Mekong Delta

We got up early today in order to prepare for our trip to the Mekong delta. The dirty clothes that we had paid to have cleaned were still not done. Larissa spent about half an hour trying to figure out where the clothes were. Finally, they were returned to us, half of them still wet. By that time, we were in a rush to catch the bus. Even still, Larissa found time to get some clean clothes on while I started taking our bags downstairs. I am wearing the same clothes as yesterday. I don't think that they were clean yesterday either. Easy to lose track of that sort of thing.

I guess we missed the bus, because we were lead away from the hotel in search of it. It is not a big deal to miss a bus around here, because they circle around the city until they are filled. We were lead to a different bus terminal, in fron of An Phu tours. This greatly concerned us. An Phu was resposible for our not-so-enjoyable trip from Hoi An to Saigon a couple of days ago. We were relieved when we were picked up by a TNK tours bus. Then, we were annoyed when we saw a bus that said "An Phu and TNK Tours." It is hard to figure out who is who. We used to think that there were a bunch of competing tour agencies around here, now it seems more like it is just one big company. Oh well, we got the big beautiful bus this time.



Off to the Mekong Delta we went. For a little background, the Mekong is Asia's third largest river. It originates on the Tibetan Plateau, and flows over 4000km, through China, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia before reaching southern Vietnam. Their are around eight main branches of the river covering a large area of fertile farmland. The Delta is resposible for a large percentage of Vietnam's food production.

About an hour's drive from Saigon brought us to the river town of My Tho. There we boarded a motor boat and took a short ride to a fruit market. Here is a big basket of dragonfruit, accompanied by a young saleswoman. Here is what dragonfruit look like inside. We bought a few oranges to hold us over until lunch. After the market we re-boarded the boat and headed for Turtle island. We hiked along a nice grove of fruit trees and pineapple plants to the other side of the island, where lunch was to be served. We were given some ramen noodles and vegetables with some sort of meat on top. The woman who served us said that Larissa's food was vegetarian, but mine was not, though we could not discern the difference between the two. I asked to have mine exchanged for something vegetarian. The fake meat around here sure looks real. Hmmm.... It was a good lunch nonetheless, and it was topped off by a nice fruit selection at the end: pineapple, dragonfruit, jackfruit, and a fruit that I call the armpit fruit (we dont know the name of it, but due to its' taste and smell, armpit fruit is as good of name as any) which we did not eat. We did not intend to eat much fruit while in Vietnam, especially fruit of questionable origin. The fact that we haven't had any bowel troubles as of yet has made us a little under cautious I think.

The boat picked us up on the other side of the island. We were then dropped off on Unicorn Island. There we got to taste coconut candy, and view the process of its' production. Larissa helped out by stirring the boiling coconut milk for awhile.

The locals seemed to enjoy this. I think they were laughing at how easy it was to get tourists to do their work for them. The coconut candy was very good, even though neither of us are big coconut fans.

Then Larissa held a big snake for awhile, after which we enjoyed a nice cup of tea with locally harvested honey and lemons. Then we were transferred to small row boats, four people per boat. Two women in the usual conical hats rowed us through a maze of small channels.
This was probably the highlight of the day. When we got out into the open again, the big boat was waiting to take us back to the bus. On the way back to the bus, we were shown some floating villages. On some of the houses, you can see a chicken-wire enclosure between the floor of the house and the water. It turns out that many of these houses have catfish pens underneath them. Our guide told us that when the catfish reach a kilogram or so, they are sold off.

From My Tho, it was a three-hour ride to the Delta's biggest city (pop. 60,000), Can Tho, where we are now. Along the way we got to see Vietnam's largest and apparently most beautiful bridge. It was paid for by the Australians. I'd be interested to find out more about that relationship. We took a ferry from the town of Ben Tre to Can Tho. We checked in to our hotel a couple of hours ago. We have a pretty nice room, especially considering that its' price is included in the $15 tour fee. We made our way down to the riverfront for some food. The tour claimed that meals are included, so apparently dinner is not a meal. We ordered a large pizza and two sides of rice. When the food came out, it looked like we had ordered a small pizza and two large orders of rice.

We are not exactly sure what is on tap for tomorrow. All that we know is that we have to be downstairs for breakfast at 6:30, and that we will be visiting a couple of floating markets before making the return trip to Saigon.