Day 279: Bad music day

After a buffet breakfast downstairs, Kate went down to the waterfront to look into the possibility of getting a cargo boat through the Mekong Delta to our next destination – the town of Tra Vinh – while the girls and I did a bit of work. When she got back – with a tentative reservation with a guy transporting coconuts (she thinks) – she took the girls to the pool for a swim.

We decided to take a different route into town to look for somewhere to have lunch today. After passing with some difficulty through the wedding reception going on downstairs in the hotel, we walked around the corner and passed a place where some Buddhist monks were sitting around while some 'musicians' played some very noisy and tuneless 'music' - which we guessed might be a funeral rite of some sort. Walking further on, we passed a very sweet little nick-nack shop – somewhere that wouldn't be out of place in Glebe or Leura but seemed more than a little out of place in Ben Tre - where the girls bought some cute plastic fans (Sarah's had pictures of a pak choy creature). 

When we made it into town we struggled to find anywhere appealing to eat, before eventually stumbling on somewhere that actually resembled a restaurant – where we dined on some pretty good pork, chicken and rice. We then wandered down to the river, where Kate and Sarah bought some sunglasses from a hawker and then we browsed the various shops that lined the waterfront, before heading back to the hotel (stopping off for iced coffees before we got there, of course). 

Back in the room, I logged on and checked my email and learned that our press visit to the InterContinental in Da Nang wasn't going to happen. The girls went for a swim and then we went back to the floating restaurant for dinner – and I was entertained by an incredible lightning display on the horizon behind Kate's shoulder – huge forking bolts that reached across most of the visible sky. 

When we got back to the hotel, there was some very, very loud karaoke going on somewhere in the town below us. Those of you who know me well will know well my feelings about karaoke. Unsurprisingly, we've come across it more than once as we've travelled though Asia, but nothing like this. As well as being played at an ear-bleeding volume, with some pretty tuneless singing (natch), the music wasn't pre-recorded – it was live – and clearly being played by people as good at holding a tune as the people singing along. Painful.

When we left chilly Mongolia and entered steamy China, we ditched most of our cold-weather clothing – either giving it to Mongolian families or posting it to Australia. We also did a bit of modification – turning Zoe's jeans into shorts, for example. But the girls are still wearing their winter pyjamas, so last night we decided to do a little bit more modification, cutting the legs off Sarah's onesie, and tonight we completed the job – snipping off the arms as well.