Touring to Mekong Delta

I took a day tour to mekong delta. We left the town at 8:00 am..and took an hour drive with the bus to the port. We arrived at the port around 10:am, it was a bit confusing, since one of the attraction is sightseeing in floating market, which normally is already closed by that time.

The guide brought us; we were around 10 people, to a moderate sized motorboat. Then after a while we were already going away from the port, along Mekong river. The river is quite big, not too strong current, with yellow water, alongside the river there are plenty of big trees and bushes, among them were the houses and sign of inhabitants. Several people were enjoying the time and accompany, sitting and playing on the river’s edge.
Sometimes, there were a smaller speedboat riding faster than our boat, with crops and hunts inside, huge and noisy pigs, bright red rambutans, green veggies, people passing the rivers, as also there are several living boats with the people sitting and just staring at us, the tourist.
We passed the nearby town with its high towered church, standing right in front of the river.
Our guide, a young lady (unfortunately not with the famous Vietnamese hat) was kept talking and explaining about the Mekong River, as usual I can never listen to the guide, so I just watched around. But among of those she explained, she also mentioned about the floating market, which started early in the morning before dawn and usually ended before 9:am.
Then the boat stopped near a hut and we took off from the boat and walked to the hut, along the way there were several small kids attacking us, offer us their postcards. My friend and me bought 2 sets of postcards, 1 USD each. We decided to choose the nicest-spoken girl, the most polite girl who, according to us, already mastered the technique of sales. Apparently we made her friend furious, because we didn’t buy her, and as the result, she chased us for quite sometime, pushing us with her tiny hands holding the postcards, keep asking us to buy her postcards. She didn’t accept our answer that we didn’t buy hers because we already got enough.

We went into a small shop/restaurant, which sells traditional snacks; among them are coconut candy, cassava, banana, and ginger, jackfruit chips. They let us tastes each one and here I tasted the snake wine, which I wrote in another blog. We took our picture using the traditional cone shaped Vietnamese hat, the lady who stand by in that shop I think was a bit pissed off since we touch and wear the hat without buying them. After that we continued walking along the riverside, where there are accessories, paintings and clothes seller. Here our guide explains us about the small shrine that is normally found in front of any houses to represent a god that the house owners worship. We went to another house to see a lady baking a traditional snack. That snack looks like a very thin and crispy crepe, made of flour and coconut milk. Then we went to another stove, where a man swinging a big screen, to husk rice, then the rice will pop out turned similar as popcorn, then this thing is suitable to be called poprice. After that the rice was covered by melted sugar, so that it can be stacked together. Here we sat down, drink tea and eat some snacks. We had a short talk with each other in our group. There were Novi, my friend and myself. There was a Sweden couple, who didn’t talk too much, two girls from Switzerland, they are friendly and obviously not French. One Vietnamese-australian girl (we had a hard time to guess where she comes from). One Japanese guy, which I guess right of his nationality. One middle aged thai women, whose English is very good for a thai at her age, but she talks a lot and always comparing things with Thailand, so almost once every minute, we heard her talking, “oh, we have this in Thailand”,”This is just the same as home”.
We took the boat ride again, went through more inside to the river, with similar greenery and people houses on the sides. Once we passed a short bridge, and the boat driver has to have all of us went to the front of the boat, so that the boat become shorter than the bridge and we can pass. After we got one side passed, then all of us moved back together, to shorten the backside of the boat. Quite a funny experience.
We arrived to a house, which turned to be a restaurant, surrounded by garden and pond. They have plenty of longan and banana trees along the way. Didn’t take a long time we waited for the food. First is clear vegetables soup came, the stir fry vegetables, small spring rolls with chili sauce, then the main course, a big deep fried fresh water fish, what local called as elephant fish, accompanied by Vietnamese rice paper, glass noodle, and fresh herbs. We made our own food. First, we took one piece of rice paper, then a piece of fish, noodle and herbs as we like. Then we folded the paper, dip it to the sauce and bite it. This is a nice, fresh and healthy food, except for the fish, since it is deep-fried. We bite, and dip and made the new roll, and dip and bite, so and on.
After lunch, the guide offer us if we want to take a nap in several hammocks hanging around us, or take a bike to see around. Me, Novi and the Japanese guy, took the bike and we rode along the small road. We passed some bridges, sometimes it was very steep, so that it was a bit hard to cycle the bike. It was a very long time ago since the last time I rode a bike, so this was an enjoyable moment tough a bit scary if the road was so steep downhill. We passed houses and houses, some shops and market, some churches and temples, among the big and long longan garden. After a while we decided to go back to the house and found that the other people were still sleeping. We took a hammock for each of us, but haven’t got any chance to lie down; the guide has already called us to do another trip. We went out and walk following her. We went pass through the park and garden, and houses. Then we stop in front of a sanca snake cage. It was so huge. The owner offered us to carry the snake, only me who was crazy enough to accept the challenge. The snake was so heavy; I think he weighs more than 20kg. He put it over my shoulder; it felt smooth and cold at the same time, quite eerie. The snake was so lazy and ingnorant, maybe he’s already being fed enough.
We continue the walking, passing another parks and gardens to the port where we went back to the boat.
In this boat trip, the driver, opened the young coconut for each one of us. It was very nice to drink the fresh coconut water in the middle of hot day like that. It was funny to see how’s the Japanese guy was surprise when I showed him that the top of the coconut, we can eat its flesh.
Then we arrived in a bigger port, which link to a traditional market. We went strolling inside the traditional market and saw some animals which we even never think that they exist were sold here, to be eaten, snakes, frog, tortoise, clamp, mussel, fish, poultry, some reptile which I don’t know the name, and many more. Even the type of vegetables here is very extensive. Some vegetables, which I recognize because I used to use that when I play, pretending to cook the vegetables as if they were the real one. So it is the real vegetables that can be eaten actually. Some seller sell the dried seafood, which has unique smell. We stop at a small café, waiting for the bus. Here I took a Vietnamese coffee which is very well know, for this coffee I will talk about it in another chapter. Then we went to the bus, which will take us back to Saigon city.

Lovely trip, worth sightseeing.