Boats and bikes in south Vietnam

The Mekong Delta was a series of National Geographic moments, Saigon was a traffic puzzle requiring steely nerves to survive, and Dalat, ah, Dalat has been the antidote to too much time in the tropics. We crossed the border from Cambodia into Vietnam on a boat down the Mekong River. Our first taste of Vietnamese culture surprised us because we never saw the border officials. One of the boat crew took our passports to the officials, and returned half an hour later. We don't know how the officials knew we weren't imposters. Boats and floating buildings are ingrained in the culture of Vietnam's far south. The first hotel we stayed at, in Chau Doc, had a floating restaurant connected by a fragile-looking bamboo stairway where the menu was seafood and warm beer with ice in your glass. People passed by in small boats, some of them honking squeaky toys to indicate that they were collecting recyclables. Everywhere around us were floating homes and businesses. We did a short river trip into the islands of the Mekong delta, where we stayed two nights in the homes of local people, were rowed through the narrow waterways by a woman standing in the rear of our small sampan, and had a mad cycling tour along narrow paths with dozens of wicked little bridges over the canals. At one point our guide recognized some friends having a drinking party to mark the anniversary of the death of a relative. We joined in for about half an hour and drank three or six beers each. Luckily we didn't crash off any of the bridges as we made our drunken way back to our homestay. Saigon was overwhelming after the relatively quiet start in the Mekong area. Picture a city of 10 million, mostly racing around on motorcycles. Crossing the street is so scary we tried to avoid it if possible. You have to shuffle steadily forward as the motorcycle drivers decide whether to swerve in front or behind you. The further you get across the street, the more imprecise the decision-making, and then you have to start watching for motorcycles coming the other way. Cars are another matter. They basically don't budge and honk incessantly to scare everybody else out of the way. Don't even think about crossing in front of a bus. But the food has been excellent ever since we left Cambodia. There are no peppers and we're learning to ask for no MSG (we got someone to write it out in Vietnamese). Carmelized fish cooked in a clay pot, rice paper wrappers with extremely fresh leafy greens, chicken chunks grilled with garlic, french onion soup, rabbit and venison, it's all been tasty. There's even a red wine here in Dalat that's the best we've had in six months, although that's not saying a lot because wine just doesn't survive the tropical heat. Dalat is up in the hills of south-central Vietnam and the days are a bit cooler - high 20s - so we don't have to hide from the midday heat. We trekked up a mountain yesterday, starting at an altitude of 1,400 metres and climbing steep pine-clad slopes to more than 2,100 metres. On the mountain we encountered local kids from the Lat minority climbing trees to collect orchids to sell at the market. Bob used his extra height to help one boy climb a tree with lower limbs just out of reach. Another boy had knocked a beautiful multi-coloured bird out of a tree with a slingshot and pulled it out of his pocket to show us. The result of our four-hour hike was more painful than we expected and showed us how little real strenuous exercise we've actually done since we hit southeast Asia. Again we blame the heat. If we can convince ourselves to leave this slightly cooler part of Vietnam we will soon be headed to the beach at Nha Trang. It's been more than a month since we stayed by the ocean and we miss it. Beach life is part of what we've been loving about this tour.