Day 14 - Wednesday 13th September

Our first excursion today was due to start at 8am and so we set our alarms for 6am and went down for breakfast before 7am. There was a very good range of food available in the buffet in the dining room on level 1 of the ship.

When you leave the ship, you need to swap your room key for a boarding card at reception so they can keep track of who's on board and who's ashore. I prefer this method to the electronic scanning method they used on the Scenic cruise earlier this year in Bordeaux.

The ship has several motorised sampan vessels that they use to transport people along the river and to shore. When we clambered aboard, they told us to watch our heads and then to put on safety vests. There are crew members giving you a hand to make sure you don't fall down the gangplank or into the river.

For excursions, we are divided into three group and we are part of Group 3. Just like the French cruise, they issue everyone with a small radio (QuietVox) and earpods for the commentary by the guide. I'd learnt on my trip in France to use my own earpods rather than those supplied by Scenic.

Our tour ship was anchored in the middle of the Mekong River and our sampan took us downstream towards to town of Cai Be. Along the way, we saw a fascinating variety of Vietnamese vessels from one-person boats to barges, ferries and larger cargo vessels. There were quite a few other boats carrying tourists.

Many of the boats were carrying produce such as fruits. Others were carrying construction materials such as sand and cement. Most were motorised but some relied on human propulsion. Although some were speed boats creating waves, the majority moved at a more leisurely pace.

Near our ship, there was not much sign of civilisation - just trees. As we progressed on our journey in the sampan, we saw more and more huts along the shore. In the town, the narrow houses were side by side - with moorings and decks overlooking the river. Often there was washing on the lines.

In the centre of the town, there was a tall cathedral which was by far the tallest building. We passed under several modern concrete bridges.

The sampan took us along a narrow tributary and eventually moored  at a small wharf where we disembarked to visit a traditional Vietnamese house. The plaque outside the entrance pointed out that it had been restored using finance from Japan.

As you might expect, the decor inside reflected Buddhist culture. Inside the building, we admired the Buddhist artefacts and the timber furniture before walking through the kitchen and out into the garden where we walked across narrow bridges across streams and admired the flowers and trees.

Back on the sampan, we travelled past the town again before stopping at another location designed for tourists. Here we saw demonstrations of how they pop rice, separate rice from the husks and use the popped rice to make a rice toffee.

Next we saw them making rice paper. Nearby there were women rocking babies to sleep in hammocks. Our guide showed us how they make an alcoholic beverage that tasted like whisky and which he said works as well as Viagra.

Outside the hut, there was a cage containing snakes. One of the staff pulled a large python out of the stage and put it around his neck. Then he offered it to other people. A couple of the New Zealand men volunteered.

To my surprise, Suzy and Yolanda then each volunteered to have the snake put around their shoulders and lived to tell the tale. Suzy said the snake started to compressed her arm before the attendant took it away and she's got a bruise to prove it.

Naturally there was a souvenir shop for the girls to explore before we got back on the sampan to travel back to the Scenic Spirit. We returned at about 10:30am. It had been another fascinating experience of local culture.

Our next job was to go to the laundry on the bottom level (Level 0) to do some washing. It's a good system. They have three washing machines and dryers stacked on top of each other. There is a large tub of washing powder and cane baskets to take your washing back to your room. It's free to use the laundry if you do it yourself.

A buffet lunch was served in the dining room on level 1 at 12 noon. It was another excellent meal. In particular, I enjoyed the red snapper fish dish and the pork served up by the chef. I enjoyed a few glasses of Yalumba Shiraz while Suzy had a gin and tonic.

There was an afternoon excursion with Toan at 3:30pm. Once again, we clambered aboard a sampan for the journey to the town of Sa Dec. At the wharf, there were open air restaurants. Toan stopped to show us the fish tanks containing live fish and eels for the restaurants' customers.

A little further on, we boarded a tourist bus that took us into the centre of the town. Here Toan showed us several houses owned by a wealthy rice merchant. One of the houses as a colonial building dating back to the early 1880s. They showed us a brief video about a famous romantic movie that was filmed here.

Then we set out to walk through the nearby street markets. It was only a narrow street and there were merchants on both side presenting their goods for sale. Most of the vendors were sitting on mats or stools with their goods on boards or mats or bowls.

This left about 2m in the middle of the road for the steady stream of motor bikes, bicycles and pedestrians like us. We were literally right in the thick of things shoulder to shoulder with the locals

There was quite a bit of noise with the vendors calling out to encourage passers-by to purchase their goods and with the constant honking of motor bike horns right beside us.

Here are some of the highlights and amazing things we saw on our walk through the markets on this street:

• Batches of live frogs strung together on a string. As our guide picked them up, they struggled and squirmed in front of us. Some of the frogs had already been cleaned.
• Live fish in large circular dishes.
• Tiny chicks in wicker baskets.
• Raw meat.
• All types of fruit and vegetables.
• Live poultry sitting on the ground.

At one of the shops along the way, Toan took me in so I could purchase a Mobifone card to top up the data on my WiFi SIM card. The card cost only 100,000 Dong which is about 65 cents Australian and will probably give me another 2GB of data.

Once again, there were often several people on a single motor bike. Often they were young children. The bikes were also being used to transport goods to and from the markets.

I was very busy taking photos and the rest of the tour group had already turned the corner to head back. They missed one of the highlights. A fish had escaped from a vendors dish and was wriggling its way across the road. The vendor had a casual smirk on his face as we walked behind the escaping fish and he tried to retrieve the slippery devil. After several attempts he managed to return it to the container with all his other fish. By this time, Toan was waving to me at the end of the street.

We walked along a more normal street back towards where'd come from. It was wider and busy with the normal frantic traffic we've come to expect in Vietnam. The streets were lined with shops and there were a few people with barrow stalls on the sides of the road.

Further on, we passed another street market but didn't have time to explore it. We waited patiently by the rider taking in the atmosphere until our bus came to take us back to the sampan for the return journey back to the Scenic Spirit.

There was a briefing at 6:30pm in the lounge about tomorrow's activities. We decided to change from the option we had selected. None of the three sounded too exciting to me.

Dinner at 7pm in the dining room was a la carte. It was excellent food and well presented. Washed down with a few more glasses of Yalumba Shiraz. Fine dining on the Mekong River.