16/3/14 Backpacks, Bus & Bonser Banquet

Sunday 16^th Mekong Delta - Ben Tre Bound

It has been perplexing me why we flew eastwards from KL to get here, and yet we took an hour OFF??  China and Hong Kong are both East of here and yet both are on Perth time.

We have left the big suitcase with the excess warm weather clothes in the HCM Hotel and packed light into our backpacks.  We walked to the bus depot fairly easily(maybe for him – 2km+ in the heat),  except that internet instructions misplaced it relative to the Windsor Hotel. Nobody around there had any idea where it was and a deceptively similarly named shop across the street further complicated the uncertainty. Eventually J saw a Thinh Phat (I ask you) bus go past and we followed it 200m up the road to its HQ.  J’s maps and directions had got us there again.  She’s so good.

We had a comfortable 2 hr ride enjoying the increasingly agricultural surroundings. Lots of rice paddies, notably with family graves located in among the rice. We transferred into a smaller bus and were dropped at the hotel (Oasis), owned by a very amiable and helpful NZ/Viet couple. It is right on the South bank of the Mekong, opposite the main city of Ben Tre.

 

Ken gave us the local rundown on his wall map next to the pool, pointing out the nearest restaurant, ice creamery, massage place and supermarket. We cleaned up and took to the path to the restaurant. What a treat that was! We were ushered to a private thatched pavilion, separated from adjoining ones by decorative bamboo screens. The smartly uniformed waitresses left us with bilingual menus, nuts and cold towels and brought us chilled drinks and mugs. We ordered fried rice and a lotus root salad, both lightly dotted with small bits of assorted seafood. The lotus is the crunchy element of the salad from HCM City and the fresh tamarind sauce was delicious. We were left filled beyond thought of dessert and the bill fell short of $10.

 Mai Vang restaurant

 

We did some laundry and waited for the tour organizer (who did not turn up) before heading off for a stroll along the river and across to the supermarket. Ken’s navigational instructions underestimated the distances but it was a very pleasant and picturesque stroll. A stream of boats and barges chugged their way up and downstream, there were lots of locals out and about enjoying the cool evening breeze and flying kites.

 So many kites

 

North of the bridge was a large fresh market which we did not go into and we also located the ATMs. We had been expecting a village but the city was quite large and the supermarket was huge. We stocked up on water and a pizza/baguette snack to sit on our recent lunch. Also a small torch because it was quite dark by then.

The road along the river had a footpath and street lights and there were very few scooters. We warmed the pizza slices in the microwave and retired to our a/c room with cable tv for a sound sleep.