Day 3
Country
Woke up early and headed out to change some money as soon as the banks opened. Also had to find a tyre shop to put puncture-proof slime in our tyres. Two jobs done and we headed out of HCMC. It took us a good two hours in the mad traffic to get to the outskirts and head south-west towards the Mekong delta. We were hoping to see a floating market near Cai Be. The highway was busy but we made good progress on it, or so it felt but we were only averaging 30kmph. I was using Google maps on my phone to help us navigate. The phone was in the map pocket of my tank bag and it started to overheat in the blazing sun and threatened to shut down. So once we were out of town and on the highway I turned my phone off to give it a rest.
Arrived in Cai Be at around 4.30 p.m. and found what seemed to be the only hotel in town. It looked very grand but luckily cost just over £10 for the night. They had some fish in tank in the lobby which had I ♥ U tattooed or painted on them! Bizarre!
After a quick shower and hand washing sweaty clothes we went out to look around the town and to get something to eat. There wasn't much to see so we had a couple of drinks and ate dinner. On the way back to the hotel we saw a random road-side stall selling a motley collection of new and used tools, knives, cleavers etc. and wandered over to take a look. There were about 4 or 5 men (presumably the owners of the stall) who called us over to join them as they had just sat down to eat dinner. We went over but as we had already eaten we just had a beer with them. They could speak as much English as we could Vietnamese but we managed to have a laugh with them thanks to Google translate (my phone had recovered from heat exhaustion). We also learnt how to say cheers in Vietnamese which woukld stand us in good stead for the rest of our journey - Mot Hai Ba Yo! (One two three Yo!)
Back at the hotel neither Ron nor I were ready to call it a night so we went back out and happened upon a snooker hall where we played pool till about 1 a.m.
