Vietnam - The Mekong Delta.
8th August - DAY 1: Honey tea, narrowboats and coconut candy.
Today is our trip up the mekong Delta, I am so excited. It is the extensive artery of waterways provided by the Mekong River. Home of the Rice Paddies and house boats. After too many days in the city I am excited to be going where I can get some fresh air and no Motorbikes.
However the day didn't start off too well, a few arguments, rushing about and Kat somehow managed to lose our Kitty purse (the money we bugeted for food and accomodation) Never the less we made it to the bus on time. To find FOURTY FIVE people boarding. We had been assured that our group would exceed 15, some might say 'the more the merrier' But I can just imagine trudling around with all these people tre anoying, I don't like being rushed along, told what to do and where to go and not even being able to hear the guide. Well we will see.
The first stop was to try Honny tea. It was already raining so we trudged accross the fields to a quaint little farm withtheir own bees and cumquats. We were greated by a huge snake, I think it was a bower constricter. He was in a small wooden box, and when we arrived he was passed from person to person to be grabbed and gosstled with for a photograph. I felt so sorry for him. Anywya, the tea was actually delicous and really refreshing. I bought some crunchy honney and peanut brittle too.
By this time it was lunch time, so we stopped off for some noodles and a large selection of fresh fruit. The only thing I hadn't tasted before was a bunch of little things that tasted a little like lychees, called 'Ramtans', they were very nice and noone else on my lable liked them so filled my bag withthe remainder of them. After lunch we say and enjoyed some traditional Vietnamese music. It was certainly anaquired taste, much like two cats fighting or somone scratching their nails down a black board. The band was called 'Am Dieu tue Huong' and they played four instruments that I had never seen before. They were: The 'full moon instrument'. the 'five string guitar'(that looked nothing like a guitar), a 'stalk gunner' and a 'som warn'. The female singer was beautiful but I must say I was delighted when she had finished.
Next on the agenda was a narrow boat down a small bit of the river. It was still raining, but we were provided with traditional hats and off we went. It was pretty fun, slipping throught the magroves and all the trees. The people who manoved our boat however were rather rude in the way they kept hinting for 'tip money' all they way down. I guess that is now they make their money though.
The next stop of the day was my favourite place 'Ho Chau' where they were making coconut candies. They showed us how thay were made using fresh coconut, nuts, tapioka leaf and coco beans, then also how they were packaged. It was all very organised and profeshonal. They were absolutely delicious too chewy like toffees, especially when they were still warm. I ate so many samples that I actually feltt pretty sick. they were slicing us off big end peices that they couldn't cut into the square sweets. (n.b. I did buy some to send home but ants managed to find their way in and so I had to eat them up quickly)
We then boarded a large boat to take us back down the Mekong. With the 45 of us on it, it felt like it was going to capsize, not that it would have mattered because everyone was drenched to the skin, through our sopping wet reain coats. Soon after we got back on our bus and headed to the Capital of Mekong, to our hotel. The place was nice enough and it was great to get tinside and change ito some dry clothes.
That evening we didn't fance getting wet again so we decided to eat in the resturant next door. There were cadges whereby you could chose your own dinner. Either a selection of snakes, turtles or frogs. We decided that we weren't happy choosing our live dinner and weren't particularly hungry anyway so just decided to share some fresh spring rolls and some dumsums. I think I would have prefered live snake. This must have been one of the most fowl tasting meals I have tried (just writing about it now is making my stomach churn). They smelled so bad and had so many suspect meats and fish eyeballs and sucha strong sent of rotton guts that I must say we didn't clear our plates. I found some biscuits in a shop near by to take the taste away then headed off to bed.
9th August. DAY 2: The floating market and a Crocodile farm.
We found out this morning that the reason why there is so much rain, is because there is a typhoon near by. That would explane all the torrential rain. Well I hope that it passes soon, a guy told me that it will probably last about three more days amd that 53 people have already died because of it. We joined the rest of our group at 6am for the usual cambodian treat of a stale baguette and a fried egg. I was pretty hugry though, despite all the candy yesterday, and it went down really well.
We all put on our damp rain coats and wandered off to the local meat market at 'Cai Rang'. Now I have seen some things at these markets, but this tops them all. Slabs of red meat with eyeballs mixed in. What do they do with that? It is like Indiana Joans when he has that eyeball soup. There was also women who where pulling the fins off live fish, ready for sale, there is no such things as animal rights in this country. It was pretty funny seeing peoples faces as we slipped through on all the bloody and fish guts. At the other end of the market was our boat waiting for us. The seats were drenched and there was some very unhappy people. The more annoyed they got, the funnier I found the situation, I don't like being wet either, but at the end of the day it is only rain!
We arrived at the famous 'Phong Dien' floating market, unfortunately due to the typhoon I think most of the people had stayed at home and most of the produce was covered up with tarms to protect them from the rain so we didn't actually get to see much. To let buyers know what they were selling they would put their main products on a pole, so you could see it from far away. Before to long, after not much happened we moved on.
The next stop was the 'noodle factory' where they pulp down rice to make all different types of noodles, We basically walked down a small river to get there, I was glad to be in my flip flops and not trainers as we were ancle deep in thick smelly sticky mud. Unfortunately due to the rain we arrived at the noodle making spot, but, all this had been stopped too. All the workers were inside and production had to be stopped until the rain had cleared. But I went exploring and found the hugest pig that I had ever seen. He looked more like a cow. We saw something exciting after all. I don't think many other people on the trip were as impressed as I was. I know my dad would have liked him though.
Second from last stop fo the day was a fruit farm, again, most people stayed under the shelter but a few of us, who knew we couldn't get any wetter, went for a snoop around the farm, looking at all the dragon fruit, bananas, coconuts etc. When we got back we joined the rest of our group for a drink. Lots of people had moved onto beer, but seeing "Hot Tea" on the menu, Jenna and I decided to get a nuce cuppa. When it came I didn't know what on earth they had done. At first I assumed that they had put milk with herbal tea, but that wasn't it, then I thought it looked so woerd becused they were using condnced milk, bu that wasn't it either. It wasn't until I took a sip that I realised that they had used some kind of fish paste. It was fowl. Even the Vietnamese people around me agreed that it stunk of fish guts. We tried to ask the waitress about it bus she spoke no English, so we just paid up and left. We headed off across a 'monkey bridge' ( basically a couple of branches stretched accross the river). It was hillarous seeing pertified people slipping and sliding around on the wet wood, trying their hardest to ballance. We soon arrived at a very wet and flooded village, no one was really out and about because of the rain so we grabbed some lunch and all left soon after that.
Next stop was the crocodile farm. It was quite amusing hearing all the french people moaning all the way there, some of them even refused to get out of the bus, stating how rubbish the trip was: as if it was our tour guides fault that it was raining. In fact Kat, Jenna and I were the only ones from our group of 45 that actually went for a look around the farm. There were supposedly 13 thousand crocodiles there, most of them were pretty small, but there was one huge enclosure inside that had a load of huge ones. They are mean and scary looking things. I hope we don't bump into a wild one next time we are boating it down the Mekong. The only thing that upset me was they had two bears as pets near the enterance in a very small cage with no shelter. They were just sat looking entirely miserable in the rain, drenched to the skin. Poor things. I also didn't like the fact that all of these crocodiles were being bread for their leather, but I guess it is no worse than breading chickens for their meat, and atleast they were kept in pretty good conditions. On the way out you could but crocodile bags, belts, purses and even whole stuffed babie ones to keep as an ornament. No thank you.
That evening we had planned to watch the sunset from the Chau Doc pagoda, but again due to the rain it had been cancelled. We just found ourselves some noodles (which were very tasteless) for dinner then headed off for an early night.
10th August - DAY 3: A Fish Farm and a Cham people village.
We went down for breakfast early this morning to find that our guide had been replaced with a sleezey horrible man, and that most of the people had gone back to Saigon, but a few stragglers from other groups had joined ours. It is funny how you book a certain trip because of its itinery but you all get thrown in together anyway and all do the same thing (at least we didn't pay very much).
I spent the whole day avoiding eye contact with our guide, who was called 'Hi' and trying my best not to talk to him. I did pretty well to be honest. He was hard to understand anyway, I took to listening to him (without eye contact) and trying to pick up the odd words and then stringing them together to make some sort of sense - usually not getting much though!
First on the adgenda was Chau Doc Floating Village. It was still raining, but not too hard so we were able to see alot more, and at points I even took my hood on my rain coat down. The village was very basic and their weekly market was taking place too. I saw a few people exchanging fruits and vegetables, but again most of the produce was under cover. There was a few motorised boats, but most of them were small thin, stand up rowing boats. It was interesting but not the bustling, brightly coloured market that I was hoping for.
We then made our way across another facinatingMonkey Bridge, called 'Cau Khi', this one was more of n arch, again made three logs ballanced togeher, making it only about 30cm wide in total. It looked more like makeshift scaffolding to me, so I decided to take my flip flips off for extra grip, as I didn't fancy plunging into the water or onto a rock below. I felt like a circus preformer walking a titerope, and I still can't understand how the locals do it with such ease. The otherside of the bridge was the 'Cham village'. The people seem really nice and happy, smiling at us with their big white smiles. The Cham people are actually Hindu and came from India as long ago as the second Centuary, from the kingdoms of Champa. We watched them making some clothing and weaving silk scarfs and table runners to sell. A small group of children approached us to sell some of their locus produce or rice cakes and other snacks, but hey were more than happy with a few sweets and a pen.
We all slipped and slided down a path to a near by fish farm. Apparently Vietnam provides tonnes and tonnes of fish to other countrys around the world, but they only earn as little as about 50 pence a day. I was amazed at how many there were. Basically they are in huge cadges under floating houses, with ventelation holes arond the whole bottom of the house. Each house has a worker that lives on the structure full-time. Our guide told us that it costs less than 6000 pounds to build one of these using local materials. To me this structure seemed a perfect example of the industrious nature and ingenuity of the Vietnamese people. It was not at all high tech, but was clearly effective at producing fish. I couldn't believe my eyes when we got to witness feeding time. The owner threw a handfull of pelets in to the trap door type hole in the ground and within half a second the water was bubbling and moving with fish. The looked like paranas as they jumped all over each other to ge to the food. I certainly wouldn't have liked to have fallen in there, that is for sure.
We got back on the boat, then back on the bus and back to the aweful resturant that we had eaten the first night (the disgusting won tons and spring rolls) None of us could face trying anything else for there, so instead stocked up on crackers and biscuets for the bus journy back to Saigon.
Back in Saigon, we grabbed some dinner and then boarded another bus to take us to Mui Ne. It was really not what we fancied after a very wet few days and being sat on a bus for the last three hours , but it was time to move on. At around midnight we arrived. The bus driver 'converiently' dropped us in the middle of nowhere, but before long we found a nice place to say and went straight to bed.
- Posted by emily1183 on 07/09/2007.
- emily1183's site
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