Around the Mekong Delta: Chau Doc, Rach Gia, Phu Quoc

For the crossing into Vietnam we opted to take a slow boat down the Mekong to Chau Doc in Vietnam. We organised our visas in Phnom Penh - they were expensive compared to the Cambodian ones, but took just four hours to process. The 'border' consisted on each side of just a quiet office on riverbank, although to enter Vietnam we did have to undergo a 'health examination', which involved walking past a doctor and promising we didn't have swine flu... The boat along the Mekong was much more interesting after entering Vietnam - we saw water buffalo wallowing at the side of the river, as well as people fishing, washing and swimming.

Chau Doc itself was a vibrant and bustling town, although we both immediately felt a sense of disorientation as Vietnam is so different to Laos, Cambodia and Thailand - a lot of people have told us it is more like China. The Mekong Delta is very heavily populated and the river is at the centre of most peoples' lives. Houses on stilts line the riverbanks, and many people keep fish farms in the water below. The riverfront in Chau Doc was very pretty, although the rest of the town was more chaotic than attractive.

We stayed just one night then headed off to Phu Quoc island the following day. It was an exhausting journey - along with four English guys (who gratifyingly seemed even more clueless than us) and 13 locals we were crammed onto a minbus designed for ten people. Other passengers included a muzzled dog and a bucket of fish. The scenery en route was pretty interesting - we saw a lot of rice paddies, as well as sprawling towns all boasting many identical roadside cafes advertising pho, and water buffalo pulling carts. From Rach Gia, we jumped on the back of motorbikes to head to the port then caught the hydrofoil to Phu Quoc island.

The island is 150km off the Southern coast of Vietnam, close to the border with Cambodia. There are plans to develop it further but at the moment it remains blissfully quiet, with long stretches of pristine beach. On arrival, we hopped like pros onto the back of two more motos for the 13km journey to our chosen beach. I was a bit nervous as the roads were either loose gravel or dirt so a spill could have been nasty, but all went well.

We stayed in a bungalow five minutes walk from the beach, down a rough dirt track which at night was entirely unlit and quite scary. My led headlamp finally had its day! Our time on the island passed in a haze of sunbathing, swimming and snacking on great food at the many quiet beachside restaurants.

Some of the main beach was taken over by big resorts but there were still stretches of sand where it was possible to lie under a palm tree and see no one else to either direction. All the tourists we saw wandering the beach had the same dazed expression, as if they couldn't quite believe how picture-perfect the island was. During our time there we discovered lemon rum - a dirt cheap concoction of Vietnamese rum and sweetened lemon juice. I also ended up ordering nem - Vietnamese spring rolls - every day we were there. They are infinitely superior to spring rolls from any other Asian country! Our favourite restaurant was on the beach right next to the sea - in order to see the menu you actually had to walk through the sea. It had little wooden tables and red plastic chairs, with one dim romantic lamp adorning each table. We went there several nights in a row for the excellent marinaded bbq chicken, served with rice and salad.

We ended up devoting quite a large chunk of our time in Vietnam to the island, partly because lack of advance planning meant we had to get the hydrofoil back a day later than we had intended. The journey to Saigon took about 11 hours in total, but we eventually got there at 10pm on the 22nd of March.