From Saigon we continued south towards the Mekong Delta. We made Can Tho our base — the largest city in the area and a convenient launchpad for visiting several of the floating markets.
It's a busy, commercial city with flowing traffic and few tourists. Which means the tourist offering is limited, as are options for accommodation or restaurants with English menus — but the lack of foreigners means you can find local stalls at local prices, eat and shop without anyone constantly trying to empty your wallet.
In Can Tho we stayed at Hotel 31, located at 31 Ngo Duc Ke. The rooms are decent and spacious, and cost $6 US per night.
That's a fair price for Vietnam and the best value we found in the city, but the hotel owners are very pushy about tours, and the food there is far more expensive than at the local stalls.
You can eat for around 15,000 dong — a solid plate of rice with whatever vegetables, meat or fish you fancy — at a friendly local restaurant at So 9 De Tham, practically opposite the urban bus station.
Quick reminder: 1 euro is about 27,000 dong, so 15,000 dong works out at roughly 55 euro cents.
Choose what you want with your rice from a wide variety
Plenty of vegetables for vegetarians
Along the riverside you'll also find plenty of stalls aimed mainly at tourists, where you can get sugar cane juice, boiled eggs and fresh fruit — a kilo of jackfruit, peeled and ready to eat, cost me about 30,000 dong. It's also a great spot to watch the sunrise.
Peeling and preparing jackfruit for sale
Views of the river
In Can Tho I also took the opportunity to send a postcard to one of our readers, who received it a few days ago. The Vietnamese postal service was surprisingly prompt this time — unlike the postcard Ilze sent just after we entered the country, which still hasn't arrived in Latvia.
Sending a postcard to one of our readers
A boy playing at a fruit stall
The following morning we were up early to find a boat to take us through the inner workings of the Mekong Delta and visit the Vietnamese floating markets — plenty of photos to come in the next post, I promise.
