Our last days in Vietnam, Dad and I signed up to take a two-day tour of the Mekong Delta.
Day one of the tour
Our first pitstop on the way to the Delta, we saw a great Buddhist temple with monks in mid-ceremony and three huge Buddha statues. Huge! I love huge buddhas. This temple had three, and though they weren't as joyful as the one I saw in Taiwan, they were still inspirational.
After three hours on the bus we reached the river. The trip on the river was not as amazing as I expected, especially after the Ha Long Bay Tour, but it was interesting. The river is big and wide here and mostly foliage along the banks.
Our first stop was a coconut candy "factory". This was actually a very interesting process. They showed us how they take the raw coconut and make it into a hard taffy-like treat. It was super tasty. I exaggerate when I say factory though. It was actually a cement slab with a roof over it. Yep. No walls. More like a covered pavilion at a park rather than a place to make candy. They had two or three machines and a stove, then a couple of long tables with 6 women sitting around it wrapping the candy. And at the far end, another couple of tables stocked with product for us sucker tourists to buy. All in all, an interesting operation. (Note: I was one of the suckers who bought the candy, but four months on I've now tasted it and it tastes like plastic. Ha ha. Sucker.)
After witnessing the coconut candy operation, we took a donkey and carriage ride to the center of town and back. Dad sat in the front and so he got to guide the donkey for a while. It made for a great picture. We got a glimpse of the small town and people having lunch at their homes and little restaurants, but otherwise there wasn't much point in this diversion.
Our next stop on the river was a medium size garden. Here they groomed bees to make honey. It was a lovely place. They served us tea with the honey, which of course they wanted us to buy. I bought some very nice light sweet honey because Victor is a big honey lover. (Note: I mistakenly packed this is my carry-on and it was tossed at the Cambodian border, so unfortunately the honey never made it home.)
Apparently, there was some big animal attraction in the back of the garden, which I did not go look at. I had the feeling it was a python or some other giant snake, which, as everyone knows, I'll have night terrors if I see one. I sent Dad to take a look and he did not tell me what it was when he came back, so I am pretty certain my assumption was correct.
Our third stop on the river was for lunch. There was literally nothing to write home about the lunch. Mediocre.
At the fourth stop on the river, we were taken to another garden to try some native fruits: sapodilla, pineapple, dragon fruit, jackfruit, and papaya. The jackfruit was great and the sapodilla too. The rest were, unfortunately, mediocre. My thought is that, even in a tropical climate, fruits can be out of season.
After the fruit, and a few native songs from lackluster performers, we walked down to the nearby canal. They loaded us into traditional canoes and we had a 15-minute ride through the canal. This was truly lovely! So peaceful, floating through the high reeds that lined the banks. Probably the most incredible part was the paddlers. We had an old couple, and when I say old, I mean OLD! Dad thought the woman might have been older than him. Imagine! And she paddled like a twenty-year old crew team member. It was Amazing! Definitely the best part of the day.
At the end of the canal, we were back in the open water of the river and they dropped us back onto our boat which was waiting for us there. We rode back to the dock and reboarded the bus. The two-hour bus ride to the hotel was simply awful. I think I have whiplash from the terrible bus rides. As you may have noticed, I'm not that impressed with the tour so far. And it almost got worse.
We were supposed to stay at a homestay, which we thought would be an interesting way to see how the Vietnamese people live, but by this point, I was starting to be nervous about the quality of the place. No one else had signed up for the homestay accept for us, which also made me wary.
Luckily, they gave me an easy out. They actually wanted to take us to the homestay by motorcycle taxi! Crazy, right? I flatly refused. Firstly, because I don't do motorcycles, but also because we had our luggage. They wanted to put us on the back of two motorcycles with our luggage. Even my adventurousness has its limits. Seriously, I think this country could leave me insane.
Anyway, we decided to stay at the hotel instead, which was definitely better for us. Dad fell asleep almost immediately and slept the whole night through to 5 am. I had a shower and slept through the night as well. Those bus rides inexplicably wipe us out. It's weird. But exhausting.
Day two of the Mekong Delta Tour
A lovely morning. Breakfast at the hotel was quick and simple. We had a nice leisurely walk to the dock. Now we are crammed onto another boat on the way to the floating market. This boat is quieter than yesterday's so it's more peaceful, and this part of the river is more narrow and has a lot going on along the banks so it's much more interesting to look at. Picturesque and calm. So far, a good start.
The floating market was cool. Maybe 30 or so boats stacked with varying types of produce all floating in this one area. At 9 am, we were late to the party. All the buyers had come and gone. It felt like the vendors might be waiting just for us, but I'm sure they have better things to do. These are real working people and I was surprised how many are women. I don't know the equal rights situation is like here, but women definitely appear to be free to participate in trade, business and restaurants much more than one might think. Certainly, a great deal more than what we witnessed in Islamic countries like Turkey (and later in Morocco).
At the market, I bought a pineapple. They let us board the pineapple boat and pick out the one we wanted. Then the vendor peeled and cut open the pineapple for me, and gave it to me like a lollipop! Dad got a good picture of me. It's so lovely how they cut the pineapple in this pretty way that gets all the eyes out without losing much of the fruit. But to keep the whole thing on its stem and eat it like a giant pop, well, that made my day. I felt like a kid again. And all for 10,000 dong. That sounds like a lot, right? Nope. It's only 50 cents. Amazing! And so fun! What a great moment!
At the first rest stop, we saw a really interesting black bird in a cage at the "factory" where they make rice noodles. This operation was similar to the coconut candy operation - a simple outside operation with two machines to show the tourists how rice noodles are made and then sell us rice noodle pizza rounds etc. The process: They take rice hulls and grind them into a flour, mix them with water and make a thin mixture. Then they cook it on a griddle into super thin pancakes the size of large pizzas, kind of like crepes. Then the cakes were dried in the sun until they were very hard and then run through a cutter, similar to a bread slicer, and the pancake becomes long strands of rice noodle. Voila. It was actually very interesting. I'm always so amazed what they can make from so little.
And finally, we had some more mediocre fruit. Seems to be a theme on this tour to underwhelm us. Then we returned to the boat for a long ride back to the dock for lunch.
We had lunch at the hotel because honestly we couldn't be bothered to go find any other place. It proved to be relaxing and the food was satisfying. After lunch, I suppose, it will be a long (read neverending) bus ride back to Ho Chi Minh. They have rat and snake on the menu here. And while I always thought it was racist to stay that Vietnamese people eat dogs, it turns out that it's true. Dog is on the menu too. But if you're worried you might get dog meat instead of beef, you can rest assured you won't. Dog meat is actually a delicacy here, served only in winter. And they wouldn't sell it in place of beef because it would actually be more expensive. Whew!
Final Thoughts on Vietnam
Vietnamese people like birds. A lot of restaurants and other businesses will have a bird in a cage, sometimes two. Usually they are exotic, special birds. I saw a hummingbird in one. I wonder if they bring good luck or something like that.
Vietnamese restaurants have a much larger selection of veg than the Taiwanese did and Vietnamese dishes in general tend to include a lot more veg, although, like the Taiwanese, the Vietnamese are very partial to fried foods as well, especially egg rolls.
Taiwan had stinky tofu, but Vietnam has stinky fish sauce. I think the stinky tofu is worse.
The motos are really at an all time high here and it is just a free for all. They don't seem to obey traffic rules much at all. More than once I've felt like they are deliberately driving right towards me. Even on the sidewalk. Just not friendly at all.
The Vietnamese are fairly pushy and generally ignore you unless they want you to buy something. As a visitor, this comes across as rude. Obviously, there are probably rules of interaction or cultural norms that I don't know about that would explain this. Otherwise, they just don't care about foreign visitors. They have a solid tourist population so I guess they might just think they don't need to be that friendly. I sincerely hope this is not the case.
On the tours, especially, I got the feeling that they're so used to having tourists, that they take us for granted and they have realized that they don't have to do a great job. The minimum is enough because there will be more tourists tomorrow.
When buying souvenirs you really have to examine them for flaws because more than likely they'll have some and you may not notice it before you purchase. Buyer beware is a definite rule when buying in this country.
Vietnam is definitely outside of my comfort zone. The language barrier is often a problem. Even those in the travel industry who know English often don't know it well enough to answer any questions. You point to the menu to order. If you want the dish specialized in some way, you should count yourself lucky if they understand.
The traffic makes it very uncomfortable too. It's difficult to walk the streets and not feel like at any moment a moto might just come up on the sidewalk right where you're walking. That's if you can use the sidewalk, which is generally a parking lot for motos. Crossing the street is a terrifying event and I never seem to feel better about it, no matter how many times I do it. And like I said, more than once I've had motos cruise toward me at a speed which made me think I was a target or they just didn't see me. It's scary.
I learned a lot in Vietnam about what I consider a second world country. It's definitely more developed than India but it's still got plenty of room for improvement in terms of standard of living and also of quality standards. I guess these go hand in hand since a higher standard of living will automatically demand higher quality of things. And while it was definitely out of my comfort zone, and often in a very uncomfortable way for me personally, I did gain a great deal of knowledge and perspective from it, so at the very least I am left enriched by it.
Today we are leaving Vietnam. I am honestly not that sad about it. It was an experience for sure. But certainly not my favorite one so far.
Here we come Cambodia! Please be kind to us.
