Hello from the Delta!
We are now in the fertile lands of Vietnam's Mekong river delta. We originally saw the Mekong river near it's headwaters in the Chinese himalayas (Deqin) and have passed by it in Laos and Cambodia. Now we are in the area where it finally spills into the ocean in southern Vietnam. This area is very unique to what we've seen so far and is definitly one of our favorites places already. The river branches off into about five legs before it hits the ocean and, over many years, the local farmers have dug an elaborate canal system that links the legs together and provides for great irrigation of their rice fields and fruit plantations, as well as creating a great floating transportation system within the area.
We started off in the town of Ben Tre. There we rented bicycles and got our introduction to the area's unique lifestyle. Narrow concrete paths lead through local villages that are immersed in tropical forests and cross narrow canals where locals row their boats from one place to another with their big cone shaped hats on. Every local that we passed yelled out "Hello!", sometimes with great enthusiasm. Other than the concrete paths, the area doesn't seem like it has changed much over the years. People seem to live a simple life farming the rice fields near by or picking fruits like coconuts or pineapples. Every house has a few hammocks on the property for the locals to relax after a good day of work. The farmers here can harvest their crops four times a year because of the consistant moisture in the soil and warm weather.
The next day we took a bus to another Mekong city named Venh Long. This city was even more authentic than Ben Tre. On the bus ride there, we met two other travellers and decided to sign up for a day long boat trip and a homestay. The four of us went with this guy named Nam on his boat. He first took us to a floating market. A floating market is where farmers load up their big boats with all the fruit, rice, vegetable, etc. that they grow and cruise around different locations in the Delta selling their goods strait off the boat to the local merchants at a wholesale level. It was really cool to see this. Nam arranged for us to buy only two pineapples and hang out on one of the boats for a while. We then visited a place that made rice paper, rice popcorn, and coconut candy (All very delicious). After that,we docked the boat on a river island and did some more bicycling before having spring rolls and elephant fish (Mekong Fish) for lunch. We also drank some local whiskey fremented with snake. We then spent the rest of the day on a boat floating through the network of canals by both motorboat and row boat. This day was awesome already, but then Nam brought us over to his little home (homestay) in the middle of the forest along a small canal. His whole family lived there and his wife prepared dinner for us. We slept inside his house in a spare bed, and after breakfast the next day, we got on the boat and he took us back into town.
Though we wanted to stay in this region longer, time is not on our side here in Vietnam so we had to move north that same day.
We have just arrived in the beach town of Mui Ne, Vietnam. Our guesthouse is on the beach and has a swimming pool. This will be a great place to relax and get some sun before moving further north.
We will write more and post Mekong photos soon!
