Mekong Delta
Going through the Mekong Delta is like wading your way through a flooded countryside where the water never quite receded. The murky, grey river passes through dense jungle and drenched, clay sands. Your guide paddles through the many waterways, and you are quite literally in the middle of the jungle for two or three days. Here and there are bungalows where you can spend the night. The area is the "rice basket" of Vietnam, and floating markets exist anywhere there are more than a few shacks lined up. This is the kind of Vietnamese experience where you spend a dinner drinking out of a coconut and eating shrimp grilled in front of you by an elderly Vietnamese who doesn't speak English. The best time to go is mid-autumn, when children send hundreds of candles down the river on make-shift rafts.
[Photo via]