Vietnam...Mekong Delta tour

I took a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and, as always, met a fellow traveller on the way. Christian is from Germany and taking a break from school to travel before he starts his PhD in physics in March...ugh. Anyway, that first afternoon we both needed to make further travel plans so we went to a few of the dozens, if not hundreds of travel agents easily found in the backpacker district. We quickly realized that travelling during the Chinese New Year in Vietnam is next to impossible. I had wanted to leave Saigon after a day or two but every bus, train and plane were booked up for at least 4 days. Good thing I'm becoming much more flexible and easy-going! :) So, I decided to join Christian on a 2 day trip to the Mekong Delta to kill some time before I could leave.
Now, on an organized tour you never really know what you're going to get. What we saw on the tour itself isn't that much to talk about. We had a lot of boat rides around "floating markets," which were kind of a disappointment and we had a lot of "how it's made" tours. I now know how they make coconut candy (which is really tasty and addictive), rice noodles and lots of honey products. The interesting parts of the tour were the people and the insane traffic.
At the end of our first day we were supposed to have a 2 hour bus ride that involved a ferry trip before we got to Can Tho, where we'd be spending the night. The tour company seemed to have overlooked the fact that it was Chinese New Year and that means that almost everyone in the country is on his/her way somewhere. The line-up for the 15 min ferry ride was backed up for kilometers. Picture this....40-some people on a bus, who at this point haven't eaten for 5 hours or so waiting without any knowledge of how long they are going to be trapped on this bus. Our tour guide did not handle the situation well. He started out by telling us we had 5 kms to go and it would take about 2 extra hours. Now, where he came up with this information, I have no idea. After a few hours of waiting and barely moving, people started to get restless. It was becoming necessary for smoke and bathroom breaks. I waited it out as long as I could but eventually, nature called. I left the bus in search of a washroom and ended up using one at a mobile phone store which was again, one of the grossest ones I've used but I was not in a position to be picky. On my way out of the store I was just in time to see my bus drive past. I thought about running up to it and trying to do an impressive jump on to the moving bus but the dozens of motorbikes beteween us made me decide against it. I wasn't worried at that point because we'd always stop a few hundred meters up the road, so I waved casually and started walking. I was actually quite happy to be out of the bus for a bit and figured I may as well enjoy the walk. But then the traffic kept moving, and I was passed what seemed to be an awful lot of cars and my bus disappeared out of view. I was still fine and figured if I hadn't caught up in 15 mins, then I'd take up one of the moto drivers on his offer to drive me until I found the bus. About 10 mins later I caught up to my bus and got on to a round of applause. Apparently, I'd caused quite the stir on the bus as many of the women (probably all of the mothers) were freaking out on the driver for not stopping and waiting for me. They were getting themselves into quite a panic about the poor Canadian girl abandonned by the bus and assumed I was in a panic as well. I actually felt kind of bad that I'd enjoyed my walk while they were all so worried about me. But I could only imagine how my mom would have felt had she been on a bus that left a girl on her own so I'm not surprised they were worried.
That was really the highlight of the bus ride for me. After that we still had several hours of waiting in which I taught Christian how to play Crazy Eights and decided even though I was hungry, that I probably shouldn't get off the bus again. I'm actually quite impressed that there wasn't more drama on the ride. One American woman started to get upset and exchanged some words with our tour guide, who actually told her to shut up. Overall, I stayed in a pretty good mood and kept laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and the poor planning. Trips like this are all a part of travelling and I've learned to appreciate even them. Eventually we arrived at our hotel, close to 6 hours after we were supposed to arrive, found some food and was out for the night.
The next day I got to know a few more people on the tour whom I found truely inspirational. There was an American couple who have been married for 25 years and have been living in Vietnam for over a year for work and are just the sweetest couple I have probably ever met. I also met another American who is a single dad in his late forties, and is travelling for months around Asia while his daughter is finishing up her last year of highschool in China. All of these people made me feel so great about my decision to travel and gave me a lot to think about for how I want to live my life and what I may choose to do. I won't get into details here, but just know that I'm feeling optimistic and completely content with my life right now. I do still miss people though, so continue to keep in touch. :)