Three weeks with Vietnam- Mekong Delta, Mui Ne and Dalat | Travel Tuesdays

I spent about month traveling through Vietnam from the Mekong Delta in the very south all the way up to Sapa nestled into the northern hills a meer 50K from the Chinese boarder. A month is a very long time to sum up in one blog so I am going to break it up over the next three weeks. My first stops along the long, skinny country were in the Mekong Delta, Ho Chi Minh city, Mui Ne and Dalat.

Once over the Cambodian boarder my first stop was touring through the Mekong Delta and watching daily life along the big, dirty, lazy river. Generations of families are raised on houseboats that putter up and down the massive river bartering their vegetables, fruits and other assorted goods. When children are grown they move off of the family boat, marry, buy their own floating home and the process starts all over again. The long wooden boats are adorned with laundry hanging from clotheslines and children napping in hammocks that sway like cradles on the gently rocking vessels.

Next, I buzzed through Ho Chi Minh as quickly as the many motorbikes that aggressively race around the city like a swarm of angry bees. My goal was to get out of the bustle as fast as possible and on to the coastal town of Mui Ne where I rode down sand dunes on a plastic sled and spent an afternoon on a filthy beach making photos of the curious basketboats, fishermen and camera happy children.

Finally, I took a break from the oppressive coastal heat and headed inland to the refreshingly cool hill town of Dalat and hiked it’s peaks and admired its waterfalls.

Next week… Hoi An, the Ngo Dong river, temples of the Marble Mountains and Hanoi.