A year or two ago I took a trip down the Saigon River from Ho Chi Min City. We spent a day out on the Mekong Delta meeting the farmers, visiting little waterside towns and having lunch in the most extraordinary rest-stop on the flat-lands.

The trip was run by Les Rives - a specialist excursion company - and it was all very well run. What impressed me most is that they insist on using local people and purchasing local produce which is prepared by local farmers and their wives - which means they bring plenty of employment to what is otherwise a fairly poor area.

I’d love to go on another of their excursions - but in the meantime am left in lockdown here in West Somerset wondering how on earth people who live in the shanty towns alongside the river have been faring during the pandemic. When I look it up on the Internet I see that Vietnam has quite low coronavirus numbers compared to many countries - I hope this is an accurate picture but cannot really understand how they do the social distancing thing in some of those cramped places.