Oh, how slow are border crossings, bus transfers, and cramped local buses that only stop once in six hours for a toilet break, and that's because they break down! 12 hours of travel, supposedly worse than usual due to Tet, but I'm not convinced. Travel in southeast Asia is much less terrible if you are shorter! Check out my photo of my leg room on the bus, which was packed to the limit, with people sitting on stools in the aisles. I found this completely normal after Cambodia and Nepal!
On our journey, Quinh and I met Alex from Austria, and I re-united with Monica, who I met in Siem Reap. After 12 hours of travel, the four of us landed in Can Tho. Quinh (named 'Dongmama' after she gave me a loan until I found an ATM) was ready to attack the local delicacies of the Mekong. Armed with her Vietnamese, she spoke at length with a tour guide on our bus, who later that evening took us all to the best place for this local pork spring roll thing that's dried in the morning dew. Mm, you can taste the sunrise!
The next morning, we were at the pier at 6:45, where we hired a local boat and headed to the market. The market was great! In our little boat, we floated right in the thick of things (vs the bigger tourist boats), and Quinh ordered us noodle soups spiced surely with a drop of the secret ingredient that makes it taste best in Vietnam: Mekong water! (we are pretty sure washing the bowl entailed dipping it in the river as we boated away, yuck). The coffee vendors were aggressive, with one guy u-turning when he saw us, then pulling alongside, hooking his boat to ours, and selling us always-delicious (it's the sweetened condensed milk) Vietnamese coffee.
After Can Tho (which I forgot to mention was decked in lights and flowers for Tet), Alex, Monica, and I headed to a homestay on an island off Vinh Long. This was such a lovely experience, as the island was peaceful countryside with friendly locals and paths for only bikes and motos (scooters). We biked around, at one point following drum sounds to find local children practicing a dragon dance for Tet. They were adorable and invited Alex to be a dragon, upon which the 3-year-old dragon-teaser decided to beat the crap out of him! We filmed the whole thing of course, and rode on past fruit trees including, oh boy, durian! We capped off the visit by stocking up on Tet candy and having the best pork noodle soup from a cute little old lady cafe owner.
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