Take-out

Our last day in Vietnam saw us wake up on the barge on the Mekong, slowly steaming towards Can Tho, the fourth-largest city in the country and the site of the famous floating market. 

We were duly loaded in a sampan and driven off to look round the market - but it's strictly look-and-don't-touch as it's wholesale only, so unless we fancied buying 10kg of dragon fruit, we weren't welcome to search out any bargains.

In truth, the locals aren't hugely impressed to see tourists in their boats clogging up the market. It's very crowded, so the last thing they need is a few dozen more boats filled by camera-wielding gawkers. That didn't stop us, naturally...

The pic is of a man running a mobile cafe - one of the few stalls from which we could have made a purchase, though we didn't. He basically spends the day flitting from boat to boat, making coffee for the various traders. I can think of worse jobs.

There are a couple of extra pics, both from the floating market. Shortly after, we visited a rice noodle factory and we were due to look around a more traditional local market, but another torrential downpour put paid to that and we headed back to our barge. 

And now, sadly, it's the end of the holiday and the start of a 30-hour journey home. It's been an amazing trip, with so much to remember. I can't wait to download all the pics onto my Mac and start going through them. Could take a while...