling the products and buying stuff. It was quite amazing how they could gauge the temperature of the fire from burning twigs, rice husks, longan husks etc. They can manufacture their products very fast! Really very 'pro'.

some kind of biscuits

netted rice paper (for their popiah)

pop rice

The two ladies 'threading' through the leaves to make the roof of houses.

We went on to visit rice paper factory, fish sauce factory, brick and pottery factory. At the brick and pottery factory, I'm kind of fascinated that the raw material is from the river bed! no wonder there are several cranes on the river. We had a very informative session when truyen explains to us the procedures etc.

So concludes our tour with Mekong Travel when we reached Vinh Long town. Truyen recommended us a cheap hotel to stay for the night and gave us directions to the night market so we can explore tonight. The hotel, Van Tram, is just beside Mekong Travel office! The room is very big with two queen size bed, and with AC, hot water, fridge. The lady charged us $200,000 dong for a night :)

I think i've mentioned before that the local market is near to Mekong Travel office. Even at night, there are many stalls selling fruits, food and many other stuff. We explored the surroundings and went to the bus station to buy our bus tickets to HCMC. There's a staff who can speak some english, so we bought our ticket at $65,000 dong per pax. Buses to HCMC are regularly departing every hour. We bought the 8am bus for the next day. However, the bus only goes to district 5 at HCMC. The uncle pointed to a big map in his office to show us. Well, it doesn't seems that far to walk to district 1 (where the backpackers district is). Luckily, M promptly took a photo of that big map. Back at our hotel, I drew out a map based on her photo and worked out where we should walk to go to district 1 =p kind of exciting ya?

We went to explore the night market too. Its' something like our pasar malam back in Singapore, but minus the food part. They are selling a lot of bags, clothes, shoes, caps, toys, etc etc etc. The area is quite packed with locals too. Think they enjoy shopping here :)

Its a fun experience trying to shop here, especially when they don't speak english and we are trying to bargain. The stall-owners are pretty clever, they took out their stack of cash and pulled out a note to indicate the price for the item i'm inquiring. Then i pointed to another smaller note in order to bargain! :D hahaha. Frankly, I should have brought a notebook + pen to write OR a big calculator! that'll be easier.

In any case, we packed our bags for our journey back to HCMC tomorrow.

Day Four: Chau Doc to Vinh Long

We woke up at 5am i think. We got to be at the bus station to catch our bus to Vinh Long. The journey took about 3h. The local buses always try to call out and see whoever wants to hop on so they can earn more. By about 1h away fr Chau Doc, my bus is packed. This bus has no AC and some passengers smoke in the bus. Luckily it was very early morning so the air is very fresh and cooling.

From ReidOn Travel.com, I know I need to look for Mekong Travel to get my accommodation, boat tours etc settled.

vietnam travel

Mekong Travel

Tel 070-836-252, 0919-002-505; vinhlongmekongtravel@yahoo.com,

No 8, 1 Thang 5 St; open 7am to 8.30pm daily

We asked the bus driver and asked people on the way to find directions to Mekong Travel. After a huge round, we realised its actually very close to the bus station. We just need to cut across the local market. If you can find the river side and see the local ferry terminal, you can see a large alfresco kind of cafe. Mekong Travel is just round the corner and beside it is a small hotel: Van Tram. Opposite Mekong Travel is the older Cuu Long hotel. There's a newer one, also Cuu Long hotel, at the river side.

M and I proceeded to book a 2 day 1 night tour with Mekong Travel for usd $60 (2 pax). Details as follows:

Vinh Long - An Binh Island - Cai Be Floating Market

- potteries & brick kilns, bonsai garden, fruit nursery, biking around villages

- sampans on the small canals

- home stay, make and have dinner with local family. overnight

- breakfast and boat trip to Cai Be floating market

- handicraft village: coconut candy, rice paper, pop rice, sewing coconut-leaves for roof etc.

This is truyen *not sure if i've spelt her name correctly. She is very cheerful and 'playful'. She is a very nice guide and though she's only 6 months into this job, she is very passionate about it.

Vinh Long has several islands and there are many small arch bridges that link them up. Another mode of transport will be by boat on their various waterways and canals. Since we booked a private tour, we have boat to ourselves. Along the way, you can see various big boats transporting fruits, rice, rice husks, bricks, etc etc etc. I liked the tour because i get to see how these people make their earnings and live their lives. The only turn-off is the expensive lunch at a local house. The owners are very clever. They only offer two choices: either the elephant fish or the prawns.. costs us $270,000 dong! frankly it doesn't taste that nice. I prefer my usual rice from Chau Doc.



I did enjoyed the sampan ride on the small canals. Its really very tight. When there's another boat in the same canal, we had to help to push the boat away in order to pass through.

Our homestay place is at Mr Ba Linh's house on An Binh Island. He is an ex-VC soldier.. I think he's 80 year old if i remembered correctly. The whole family are very enthusiastic in having us. Mr Ba Linh does not speak english.. But he'll signalled you to follow him as he show off the nice flowers he grew in his garden and the turtles he kept.

We proceeded to try to cook our dinner with the family =p

We slept very early tonight because there's basically nothing to do after night falls. Also, we are walking up 5am next morning to go to Cai Be floating market, which is an hour boat ride away.
night :)

Mekong Delta

Arghhh, I should have wrote this first!
vietnam travel
But I don't know how to slot this entry in front! *faint*

When you look at the map, Mekong Delta is SO big. In Vietnamese, Mekong means Cuu Long, which means Nine Dragons, as the river branches into nine mouths that empty into the sea.

I printed my Mekong Delta map off ReidOn Travel's website. To travel from HCMC to Ha Tien or Chau Doc in the delta will take up at least half of a day. Thus, we need to plan our route carefully and to decide how much time we want to spend at each place.

After reading through countless blogs online, I thought I'll just concentrate on two or three places in the Mekong Delta. In the end, M and I narrowed down our choices to Chau Doc, Vinh Long and possibly My Tho. It's still considered very ambitious because we do not have a private vehicle. Anyway, we decided to play by ear =P We'll just go wherever the bus can go and sleep wherever we can sleep and makes the best out of it. Sounds super exciting right? I'm super excited the night before that I can't sleep!

Frankly, there's SO many places I've not been to........but do I have to cover everything... after this trip, I think I'll still go back to Chau Doc again if I have the chance and maybe explore a slightly different route...

Day Two: Chau Doc

We slept our fill this morning. The sun rays poured in from the balcony...

Looking out from the balcony, the opposite market is busting with activities.. you can hear frequent horning of the motorbikes, bicycles, etc. I'm glad we started crossing Vietnam roads from the Mekong Delta area, its not as hectic as HCMC! Anyway, after 8 days of experience of crossing roads in Vietnam, I dare say its not as daunting!

M and I explored the local market and hunt for our breakfast. We took our time to walk through the different lanes, occasionally taking pictures, buying stuff. The locals like to smile a lot. Sometimes i just need to point to my cam and smile brightly at them and they'll just nod their head and smile back.

I don't know what to call my breakfast. Its a different kind of texture of rice vermicelli with super-sumptous barbecued pork and their sauce! I love it! Then spring roll made with their rice paper...not sure what's the filling inside, but its delicious too! aww.. I'm missing the food there now :( $40,000 dong easily feeds both of us.. thats like around usd $2.40 only.


We went on to explore the various streets from our hotel and try to walk to the main bus station in Chau Doc. On the way, we took pictures as usual, tried the local snacks/ drinks if they look interesting enough =p This is my kind of holiday! We even went in a cafe/pub for coconut drinks. The place is busting with Vietnamese pop songs, complete with their MV. Interesting...

This is a kind of sweet and sour fish soup, called canh chua. The fish meat is very fresh and the whole pot is full of different kinds of vegetables. Refreshing and unique. They served us in a hotpot, quite big for the two of us.
Anyway, we finally reached the bus station. It's not really a long way. The bus station is about 2-3 km from the town center. We just follow Le Loi road (towards river side) and walk along. Along the way, we passed by many shophouses, a church, and of course the most expensive hotel in Chau Doc: Victoria Chau Doc. We went in to take a peep too :p

vietnam travel
We wanted to look for a branch of Mai Linh Bus company because its one of the company with express buses. However, they only have buses running from Chau Doc to Can Tho or to HCMC, with hourly departures. Thus we bought our bus tickets to Vinh Long town (in Vinh Long province) from some other local bus company for $100,000 dong per pax. There's only one bus a day to Vinh Long and it runs at 6am! hahaha. I'll tell you more about my bus ride on another post :p