The small Island of Ben Tre

After Can Tho we decided to take the road a little less travelled and visit the slightly sleepy island of Ben Tre where we stayed in a guest house over looking what basically resembled an empty concrete swimming pool which really was nothing to look at during the day but almost came alive at night. It was lit up beautifully and became the spot where an array of locals would take their evening power-walk (in their pyjama's!) around the lake while catching up on all the latest gossip with their friends! Was a great scene, which we enjoyed over a bottle of wine from our balcony.

I hasten to add that Ben Tre is also where we went on a rather touristy day trip along another part of the Mekong where i am sure our guide was determined to get us drunk; starting at 9am on the spirits was a little early even for me! :) Very entertaining though - sampling all the local liquors such as rice wine, coconut liquor, banana liquor, you name it we tried it! We even went a little too far and sampled the local, very specially made, snake wine!!!!!!! Ewwww! Certainly not one i EVER had any intention of trying. Cindy and i had seen it on a few occasions prior to this particular tour, and both decided it was one of the few indiginous liquors we would give a miss....!!! Hmmm.... so that didn't last long. Unsuprisingly i did not feel 100% after i had drunk the stuff, when it really sunk in (literally i guess!), what i had actually just consumed! Yuck! As you will see below, we also complied with 'the role of the tourist' by wearing our 'local hats' while sitting on the back of a horse and cart.... couldn't really decide whether to cringe or laugh!

All in all it wasn't a bad tour really, we got to see some more of the nearby Islands, and take a walk through fruit orchards, that then lead to some traditional singing and dancing... all good fun! :)