Homestay safari

We took the morning bus for an hours ride from Can Tho to Vinh Long. A shuttle bus from the bus station dropped us off at the ferry jetty where we had arranged to meet Mr Treung to take us to his Homestay on the island of An Binh, just over the river. At the jetty we started chatting to Francoise, a French lady who we remembered seeing when we were cycling in the countryside around Can Tho the day before. She was looking for a Homestay on the island, so she tagged along with us. Mr Treung duly turned up on his motorbike and we all took the 5 minute ferry trip and were met the other side by a couple of other motorbikes to take us all to the Homestay.


The Homestay was a large wooden house tucked into lush green jungle, sliced up by numerous water channels with small paths running alongside (just wide enough for a motorbike to pass a bicycle as we found out later!). A great getaway in the middle of nowhere- just what we had been hoping for.


It didn't take me long to get into the swing of the place...


I was expecting a mat bed but was pleasantly surprised by a comfy mattress..


After lunch, we took a bike ride around the island to mingle with the locals and, as ever, engage in our usual high-level cultural exchange, discussing the merits of United vs City...



and were back in time to help prepare the evening meal. Cooking facilities were traditional.





On the menu was pancake rolls (getting quite good at making these)


chicken vegetable soup and Elephant fish from the river. It's supposed to look like an elephant's ear apparently.


All beautifully presented...


We washed it down with a teapot or two of rice wine with a beer chaser, and unsurprisingly slept quite soundly, despite the cacophony of frogs and assorted wildlife noises- some might have been coming from the neighbouring crocodile farm, just 50 metres away...






There's a few handbags in that lot!
Of course they eat them here aswell. We saw quite a few whole ones being BBQ'd along the strip in Mui Ne. The Mehmsahib's quite proud of me because so far I've resisted the temptation to ask a waiter for a crocodile sandwich and tell him to make it snappy.

Location:Vinh Long