Thursday 14 March

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City in the morning of 14 March after sailing up the river. We disembarked and took a tour with a small group in a bus.

We drove to the Mekong Delta and on the way it was amazing to see the number of motor scooters and the way that they flow along the road is like a body of water, avoiding obstacles such as cars and people.

We transferred from our bus to a boat tour that took us along the Mekong River.

The river is a combination of bustling highway, market place and residential access. We went past the floating market but commerce had finished for the day so there wasn’t a lot of activity to be seen although there were plenty of boats around.

It was interesting to see that the boats have their engine and propeller drive train mounted on a tilt mechanism that allows them to be lifted out of the water to avoid fouling with weeds or shallows.

From the boat we took a side excursion of a sampan ride along a canal.

The boats were not at all comfortable and after a short while, we ran out of water depth because the tide was running out and the sampan had to be pushed in several parts!

At one stage we passed by a man having his lunch and while we didn’t understand what he was saying, he was talking loudly to our boat driver and I suspect that it wasn’t complimentary as she ignored him.

We were very glad to get back to our boat to the relative comfort of its seats and then it was another cruise along the river to return to our bus and then the ship.

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