You survived Part 1, our Saigon shenanigans (catch up if you missed it!), so now it’s time to plunge deeper into our 5-week, 1300-mile Vietnamese marathon.
We’re leaving the electric buzz of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) behind, swapping skyscrapers for sampans in the Mekong Delta’s Can Tho, and then… well, then things get quirky in the cool mountain town of Dalat. Think floating markets at dawn, architecture seemingly designed by Dr. Seuss, silk worms living their best (short) lives, and yes, bugs for breakfast. Oh, and a bus ride straight out of white-knuckle hell. Part 3, covering Hoi An’s charm and Hanoi’s hustle, is here!
“Vietnam. It grabs you and never lets you go. Once you love it, you love it forever.”
– Anthony Bourdain
Touchdown in Can Tho, a pretty town nestled in the veins of the Mekong Delta, legendary for its floating markets. For a mere $12 a night, we snagged a spotless room run by the legendary Hiro (pronounced “Hero,” and honestly, fitting). This guy wasn’t just a hotel owner; he was practically our Vietnamese guardian angel, emailing sat-nav-level instructions to navigate the bus system from Saigon right to his doorstep. The 4-hour ride? Shockingly smooth – a deceptive calm before the real bus adventure later.
Across from Hiro’s haven, a park pulsed with life and laughter every morning and evening – a charming outdoor gym where locals swung, stretched, and crunched their way to health. I watched a 70-something grandmother outpace a teenager on an elliptical machine and made a mental note to step up my fitness game.
Sunrise on the Mekong Delta: Floating Market
Tran, our floating market guide courtesy of Hiro’s local connections, insisted we meet an hour before dawn. Ooff!
“Wake up! Four-thirty!”
Half-asleep, we stumbled into the lobby while the sky was still inky black. Outside, early-bird locals were already deep into their tai chi routines in the park.
Down at the river, the world was still painted in shades of grey and indigo. Tran hailed a longtail boat, its engine sputtering to life, and we slid onto the glassy water. Just as our eyelids threatened to betray us, a figure emerged from the gloom – a smiling woman in her own floating café! She expertly maneuvered alongside us, steam rising from her pots. Three cups of cà phê sữa đá appeared – that glorious, liquid velvet rocket-fuel, a blend of strong Vietnamese coffee and condensed milk that jolted my senses awake faster than the sunrise.
Tran handled the payment. Our $20 fee covered the boat, guide, all food/drinks, and an impromptu Vietnamese lesson where we mangled basic phrases with great gusto.
“Ngon quá!” I attempted to say “That’s delicious”, one of the phrases Tran was teaching us.
The coffee lady’s face crinkled into a smile that outshone the coming dawn. “Không có gì!” (you’re welcome!) she said back.
Sipping liquid lightning, we became voyeurs of river life.
Across the water, a man leaned over the edge of his boat, toothbrush dangling from his mouth as he spat directly into the river.
People emerged, stretching, splashing water on their faces, yelling morning greetings across the water. Home, bathroom, workplace, highway – the Mekong was all these things and more to the people who lived on its surface.
Then, as the day became brighter, the market exploded.
Boats, ready to sell and barter their wares, converged from every watery artery. Giant bamboo poles pierced the sky, skewered with samples of their goods – pineapple here, metal pans there.
“That boat for sale,” Tran pointed at a pole with a palm leaf attached.
“The goods?” I asked.
“No, no,” she laughed. “Whole boat!”
My fruit radar – a superpower I discovered somewhere between Thailand and Malaysia – pinged loudly: I spotted a woman selling mangoes. We drifted closer. The fruit seller’s eyes lit and toothy grin widened as I fumbled through my newly learned Vietnamese vocabulary. What followed was a rapid-fire Vietnamese response I couldn’t understand a word of, but her animated gestures and Tran’s translation told me these were special mangoes, freshly picked that morning.
She handed Mark a plate and one bite confirmed it. These were the juiciest, sweetest mangoes we’ve ever tasted. Heaven. I wore mango juice on my shirt for the rest of the morning.
If you want to visit another fruit paradise, check out our Month in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
For a detailed Can Tho travel guide, visit WikiTravel.
From the busy Floating Market to the Serene Countryside
Our boat sliced through narrow channels where mangrove roots twisted into the water like gnarled fingers and lush green branches pressed in on all sides. The noise of the market faded, replaced by birdsong and the gentle lapping of water against our hull. Tran pointed towards the humble home of a family whose entire existence revolved around rice noodles.
“Breakfast soon,” Tran announced, pointing toward a humble wooden house perched on the bank of the river. “Rice noodle family.”
The matriarch of the house greeted us with a bow and a smile that needed no translation. Inside, three generations worked in harmony, transforming simple rice into culinary art.
“One year,” the grandmother explained through Tran, holding up a single finger. “Rice to noodle, one year.”
She guided Mark’s hands as he awkwardly tried to spread rice batter onto a hot plate. His first attempt resembled Australia more than the perfect circle she had demonstrated. My turn yielded something closer to an amoeba than a rice paper sheet.
The family tactfully moved us to the cutting station instead, where we sliced dried rice sheets into noodles under the watchful eye of two ladies.
Our reward? Steaming bowls of soup with the freshest noodles imaginable – the culmination of a year’s worth of growing, harvesting, drying, and preparing. We devoured it in minutes, the irony not lost on either of us.
Mark’s Hair-raising Experience
“You think you need a haircut?” I said, eyeing Mark’s increasingly fluffy mop. It wasn’t really a question. Intervention was necessary.
Hiro, our hero (see?), stepped in again, personally escorting us to his own barber a few blocks down. The man circled Mark like a sculptor assessing a block of marble, muttering in Vietnamese. What followed was less haircut and more performance art. Scissors flew, combs appeared and disappeared with magician-like flourishes. The barber stepped back periodically, head tilted, eyes squinted in concentration, before diving back in with renewed purpose.
The result? Arguably the best, most meticulously crafted haircut Mark had received in years. The price for this masterpiece? Four US dollars. We tipped him 50%, feeling like we’d committed highway robbery.
“If all else fails,” Mark said, admiring his reflection, “We’re moving to Vietnam and opening a premium barber shop with this guy in charge. Thirty bucks per cut. We’ll make a fortune!”
Life along the Mekong hums in ancient rhythms. From the main market thoroughfares to the tiny capillaries snaking through farmland, life spills from the banks onto the water.
Women wash clothes in the same waters where their grandmothers once did. Children dive from wooden docks, surfacing with spatters of laughter. Fishermen cast nets with a practiced flick of the wrist, their boats barely disturbing the water’s surface.
It’s a constant, colorful dance between people and the river, a nod to resilience in a stunning, demanding landscape.
The Night Bus Diaries: Praying to Eckhart Tolle at 60mph
Getting from Can Tho to Dalat’s mountain cool involves a rite of passage: the sleeper bus. Ten hours, $15 bucks, and a whole lot of hope. We’d eyed these double-decker beasts with curiosity. Our first night bus! We were practically giddy, high-fiving over saving on accommodation and travelling simultaneously. Genius! We tossed our main packs below and hopped aboard with visions of gentle rocking and sweet dreams.
My initial excitement evaporated approximately 45 seconds after departure, when our driver swerved violently to avoid a motorbike carrying what appeared to be an entire pig carcass. The bus careened around mountain curves at speeds that made my stomach lurch, horn constantly blaring into the darkness.
“We’re going to die,” I whispered to Mark across the aisle.
“We’re fine,” he mumbled back, somehow already half-asleep. “They drive this route all the time!“
I pulled out my headphones and started mainlining Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now,” figuring if I was about to meet my maker, I might as well be mindful about it.
Yet somehow, amid the chaos of Vietnamese night traffic – where lanes are invisible, and right-of-way belongs to the biggest vehicle – there exists an unspoken choreography.
These drivers weren’t suicidal maniacs (probably); they were seasoned veterans navigating a system invisible to the untrained eye, like schools of fish changing direction in perfect unison. The incessant honking isn’t aggression; it’s communication, a constant sonar ping announcing presence and intention.
Ten hours, six near-death experiences, and half of Eckhart Tolle’s book later, we arrived in Dalat, both shaken and stirred, but miraculously in one piece. Authentic travel experience? Check. Need for a strong drink? Double check!
Dalat: The Honeymoon Haven
The bus deposited us on an empty street just as dawn’s first light kissed the misty mountains surrounding Dalat. The air felt crisp, almost chilly – a shocking change from the sticky heat of the Mekong Delta.
My stomach growled audibly as we spotted a woman setting up a food cart. She ladled something rice-based into bowls and topped it with mysterious sauces and herbs. We pointed and smiled, universal signals for “we’ll have that.”
Whatever “that” was defied classification – neither sweet nor savory, with textures ranging from chewy to crunchy. Delicious in its strangeness, we devoured it while perched on a curb.
Across the street, a coffee shop’s lights flickered on. The owner, still in pajama pants but wearing a formal button-up shirt, waved us in. The coffee arrived pitch-black and thick as syrup, sweetened with condensed milk and carrying notes of chocolate and hazelnut – the Vietnamese way.
As we sipped, we watched Dalat wake up: motorbikes multiplying, vendors unfurling their stalls, the air filling with the scent of baking bread and grilling meat. This city definitely rewards the early riser; the morning calm was pure magic.
We wandered through streets lined with French colonial architecture, spotting whimsical heart motifs everywhere – a nod to Dalat’s reputation as Vietnam’s “Honeymoon Haven,” thanks to its year-round spring-like weather.
Later that morning, we checked into Cozy Nook Hostel. For $7 a night, we secured bunks in a 12-person dorm with pristine bathrooms and a communal breakfast area great for swapping travel stories.
There was just one major issue: Mark’s snoring. In a 12-bed dorm that night, I watched in horror as one by one, our roommates reached for earplugs, headphones, or in one desperate case, a pillow to cover his head. Mortified, I spent the night ninja-climbing down from my top bunk to administer tactical nudges, only for the thunder-like trumpeting to resume milliseconds after I climbed back up.
“I slept so well!” he announced to a room of bleary-eyed, resentful backpackers.
That afternoon, while exploring Dalat’s central market, we collided with the German couple we’d befriended in Saigon the previous week.
“No way!” we all exclaimed, engulfing each other in a hug. “What are the odds?”
The four of us celebrated our reunion with bowls of soup large enough to swim in and frosty beers at the night market, making plans to explore Dalat together over the coming days. New place, old friends – the best kind of travel magic.
Crazy House: A Gaudiesque Treehouse
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First on our Dalat list: a piece of architectural anarchy. The Hang Nga Guesthouse, universally known as the Crazy House, is less a building, and more a fever dream poured into concrete. Imagine Antoni GaudÃ, Tim Burton, and Dr. Seuss having a wild design jam session after one too many magic mushrooms.
Crazy House is a sprawling, organic-looking structure meant to look like a giant tree, riddled with winding staircases, tunnels, hidden grottoes, animal sculptures, and rooms that defy right angles. We squeezed through narrow passages that opened suddenly into cavernous spaces. We climbed onto rooftops shaped like mushroom caps and animal forms.
Tourists gasped and giggled around every bend, phones full of cool photos. There were unexpected details and whimsical flourishes everywhere you turn. I’m not sure if it would pass any safety committee meeting, but the result is delightful, as are the views from the its many rooftops.
The architect, Dang Viet Nga, didn’t use blueprints; she painted her visions, and local artisans somehow brought them to life. “I wanted to create something original… different from anything else in the world,” she said. Mission accomplished, Ms. Nga.
Give yourself ample time to get lost in its delightful weirdness. You can even book a room, if you fancy sharing your morning coffee with a hundred curious onlookers.
A Worm’s Life: Dalat Silk Farm
Next up: a silk farm, because… Vietnam. Silk-making is a fascinating, slightly brutal process. Armies of silkworms munch relentlessly on mulberry leaves, getting fat and happy for their big transformation. Then, they spin intricate cocoons around themselves – each made of a single, continuous thread stretching hundreds of meters, stronger than steel of the same thickness.
Here’s the dark side: The worms will never become the silk moth they set out to be. They meet their unglamorous end in a vat of boiling water. This kills the worm and loosens the silk. Skilled hands and whirring machines then unravel the delicate fiber. The cooked worms are apparently a popular snack, though thankfully not offered as samples during our visit.
“Can’t they just wait for the butterfly to hatch and leave the cocoon?” I asked our guide.
She shook her head. “Moth breaks through cocoon. Damages silk.” She pantomimed wings tearing through fabric. “No good for silk.”
The silk industry’s dirty secret: those shimmering threads come at the cost of billions of little lives.
But, even if the moth is allowed to emerge, it’s not all fun and roses. It’s cute and fuzzy but too heavy to fly, it doesn’t have a mouth to eat with, so after it burns through its body fat (which takes about a week or two), it dies. At least it enjoys lots of sex in the meanwhile.
Bugs for Breakfast: Dalat Cricket Farm
I’m no stranger to eating weird things so I was excited as we were heading for the cricket farm near Dalat.
My bravado wavered slightly as we watched thousands of crickets chirping in concrete tubs, sorted by size and age, munching contentedly on banana leaves.
The farm owner explained the process. The crickets live comfortably until harvest time, when they’re starved for three days to empty their digestive tracts.
“Then quick freeze,” he demonstrated with a dramatic shiver. More humane than boiling.
He passed around a bowl of fried crickets seasoned with lemongrass and chili. Mark hesitated, then popped one into his mouth. They are packed with protein, have been safely eaten for thousands of years and they’re an eco-friendly alternative to traditional livestock.
“Crunchy,” the hubby reported after a thoughtful chew. “Like spicy popcorn with legs.”
I followed suit. The cricket’s skin shattered between my teeth, releasing a nutty flavor that wasn’t at all unpleasant. We washed them down with homemade rice wine that burned all the way to my stomach.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says the current farming practices are unsustainable and insects are an untapped protein resource.
“Edible insects contain high quality protein, vitamins and amino acids for humans. Insects have a high food conversion rate, e.g. crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and twice less than pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Besides, they emit less greenhouse gases and ammonia than conventional livestock.”
-Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Check out this photo gallery of some of the other amazing things we experienced during our time in Dalat.
So, Can Tho and Dalat. Separated by miles and a truly memorable bus ride, but also worlds apart in vibe. Can Tho pulses with the muddy, vital energy of the Mekong Delta – real people, real life unfolding on the water. Dalat floats in a cool, misty bubble of honeymoon dreams, quirky art, waterfalls, and coffee plantations. Both essential, both unforgettable pieces of the Vietnam puzzle.
What’s next? The siren song of Hoi An, a UNESCO-listed ancient town. But first, a choice: a swift $80 flight, or a thrifty $15, fifteen-hour bus ride? Guess which one our wallets (and questionable sense of adventure) chose? Join us for Part 3 to see if we survived that journey… and don’t forget to sign up for Mappy Monday Monthly below so you don’t miss anything!
