The kindness of strangers

Ham Luong Hotel
Ben Tre, Vietnam

Hot, steamy, thunder storms
Tuesday October 4th

We did manage to salvage a bad day in Can Tho yesterday with a good walk at night after the rain.  On the waterfront a huge  statue of Uncle Ho ( Ho Chi Min) had probably a hundred large bats flying around his head in the floodlight.

No photos of bats but the streets looked great in the rain

There were no English speaking people of our bus ride today further into the Delta to Ben Tre.  We had to change local buses somewhere, but they all knew where that was and carried our bags through the rain, got our tickets and gave instructions to the new driver.

Doug practiced his Vietnamese and made friends, and I tried to dodge the smoke from the chain smoker in front of me  This time we had a 7Km motorbike ride from the bus station to our hotel.  My driver was crazy.  We took off leaving Doug and his driver way behind.  I had to hold on for dear life! 

It gets dark about 6pm here, so we had to get out and scout the town and find somewhere to eat before then as there is only the odd street light lit after dark and we really needed a beer or two after today's adventure.

Here we are slightly 'off street' relaxing and  eating Vietnamese barbeque chicken.Our stomachs have settled now after Cambodia. The guy who served us spoke quite good English, and I think he may have been the manager.  He said he earned about $250 a month and his wife was the receptionist and probably earned quite a bit less.  He had  one child and was  saving to buy some property with a garden.  Our meal and several beers came to  $10 and we felt guilty!  

 Beers

Our cooks at work in an open kitchen

Yum

We just came down from the rooftop bar where we had coconut ice cream looking out over the river as lightning flashed across the sky and the rain poured down.

Tomorrow we are getting up early and taking bikes from the hotel and hopefully biking out into the countryside.

Talking of food.  Did I mention the coffee yet?  It is incredible, you can walk on it. Doug drinks it black, but I have it with a good spoonful of condensed milk like the Vietnamese.  Heaven!