Carly's first post: Mekong Delta & back to Ho chi Minh

Today has been a nice mixture of activity and chill time. We woke up this morning safe in our mosi net tent and had breakfast along the river side of the Mekong Delta. Breakfast seems to be omelettes and fruit as standard.

We then set off on bikes through forests of coconut trees and palm leaves with open sided houses dotted along the way. We stopped off at a market and the noise of women selling things grew as we walked through, everyone wanted to wave and point at us. There was lots of fruit and grains, meat left out in the sun and live stock crammed into tiny cages.

We also cycled passed a school and the children ran to the gate to wave and stare at us. They don't have a free education system in Vietnam so kids often don't get passed learning to read and write because they are needed on their family's farms.

We saw women making brooms by weaving grasses together and men striping coconuts of their husk. The women get paid a dollar for every 20 brooms, the best of them take home 4 dollars a day. The men get about 15 dollars for shelling 2,000 coconuts a day!

We've sampled some weird stuff so far, lots of fish and fruit that I don't recognise. We stopped off for a sugar cane drink and watched as she crushed the cane for us first. I've been sceptical about drinking anything that's going to make me ill but they seem a lot more aware of food hygiene than they did when we travelled as a family 15 years ago.

We had a chat with our guide about hospitals here, one of the girls in our group is a blood technician and so was asking about donating blood here. They have a bank system where you can donate blood and get a card so that should you ever need blood you won't be charged. If you haven't or can't give blood then you have to buy your blood should you need it. You can ask a friend to donate for you though if in need. I found it really interesting, maybe the NHS should adopt a similar system.

This afternoon was very relaxed, we rested in the hotel, I have reacted to the sun already and my eyes are puffy and my face red, sore and blotchy! How can that happen so fast, I've only been in the sun one day!! We sorted out stuff in the hotel before heading out for a wonder around the local area. 

We visiting the tourist market and the locals market, both of which were very similar except the price. Neither Edd or I enjoyed the clothes shopping and soon needed to get out of the extremely narrow and over crowded market lanes. We wondered through the streets of Ho Chi Minh which I think have changed a lot since I was here 15 years ago. Everything is brighter, more flashing neon lights and modern.

We walked passed a group of ladies doing aerobics in the park to a CD player around some bins and a HUGE crowd of people gathering together for Pokemon! To add to the chaos motorbikes were stopping in the street to collect Pokemon whilst others rushed passed!!

We found a street food market for dinner and watched as they fried our dinner up for us in a wok. The food has been lovely and tasty and really quite cheap. We bumped into an Aussie couple that had been on our tour with us so they joined us for food.

It's interesting, in Vietnam the tax on a car is 120% of the car so cars are extortionate and only the very rich have them. That means that the streets are full of motor bikes and big commercial trucks. You don't have the have a licence to ride a motor bike in Vietnam and the roads are set up to cope with the quantity of bikes. Most families own as many bikes as there are people and it's amazing to see what they fit and transport on the bikes.

It's not unusual to see families of four squished on, often with really tiny babies sat between parents. They are fairly good at wearing helmets as adults but they believe that if children wear helmets the weight of the helmet on their necks will stop them from growing!! So often mum and dad have helmets whilst babies and children don't! As I'm typing this a bike overflowing with cages of live chickens has gone by and another piled high over the drivers head with toilet rolls! Every couple of bikes is piled high with some sort of unusual product such as fruit or noodles or bags of grain.