Down on the Meeeekong.

We only had one day in the Mekong region, due to us still running out of time even though we changed our flight dates to spend longer in Asia.

We organised a bus tour that was overnight and included a boat to the Cambodian border to kill 2 birds with one stone. The day we left Saigon we went to some floating villages in the Mekong delta and went to see coconut candy being made... which wasn't nearly as exciting as they made it out to be.
The tour organisers that day also tried to coerce us into upgrading our tour to an overnight on a boat on the Mekong 'Only US$12 extra.. that is nothing for you!' but it wasn't the money, we just didn't want to be stuck on a boat all night with highly overpriced beer and not even squidfishing to entertain us. They worked on all the other people on our bus, and got them all to swap.. they all took turns trying to convince us to swap ' But why??? Bus to Chaudoc no good, too long, very bumpy - 6hours!' Well yeah the road was pretty bumpy, but it was great to see all the towns, and the scenery, and it was more like 4 hours. But we wanted to go to Chaudoc, and the people we ended up being on the bus with there, were awesome people and we all went out drinking that night in Chaudoc. While looking for some entertainment that night, the 6 of us ended up finding a talent quest near the river. There were, boybands, girlgroups, old Elvis crooners, opera, punk groups, heavy metal bands, aerobics dancing and a hiphop group. And it was awesome to watch, although we didn't understand what they were saying. We also attracted the attention of all the local kids, who must have all been jacked up on Mountain Dew, they literally threw themselves at the guys, who were covered in kids in seconds. They hyped them up even more, spinning them around and giving them piggyback rides. Then they all posed for pictures and talked to us. The first lot of kids attracted a bigger group of older kids, who all wanted to chat to us as well. We had to high 5 hundreds of kids to make our escape for some liquid amber refreshments...It was a great farewell to Vietnam, and we're glad we didn't take the boat, which we found out the next morning wasn't that much fun.. just like we thought.

That next day we went out to more floating villages, whose

villagers, underneath their floorboards kept fish farms. They opened a trapdoor into the river and threw some fish feed in, and all of a sudden it was like the water was boiling, and water sprayed everyone as the fish went nuts fighting over their food.
We also visited a Cham village, who if you remember their ancestors built the Myson temples we visited in HoiAn. At some point in between then and now they converted to Islam.
After that it was a slow boatride up the river to the Cambodian border passing little wooden villages on stilts, water buffalo, duck farms, lush green countryside, children waving and swimming. Mmmmmm pretty much the nicest way to leave Vietnam and enter Cambodia.