November Adventure Day 8,9 & 10 8/9/10-11-2015 Travel, Can Tho, A Very Hard Few Days.

Hello to all my lovely readers,
Welcome back to another blog post. My blog had a bit of time when it was down for some reasons unknown, but all seems to be working again. You should check out the last couple posts to make sure you haven't missed them though.

The last few days have been travel, travel, travel. So most of my time has been spent sitting on a bus. This makes for a particularly boring blog post so I have decided to smoosh a few days together so I can still show all the interesting photos, but not have too much of the same, same but different.

8-11-2015




So today was the day we left the beautiful mango home in the Mekong Delta and made our way to another place in Vietnam called Can Tho. After another lovely breakfast we had a special goodbye from one of the staff members.

 One of the lovely staff (Ut) made us all feel very appreciated by making us some souvenirs. This little bird pictured was made from the young coconut tree leaves and it was a very lovely was to say goodbye for now, but not forever because we are now friends on Facebook and will keep in touch.








After a relaxing morning of packing our cases and listening to music (with the appropriate amount of dance breaks) it was on to a bus for us.

Now over these last few days I have been very grateful for my ability to sleep comfortably anywhere, pretty much indefinitely. Because as usual I just took my motion sickness tables, put my music on, blocked out the world and went to sleep, only to wake, right at the end of the journey.


Once in Can tho, I spent the afternoon relaxing, practicing my Spanish and settling into to our new hotel. Then we set out to visit the night markets. I would also just like to comment that I lead the expedition and we did NOT get lost. If you know me in real life you probably already know how truly horrid my sense of direction and map reading skills are. But if you don't, you should know that if you spun me around 5 times in my own house I would be lost. So the fact that we made it all there without any dramas was a big accomplishment for me.

Meat street stall. 

Once we made it to the night market we wandered around for a while and went to seek out some dinner. Now, I have decided that there are many many more food stalls and restaurants here, than in Australia and that everyone seems to eat out. The place where we ate was on a street and people just rode in on their motorcycles, ordered and waited. Just like a McDonald's drive through, only much better, in my opinion.

Girl waiting for her order

The smelliest store I have ever walked past

All the children are so cute and excited to see us this little boy waved frantically at us as we walked passed. 

A man checking his fishing nets at night

Now after that little adventure we were back at home for a night of washing and sleep. I think we are getting really hip and local by hand  foot washing our clothes while we shower. These are just some of the joys of travelling.

9-11-2015

Today began too early for me. So early in fact that I missed breakfast all together. We booked a tour along the river where we went past a local fresh produce floating market, through a garden and to another rice noodle making factory.
Now as much as I am loving all the new things to see and experience. I think all my travel companions would agree that we are kind of getting all "rivered" out. After all these boat tours. But nevertheless we got to see some interesting things on the tour of today.

Now I just want to talk a little bit about how cool this photo is. It's not like a work of art or anything, but it is a picture of a floating petrol station for boats. I had never really thought about how the boats got their fuel, but I kinda just assumed they filled containers and brought them to their boats. But I was wrong, there are floating petrol stations and I think that is pretty cool.

 The floating markets were all produce and the locals were all around bustling to get their fruit and vege. In the photo to the right there the sticks up on top of the boats have tied to them all the things the boat sells so you can see if from a distance. Which is also pretty darn cool.

After wading through the floating markets we made our way to a strange zoo place for some lunch. Now I am just going to say how I am not a fan of zoos, because of the restriction of animals to small spaces, but I decided to put these little guys on my blog anyway. Because they are adorable and they deserve some recognition and love.

After lunch it was on to the gardens. Now I was fairly sure they were meant to be fruit gardens, but they had a significant lack of fruit. But they did have some pretty water lilies, some dangerous bridges and a cute chicken and her chicks.

Grasshopper love 

My grandmother crossing the bridge of twig. 

Chicken being a good mama to her chicks.

After our boat tour we made our way to a local market where we wandered around. Many of the market places here have stalls that seem very strange to us foreigners. So I took some snaps to share.

A lot of the seafood was still alive swimming around in little tubs

The eels were all squirming about. 

On our way home from the market we gave out the beautiful ornaments that our tour guide for the day had given us. We figured we wouldn't be able to get them back to Australia and that they would enjoy them much more than us. We were right, they all seemed very enthused with them.

That night rolled around and I spoke with my friends back home as usual. Ate a pizza that tasted like jam, cheese and mayonnaise and worked on my blog. Then before I could get to sleep, I got really sick. I had a horrible panic attack and as all you who suffer from them would know. I thought that my life was over.

I had worked myself up until I was sick. This is not unusual for me. But I just want to make a shout out to my beautiful family. My panic attack woke them and they helped to distract me. After a cold shower and a 2am game of cards there were 4 very tired faces and 1 girl who was grateful for all the love her family had to offer.

10-11-2015

"You wake up every morning to fight the demons that left you so tired the night before, and that, my love is bravery"

This day, was my hardest day in a long time, so I didn't take any photos I was just focused on surviving it.

But so there is no blank parts in our story, this day we took a bus back to Sai Gon. That was all I did, that was all I could manage. But sometimes it's okay if all you do is breathe. I want to write a separate post on this topic for all those who suffer, or have loved ones who suffer from anxiety. So if you are interested in it click here.

Thank you for reading my past few days in my journey. I am feeling a sense that I have accomplished and learnt so much. Not only learnt about the culture and beauty that travel brings, but I am learning a lot about myself. I have been feeling better this past day so my blog posts will be back to documenting my adventures, until then, love to you all.