Our last stop in Vietnam takes us by plane from Hue back to Ho Chi Minh City and then by bus to Can Tho in the middle of the Mekong Delta. Although the plane is a little late, the bus only takes 2.5 hours instead of the advertised 4 hours.
There isn’t much going on in Can Tho itself, which is why we only stay one night. But here, too, you can tell that everyone is busy preparing for the Vietnamese New Year. The city is dotted with countless strings of LED lights, the main street is brightly lit and somewhat reminiscent of the hustle and bustle of a metropolis. Conversely, many restaurants and stores are already closed for the vacation around the “turn of the year”.
This is also confirmed by our guide, who picks us up from the hostel at 4am the next morning to take us to our boat for an excursion on the Mekong. According to Clara, this is the last or penultimate day to do a meaningful tour on the river, after which there would be nothing going on for around a week. And that would be a great pity, because in addition to the many vegetable, fruit and rice plantations, we particularly want to visit the floating markets.
When we arrive at the boat, we are greeted by our boat driver and discover her 7-8-year-old granddaughter sleeping under a wooden bench on the boat. The trip to the first market takes around 1.5 hours and we enjoy the peace and quiet on the river and the slow gray of the morning before arriving at the market almost at sunrise. Unfortunately, the market is a little less busy than we had hoped, but the hustle and bustle is still exciting to watch. Our captain in particular jumps straight into the action and buys a whole bag of blood oranges from a farmer for the equivalent of 30 cents (and of course we also get a slice later 
). We are most impressed by a busy elderly lady who is bubbling a huge pot of soup on her small wooden boat and selling Vietnamese breakfast (noodle soup) to the tourists. As boats keep passing by, sometimes causing large waves, we wonder how often she or the pot has gone overboard during the maneuvers 
We continue to a flower market, where the yellow or orange marigolds popular for New Year’s are sold – here too, our captain strikes directly with 5 plants. The flowers are yellow or orange and are just as popular at New Year as the kumquat trees, as they promise money and success for the following year! Our next stop takes us through a small side channel of the river and you almost feel like you’re in the jungle. The destination is a farm for dragonfruit, we see the different stages of the plant and of course get to taste a fruit. The tour is really a food tour in disguise
We walk to the next stop through a small village by the river while Clara introduces us to the history, life and traditions of the locals. After a 10-minute walk, we reach a small cocoa plantation – yes, there is one here – which is run by a 78-year-old farmer. It is the only farm still in existence in the Mekong Delta and produces around 2 tons of cocoa beans for the international market. Not exactly a lot, but apparently enough to reserve another tonne for tourism. We are allowed to see and of course taste all stages of cocoa production!!!
For the last stop on the tour – a rice noodle factory – we take another short boat trip. Here we learn how rice flour and water are first briefly fried into 80 cm diameter rice sheets, then dried for several hours and finally cut into fine rice noodles. We also get a “rice noodle pizza” to eat on the way! On the way back to the hotel, we drive through another, much larger floating market. The boats here are larger and loaded with huge quantities of goods. It’s like a wholesale market on the water. This is where the traders living on the boats come to sell the goods they have bought from the farmers. Back at the hotel, we say goodbye to Clara and receive a small New Year’s gift – an envelope with freshly printed money, which also brings luck and success in the coming year – which we are told to open on New Year’s Day.
We put our feet up for a moment, eat our rice noodle pizza and then head back to the bus to Ho Chi Minh City, where we spend our last evening in Vietnam. We have an appointment with the brother of Tobi’s colleague, who provides us with one dish after another – and lots of beer – in a night market that has been cleared of tourists. As we have to get up early for the flight to Borneo, we say goodbye before the evening escalates too much and get ready for the Borneo adventure…
)
. Unfortunately, Kerstin almost doesn’t sleep, so we arrive relatively tired at 5:20 am at the train station near the port city of Hoi An and take a cab to the hostel. Despite our early arrival, we are kind enough to check in straight away and get an extra 2 hours of sleep!!!
…
), then nobody would bother us anymore… Yeah, sure, but what can you do.
and get a good night’s sleep…