The picture below is of a bird house. The concrete structure in the picture is one of hundreds of houses for birds along this stretch of the Saigon River. You could hear the birds from the ship. They clean out these houses regularly and use the "contents' they gather to make bird's nest soup.
We sailed under a bridge.
We finally docked in Ho Chi Minh City at 1:30 pm. Once again the weather is hot! We left shortly after docking for our excursion - Life in the Mekong Delta. We traveled along with 2 other couples, our guide and driver in an air-conditioned van out of the city headed for the Delta. The locals call their city Saigon we were told by our guide. The drive took approximately 2 hours. Traffic here is hectic. There are millions of motorbikes on the road as they are the cheapest form of transportation. Here is a picture taken from the van.
When we reached Cai Be we boarded a sampan for our trip up the Song Hau River. Our sampan driver was a woman and she was extremely skilled in the navigation of the narrow waterways. Here is a picture of her from the back of the sampan.
Here are some pictures from along the way.
We cruised past the floating markets pictured below. The boats in the center of the waterway were all vendors selling to the local residents of the water village. The guide told us they stay there until their inventory is sold - usually about 3 days.
We stopped for coconut milk (a hole drilled into the coconut with a straw stuck in the hole) from a fruit vendor. Here is a picture of her boat.
Here are some pictures of the houses of the water village we traveled through.
We stopped for a snack of delicious spring rolls, lovely fruit (small bananas, pomello, jack fruit, mango) and of course, beer. Then we boarded the sampans for the trip back to our bus on the shore.
We got back to the ship at 9:30 and ordered a pizza for dinner. It was a wonderful day!
Tomorrow is another day in Ho Chi Minh City.....
