The Mekong Delta : Fresh fruit and a 30c haircut

There are only a few more motorbikes than travel agents in Saigon. All of them offer trips all over the country but their main focus is the Mekong Delta, which sees about 3 million tourists a year.

If you're doing a trip in Vietnam please do me a favour. NEVER do business with the monkeys at Sinh Cafe. Save a cow in Cambodia and make better use of your handgrenade. We chose a company called Innoviet because they were really friendly and because their slogan was 'we go where the Lonely Planet doesn't' which we thought was interesting. The trip was 3 days long and we were joined by our guide, a Russian and a German. The scenery was vastly different to what we had expected with us travelling through flatlands that are home to 18 million people whose lives revolve around the water.

The tour took us to floating markets, through narrow canals on a canoe, to candy and brick factories and an island home stay that made our flat in Putney look decidedly poor. The highlights were not on the itinerary and had nothing to do with the tour. After lunch the 1st day we walked off into town to get some coffee. They had none but we came across a barber shop which was convenient as I was in desperate need of a do. The cut and shave, that cost 30 cents (US), was highly entertaining for the local kids, who crammed in to watch the strange foreigner have his head shaved. A little later, when the kids realised I could reach the higher branches to pick fruit for them, I gained some respect and we had a wonderful afternoon.