A trip to the Mekong Delta | Vietnam

Somehow (through some sort of aviation magic) our flight left Sydney over an hour late and we arrived in Vietnam 20 minutes early. We managed to buy a sim card pretty much as soon as we stepped off the plane; the guy was even helpful enough to point us to an area that didn’t seem to have anybody queuing in it so we breezed through passport control surprisingly quickly. As always while waiting by the baggage carousel, there was that nerve-wracking moment where we were convinced that our bags were lost, but they appeared eventually without issue.

Our main issue was trying to get a taxi. 

The internet is rife with blogs that warn of the dangers of getting a normal taxi. They’re known scammers, relying on your ignorance of the money, switching out a 100,000 for a 10,000 in the hopes that you don’t remember what you just handed over. The advice is to download Grab (think Asian Uber), so that’s what we did. What’s mostly unmentioned is what a pain in the arse it is to set up and use - it’s not that the app itself is crap, it’s more about the cards it won’t accept, mainly our credit cards. So after failing to attach our credit card countless times - while the taxi touts continued circling, badgering us to go with them - we were starting to feel a bit frustrated to say the least.

Needing a break, we re-burdened ourselves with our bags and headed over to the cash machine, we didn't want to pay with cash but we didn't want to have to live at the airport either. While we were there we grabbed a bottle of water from the airport KFC, only realising once we'd paid and left it cost us a whopping £3, talk about a scam. With a new outrage to focus on, we headed back to the Grab stand and decided continue attempting to add our card. It didn't work. Eventually we gave up on our hopes of avoiding international bank card fees and added our Australian debit card instead, at least we shouldn't get scammed this way. 

The lobby of our hotel was fancy. Grubby from an eight hour flight and weighed down with large backpacks as if we were set for an adventure, we walked into a large atrium complete with a staircase built only to pose upon that curved around a large decorative chandelier. We felt slightly out of place. A bellhop waited at the door to take our bags, we refused. It was mainly out of awkwardness, used to carting around our substantial luggage ourselves and it slightly as we didn't know how much we would be expected to tip. The check-in process was smooth, despite straining to hear the softly spoken man behind the desk. It didn’t really feel like we had arrived in Vietnam, instead we’d entered this private microcosm where everything was calm and quiet.

Our room wasn't like the rest of the hotel we'd seen, it wasn't even that true to the photos. It felt slightly rundown really; there were marks on the walls and the curtains were stained. This? For this price? In Vietnam? In time we came to look past it's faults and appreciate it for what it was : a cheap room in a fancy hotel. So what if it wasn't perfect, we weren’t really there for the room anyway. We were there for the rooftop pool and all you can eat buffet breakfast, and those things were mostly great. Our plan to ease our way into Vietnam gently was working.

Over the next few days we really made the most of our time at the hotel, only venturing out to go to a local vegetarian restaurant that we spied from the rooftop pool. It’s surprisingly easy to find vegetarian food in Vietnam; every full moon the Buddhist monks abstain from eating meat believing it will help them obtain good health and peace of mind, so the streets around the Temples are normally filled with Chay (vegetarian) eateries. The one we chose was amazing, it’s really astounding how many ways tofu and “gluten meat” can be transformed into different and delicious meals.

When it was time to head to our next destination along the Mekong Delta we decided to splurge on a taxi - whether the £40 we spent was really worth it we wouldn’t know until we slummed it on the bus on the way back. The taxi took us to Cai Be tourist pier where our hotel had sent someone to come and pick us up. Unless we fancied a long, hot and dusty walk, or to try and convince someone to give us and our heaps of belongings a backsy on a scooter, the only option we had to get to the resort was by boat - thankfully this was just part of the service and not an extra charge. A two hour taxi ride followed by a private boat transfer sure made me feel fancy. When we arrived, our perceptions quickly changed. 

While planning our accommodation around Vietnam we got a bit obsessive, had we made the right choice? What were the latest reviews saying? Should we stay somewhere else? The Mekong Lodge in particular was a rollercoaster, terrible reviews were piling in for several months before they started to turn around. So many times we almost canceled, before finally sticking with it. 

At first we were underwhelmed, it was all a bit shabby round the edges and our room was an oven. It wasn’t exactly like the pictures but perhaps it was close enough. With the day getting on the first thing to do was to grab some lunch before having a cool down in the pool. The service in the on site restaurant was astoundingly quick it seemed that we’d barely managed to order before we had plate of food in front of us; the best part was that it was delicious too (for the most part). The pool (keeping to the slightly rundown theme of the rest of the resort) was also falling apart at the seams - literally in this case as tiny un-grouted floated along the pool floor. Ultimately It was too hot to care and we jumped in anyway and despite the loose tiles, the swimming was fine and just what we needed. 

We ventured off the property twice in the week we stayed there. The first time we borrowed bicycles and had a harrowing journey of dodging scooters, cars and trucks alike, all the them happily beeping as they passed by. The second time we headed out on foot. As intimidating as biking around town was, walking was worse. It’s not that we felt threatened, everyone was friendly yelling their “Hellos!” and smiling, it was just so hot. It was only an hour walk in total, and despite slurping down a large sugary drink in the middle we just felt so dehydrated. Dehydrated and wet. It is truly a horrid feeling, walking around in 90% humidity in 40 degree heat, I was so sweaty that my skin felt raw.

So we settled into a routine of sorts; waking up early to help ourselves to the buffet breakfast, spending time watching the boats travel down the Mekong, before finally making our way to the pool for a much needed cool down in it’s strangely warm waters. There was, of course, more eating and drinking thrown in there too.

Most of the menu seemed to be typically Vietnamese food, some of it westernised slightly for tourists. However one mysteriously un-translated page sat tauntingly right at the beginning of the menu, and this is what Ben was drawn to the most. With the assistance of Google translate, we made some road into knowing what specialities were on offer and feeling confident Ben ordered himself a half chicken cooked in lemongrass and chilli. In retrospect, our waiter confusingly double checking that we definitely wanted to order "the chicken, the chicken from the garden" could have been taken for a sign. When the plate arrived, after a suspiciously long wait (complete with what i swear was some squawking), a haphazardly chopped up half -chicken, bones and all (including both feet) wasn't at all what he was expecting. Culinary adventures aside, the more time we spent at the resort the more we came to love it, the small issues fading into the background until we barely noticed them at all. 

When it came time to leave, we asked the reception if they would  help us organise a bus which they were more than happy to do. So a boat took us to the tourist harbour, where we almost missed the taxi that would take us to the bus (we were stood in the wrong spot), and the bus took us all the way back to HCMC - all for 110,000VND / roughly £4. Whats most annoying about all this was that it was somehow quicker and more comfortable than £40 taxi that brought us down to Cai Be in the first place. So we started our trip in moderate luxury but it was time to really explore Vietnam, not just the glimpses we could see of it from the comfort of our hotels.

Trip date : May 2024