Our next destination was Ben Tre, a town along the Mekong Delta where we had arranged a homestay with a local there. I found his homestay via a travel blog. Our host's name is Phuoc and he had given instructions on how to get to his home via email:
"You can take the minivan from Sai gon:( 78.000 VND) 70B Hung Vuong 9 ward,5 distrist, HCM city and tell them bring you to : 217C Hung Vuong, 5 ward, Ben Tre city ( My office)."
Okay. So I keyed in the address into trusty Google maps. It appeared to be quite a distance from the frozen yogurt cafe we were at beside Ben Thanh Market, but a rather straightforward route. We still had slightly more than a couple hours before we were meeting our host around 6pm, so we decided to walk to the minivan station. I assumed it would be reachable within an hour or more and for some reason I kept thinking that Ben Tre wasn't very far away from Saigon.
Oh and this is the reason why most people wouldn't really fancy travelling with us I think. We just walk and walk and walk and just looking at our surroundings while walking is interesting enough for us. :P
But to be honest I was a teeny bit afraid of walking a lot then, because my backpack was becoming heavier and heavier and my shoulders and back were getting a lil' sore. Still, I figured it would be interesting enough and that it would be a very good workout... haha
I was a little confused about where exactly we were because I was using Apple's (not iphone, my friend) phone and it had problems using GPS to track our location. My phone was running out of battery at that point of time, her phone too...
Finally I got our bearings right and I double confirmed with a middle-aged guy by the pavement. Turns out he was a taxi driver (or was it motorbike?) and he told us where we were going was really far away and he told us to take his cab (or was it his bike service?). We politely rejected his offer and set off on our way.
