Trains, planes, and cars

Trains, planes, and cars may be the only modes of transportation that we did not use today.  We left Saigon and drove south into the Mekong Delta on our bus for about an hour.  Then we rode our bikes for about twenty kilometers, stopping at a famous pagoda whose name I have forgotten.  I took my obligatory Claremonster Racing in Vietnam photo in front of the laughing Buddha.

Next we took a barge across one of the tributaries of the Mekong.  Here is my new BFF, Suzanne, and me on the barge.

  We had a "typical" Vietnamese lunch of seven courses including this vertical fish.

After lunch we took a horse cart for about 100 yards, although it was not clear to me why, followed by a canoe with an oarswoman on the back.

Then it was back on the bikes for another 25 kilometers to our "homestay" which turned out to be more like summer camp.  We shared a large dormitory room with camp beds complete with mosquito nets.