Saigon and Phu Quoc

Having spent some time in the north of Vietnam, we moved down to Saigon. This is like a more modern version of Hanoi, without the small streets of the old town in Hanoi, but with just as many mopeds and scooters buzzing along the streets and tooting all the time.
This is not the place to stay long if you plan to live to be old. We were lucky as our Giant Dragon Hotel was OK and our room was on the roof on the 9th floor, so we were above the traffic and able to get some sleep at night. We did some sights in Saigon, including a Hindu temple and a war museum... which was a bit grim in places but informative (if perhaps a little one sided).
Our patience for these busy cities was beginning to wear thin, so we decided to head off for the Mekong Delta. A long and interesting bus ride, including stops for people, food and 10 bags of coal!!! was an experience, as was the bike ride to the center of Vinh Long (as bus stopped with us having no idea where we were). So few people speak English as soon as your off the main road in Vietnam. We did a home-stay (ha ha very homey!!!) then visited a big floating market by boat. Also local production of rice paper and pop rice! quite interesting.
Now we have moved on to the island of Phu Quoc off the coast of Vietnam in the very south, for some sun, beach and no tooting bikes :)
We needed a few days for relaxing and we plan to stay until the end of the week before moving on to Cambodia. Today we have moved into a great place on the beach and plan to do nothing much, but relax, read and swim.

Here some pictures of the Mekong Delta:



Our noble homestay...


The neighbours


Floating market


Fresh lychees on board