Mekong Delta - Can Tho

Today we made the 1,100km trip from Hoi An in the centre of Vietnam to Can Tho in the South by plane, taking only one hour. The same journey would have taken about 21 hours by road/rail, so it was a no-brainer. However, because we changed our plans and ended up booking the flight only yesterday, it has cost us more than 3 days budget in just one day today. It is lucky that we are surrounded by rivers, as I think we'll be fishing for our supper tomorrow! We arrived at our £21 per night hotel and were upgraded to a "penthouse" room, with a big balcony (including a mini fishpond - Solana enjoyed feeding them, see pic). We wandered down by the riverfront - the river is really wide and laden with boats of all shapes and sizes - interesting to see. There are not as many tourists here, so Solana was even more popular than usual - as you can see in the pic of her with a group of local schoolgirls, they whisked her away for cuddles and photos, much to her bemusement! On the riverfront we came across a statue of Ho Chi Minh - every town/city seems to have one but this was a particularly impressive specimen. We ate catfish for dinner at a riverfront restaurant - tasty, if a bit bony. Tomorrow we are going to see the local floating markets - a 5:30am start, so we're off to bed shortly...Les mer