There was blood all over, liver, tongue and intestinal tract.......and that was just my first Vietnamese breakfast. Complimented with beansprouts and chopped spring onion in a rice soup this dish of liberally applied black pepper, was quite delicious.
I pursuaded a young Vietnamese girl to take me to a popular roadside eaterie where many locals started their day. It lay amongst the thick of honking horns, motorbikes and near collisions.
"Thiliong-Dong," (East)as she was called slurped away unhindered, spooning in fish sauce (Nuoc Mam) and chilli paste for extra kick. I giggled internally thinking how many western girls would react.
The simple people of the Mekong delta are a happy lot. Never too busy to smile or wave as you pass, the kids love shouting hello or any other English words they have attained.
These people are really dependant on their water system. By this I mean for washing, eating, waste disposal and transportation. It is literally their life source. Its very communal. I watched a lady shampoo her pooch in the river right next to a man washing his vegetables!
Additionally, the region is very important to the whole country as a rice growing area and the farming roots are deeply interwoven with the river.
There is, I found, one glaring anomoly in the make-up of these people.
Its the way they drive. "Maniacs," is a considered term. They ride bikes at all speeds, in all directions, all at once.
They use the horn more often than the London Philharmonic.
My bus journey from Chau Doc to Can Tho was an epic tale of minute by minute life or death experiences. A mini bus crammed with noisy people and even noisier mobile phones, it was always going to be testing for the lone Englishman. I was sandwiched between a paranoid middle aged woman and the man with the worst BO in Vietnam. Pheeeeeew!
The bus swerved sharply to avoid head-on crashes with lorries whilst motorbikes were simply run off the road as the driver honked and honked.
The bloke in front of me decided he wanted to smoke......and did, leaving me in a cloud of carcinogenic muck for 2 hours.
The bus bounced over many bridges straight from the set of, "the Dukes of Hazard," sending our behinds into temporary orbit.
At this point, the paranoid middle-aged woman took a black bin liner from under her seat and revealed long belts of cigarette packets bound by elastic bands!? She wrapped coil after coil around her midriff up to her chest. Was she forming a protective layer? Was she auditioning for the Mitchellin mans wife? I never did find out.
Unbelieveably, we arrived in Cantho on the banks of the Mekong and a relieved Englishman jumped on a motorbike in search of a guesthouse.
Oh well......from one lethal mode of transport to another......
