Archived post from our February 2007 trip
Robert here. I just wanted to post quickly to let everyone know we're still doing fine.
We had the most incredible day today cycling in some very remote neighborhoods of the Mekong Delta. I'll just have to give the short version now and wait till later to share pix. (Time on the computer with wi fi access is hard to come by.)
We hired a guide and driver for a personal tour (If any other travelers are reading, Sinh Balo in the backpacker's ghetto has our recommendation. You can find them in Lonely Planet), drove about 2 hours down, took a ferry across one branch (the river is huge) to an island south of the city of Ben Tre and hopped on mountain bikes. The guide took us through tiny villages and through the forests and through the rice fields. Back in Ben Tre, we loaded the bikes onto a tiny put-put boat and went about 30 minutes up into a little tributary not much wider than the boat. We stopped and had lunch at the home of a farmer, and it was absolutely the best meal I've had here. The fish and shrimp were grown in retaining ponds there. The cooking water was from cisterns that collect rain water during the monsoons. Milk straight from the coconut. This was on a cozy porch overhanging the river, and the forest was so thick you couldn't see a foot past the edge of the porch. About every 15 minutes or so a boat would pass carring produce or flowers to the Ben Tre market. For once, there were no motorbikes to be heard. Then a quick nap in the hammocks and then back on to the bikes to ride some more through the forest. 25k in all before we met the driver back in Ben Tre.
I promise some spectacular pix when we get the computer and cameras home.
