6am Wake-Up Call with a Hangover

Our plan was to wake up around 7.30am, go for breakfast and join the morning excursion; that would have been fine, if it had happened! Instead, we were awoken at 6am with the anchor being pulled up so we could get moving; it lasted about 10 minutes but it woke us both and compounded the hangover. We managed to fall asleep again, just making breakfast, which we had to go to in order to hand in the Cambodia Visa application, and the forthcoming excursion. 

We had a quick bowl of cereal and some coffee before gathering at the muster point at 8.30am. We boarded a sampan and headed through the mangroves and bamboo groves to Ben Tre; our first stop allowed us to change our mode of transport. We got off the Samphan, walked through the village abot 5 mins and boarded a canoe, apparently built for westerners as its much bigger than the traditional Vietnamese one. We rowed up some palm covered canals before disembarking for a fruit orchard where we got to try some local fresh fruit including mango, jackfruit, papaya, kumquat, pineapple and watermelon; the latter two should be dipped in chilli salt apparently! We also got to try some honey tea; the honey is produced by the local bee industry and is delicious. The fruit farm is also home to a crocodile farm, we got to see some of the little crocs; they were selling some of the crocodile products, crocodile purse anyone? 







After seeing the crocs, we walked to our next mode of transport; a horse and cart. There were four of us, plus the guide; our horse seemed to be a bit grumpy and didn’t want to move so he got a whack then a push! We trotted down the road for 5 minutes before getting off at a coconut workshop; here we got to see how they open coconuts and what each part is used for. The woman doing the demonstration was in her eighties and had amazing strength! We then got to try some of the local sweets, also made from cocunut. 





After the sweets, we moved onto snake wine and Mekong whisky. The snake wine has a king cobra in it and is considered to be like viagra. Very few people would try it but i thought i would give it a go; disgusting! I also tried cocunut whisky which was reasonably nice but I think we have enough whisky to take home!





I felt a bit ill after the snake wine but thankfully we were heading back to the boat anyway! After an excursion, the crew take your shoes from you as you get on the boat; they are cleaned and brought to your cabin after 5-10 minutes! We got back just after 11am, totally sweating due to the humidity, so we showered before lunch. We had chosen chicken in a pepper and ginger sauce; it was lovely but all this eating can’t be good for us!



After lunch, we headed up to the sun deck to do some sunbathing; we decided not to do the next excursion and instead relaxed all afternoon in the peace and quiet with our own personal bar tender! Bliss!


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