Biking around Can Tho

We arrived a bit late last night, so this morning was a bit slow. The option was to go to the floating market on the river starting at 5 AM - we decided to postpone that until tomorrow. Instead we enjoyed our nice bungalow and the quiet garden at our home stay. In the afternoon we borrowed a couple of bikes and went around the suburbs of Can Tho local at everyday life, getting some local street food and basically just had a good time.

The selection of places to eat was a bit limited with our level of Vietnamese language skills but we managed to find a lady who were cooking some really good noodles. 10.000 Dong - 50 USD Cent for a big serving and we are back to our back packers budget again. And small plastic chairs.

We headed back to the home stay since we had been invited out for dinner with our host. A couple of German girls joined us and we all went out for Vietnamese pan cakes - and had the instruction about how to eat them properly. Wrap them in a green leaf, and more fresh herbs and fish sauce and eat them. Unpealed scrimps included.

We went to bed early, the alarm set for 5 AM tomorrow morning and a half day planned on the river.

Back to bungalow

Somebody who likes to keep us entertained

On the road

Yummi noodle soup

Is there anything you cannot transport on a bike?

Iced coffee

Dinner - Vietnamese pan cakes

Ready to roll leaf

Biking around Inle Lake and having sunset wine tasting at Red Mountain Estate Vineyards

We had a slow and quiet morning today. No sunrise temples to visit, no early morning transport picking us up. Just a quiet morning. We made it for pancake breakfast before 10 and relaxed a bit more. Around noon we asked if we could borrow a couple of bicycles and then we headed through town and towards a small village on the westerns shore of the lake.

It was nice a quiet to bike around the countryside and look at people doing farm work, fishing or whatever they were busy with this afternoon. Going on fairly old but sturdy bicycles we made it in a slow pace to a sign saying "boat" and a man guiding us to his cousins boat. We paid 10.000 Kyat to have us and the bikes sailed across the lake.

After some 15 minutes we made it to the other shore, off loaded the bikes and drove into another small village. Only one restaurant made the decision for food quite easy. They served some of the best food we've had in a while including a really good fish curry. We waited a bit for the afternoon heat to drop before continuing towards Red Mountain Estate Vineyards. Located on a hillside with lake view and sunset it is pretty busy with tourist but we managed to get a good table, do the surprisingly good wine tasting of three white and one red wine from the estate. Also looking back at our travel experiences and realising that the last time we did wine tasting was in Canada in the Okanagan Valley. That's a lot of kilometres ago.

We just sat here on the hillside in Myanmar and enjoyed the wine, another couple joined us and we spent the rest of the afternoon talking travel plans and experiences with them. At 6 PM we headed back to our bikes and as the darkness came we did our best to make it back to town and our hostel.
And booked a full day boat trip on the lake tomorrow. Pick up at 7:30 at the motel.

Lazy morning in bed

Getting the bike ready

On the road

Small guy - giant hat

The opposite

In the boat with the bikes

Speeding across the lake

Safely on the other side of Inle Lake

Cold drink

Best curry in a while

The bench

View with the lake in the horizon

Tasting notes - the Sauv Blanc was best, mixed impressions from the other wines

Sunset and winery - not tried since Canada, looong time ago