During Tet I booked a tour out of Saigon — the city was too quiet to do anything and I figured it would do me some good to see some nature. I had originally planned to book a full weekend tour of the Mekong Delta, but I was told that the floating market was closed for Tet, which meant the second day of the tour was pointless. Rather than sell me on the worthless extra day, the agent at Vietnam Adventure Tours suggested I book the day-trip instead.
There wasn’t much of great interest around the Mekong Delta other than a lot of tourist boats. There was very little history or culture to experience on the tour. However, we were served fresh fruit with some traditional Vietnamese music before lunch. I also got to taste the snake and scorpion rice wine.
As part of the tour, we were taken in smaller boats through the narrow channels of the Mekong Delta. Of course, with all the tours arriving at the same time, it created quite a traffic jam with boats knocking against each other. It created quite a scene with all the boats attempting to move through the crowd — it was almost as bad as rush hour traffic in Saigon.
While it wasn’t such an interesting day-trip, the day on the Mekong Delta was relaxing. I also enjoyed interacting with people in the group. My tour guide for the day was great — very friendly and spoke better, clearer English than any guide I’ve had. If I knew how you could request him for private tours, I would tell everyone.
