Mekong Delta tour

Saturday, April 01, 2023
Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
It was another early start this morning after a sleepless night with the bed rocking every time one of us moved.  Big beds are nice but they don’t seem to be too stable.
Up we went to the rooftop restaurant for our breakfast at about 6.15am and discovered the amazing view which looked out across the river. It is quite panoramic and I will endeavour to get some pics tomorrow morning. Breakfast was quite nice although not the same service that we got in Hoi An and we had to get our own tea and coffee. The man that I got to show me how to work the hot water urn acted as though he was doing me a huge favour. Well, tough luck buddy, it’s your job!!
We were picked up promptly at 7.30am by John, our guide for the Mekong tour, who just loved to talk and entertained us for the next hour and a half telling us all about Vietnam. I had been wondering why there were so many graveyards in the middle of rice paddies. Apparently it is because people bury their families who have died on their land so that it remains in the family forever, as they can’t sell it then.
After John yammering on we arrived at the first stop at a pretty area with a lovely water garden in the middle that featured some beautiful lotus plants. Since it was fairly warm by then we bought an icecream to cool us down. It was rock hard like the ones you get at the movie theatres but it soon thawed out sufficiently to eat.
We were supposed to visit a temple next, but when we got there it was very crowded with buses and people everywhere so we decided to wait for the end of the tour to go there, and moved onto the river boats instead. Being the weekend and also holiday time for locals everywhere is quite crowded.
From the river dock we loaded into a wooden boat and off we went to visit Unicorn island where we stopped and had some fresh tropical fruits and green tea while some of the local people sang traditional songs. Could have done without the singing but you gotta help the local economy.
Next up we toured the island to see some of the little industries that the Delta people are doing to make money. They included honey and chocolate making, and all manner of things made from coconuts including coconut candy, which was tasty but a bit chewy for me. There was also coconut wine (not great) and a disgusting looking concoction made by infusing alcohol in a huge jar full of Cobra snakes. Didn’t try that one but one of the men did and said it tasted better than the coconut wine. I don’t know how he is feeling tonight!!
After the coconuts and chocolate factories (not sure how all the chocolate didn’t melt) we boarded smaller wooden boats for our trip up the narrower part of the river for our lunch stop.  While they were cooking our lunch, at a large complex of several open air restaurants, we were taken up the river a little way and back again, in tiny boats driven with one long oar by ladies, all of us wearing conical hats.
The boats were getting progressively smaller and it was all counting down to bicycles at the end.
The river was very murky and had a fair bit of rubbish floating in it. Apparently at one time there had been lots of crocodiles, anaconda and large Elephant fish, but now they are breeding these creatures in pens at the lunch stop in order to release them back into the wild. I don’t like their chances of survival in the polluted river.
Our little sojourn up the river concluded we all piled upstairs and to a long table set for the 12 of us.
Lunch consisted of steamed rice, a pork dish, prawns, an interesting looking ball of sticky rice, chicken soup and an Elephant fish which they took away and removed the flesh, wrapping it in rice papers.
We ate our meal and chatted to the other guests, most of whom were Australian, and were a pleasant bunch. We lucked out again there!
Finishing off the Mekong tour we jumped aboard a delightful selection of bicycles that looked like they had also been dragged out of the river, and shakily followed our guide on a tour of the neighbourhood.
Halfway along I noticed that all the other women had piked out and it was just me and the guys braving the backroads and motorbikes. Bunch of wusses!!
Cleverly I managed not to fall off or scrape any of the parked cars that we went past, although I did at one stage veer off into the grass at the side of the road. Lucky for us, the tour didn’t last long and we were back at the rest stop before any of us had an accident.
Two more boat trips and we were back on our delightfully air conditioned bus and it was off to the temple.
It turned out it was certainly a good call to go to the temple last, because when we got there it was largely deserted and we were able to walk around and see it without hundreds of people in the way.
There were a few giant Buddha’s to look at and parts of the monastery that were open to the public, then we got another icecream at the little shop operated by the monks.
Back on the bus and John shut up so we could all snooze on the way back to the hotel.
It was an okay tour but the river cruising was not quite what I expected. Still, it got us out of the madhouse that is the city.
We walked around the corner for a nice meal at a little restaurant tonight. We are getting proficient with the chopsticks and are only eating Vietnamese food.  As John says ‘it is good for our spirits’.
I don’t know if it was because it is the weekend, or if it is like that every night, but the large mall down the centre of the street near the hotel was all closed off and there were kids on skateboards and hoverboards playing on it and various people entertaining the crowds with music and dancing and acrobatics.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and the kids were all running around with bubble guns and flying objects. We walked up the centre of the mall (it was nice not to be assaulted with motorbikes hurtling down the footpath at you) to a fountain and a statue of Ho Chi Minh.
Turning left at the end we walked back to the hotel to a rather seedy part of town where there were lots of prostitutes standing around the footpath and seedy looking bars. It seemed odd that this was all going on only a couple of streets away from all the family entertainment.
Lastly tonight we went up to the rooftop restaurant and took a couple of pics of the brightly lit river boats going down the river opposite us.
Tomorrow night we will be on one having dinner.
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