Saturday, August 23, 2014

Mekong Delta Tour

We've slowly started to see some of the sights in Ho Chi Minh City. Last weekend, we decided to head out of town.

The Mekong Delta tour is one of those prepackaged tourist things that everyone does. That being said, it ended up being pretty awesome.

Some co-workers had passed along the information for an agency that set them up on the tour the previous week. I looked at the options available on their website. There was a one-day tour to see the floating markets, but it left at 6 AM, which I was a bit iffy on after my first week at the new job.

So I ended up going to the agency's office to talk to them in person. In addition to Gynn and the Kiddo, there were two co-workers interested in going. The agency assured me that they could arrange a one-day tour private tour for five, leaving from our neighborhood in District 7 at a time of our choosing. So I decided that we should set out at the more civilized hour of 8 AM.

Our party gathered the next morning and there was some confusion with the guide trying to find our location, but after some back-and-forth, the van arrived and we were off on our first trip through the countryside.

Our guide, Nhi, was awesome, and it turns out that the tour guides are freelancers, so we got her contact information and she is going to be our first go-to person for future travel planning within Vietnam.

It was about a 2- hour drive to the Delta. We made one stop (at the "Mekong Delta Rest Stop"!), before our first actual tourist destination, a Cao Dai temple in the town that would be our river port.



Cao Dai is a relatively new religion in Vietnam that combines elements of Catholicism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. The temple was beautifully decorated.






Outside the temple in the side alley, we were like, "Look! Random dragon!"





As it turns out, the dragon was affixed to this vehicle, which Nhi explained is used in funeral processions.



Which immediately makes Vietnamese funerals way cooler than western ones. Because dragon.


After exploring the temple a bit (and Gynn buying a plant pot at a local shop), we returned to the van and headed to the river port.

We got on a boat and set out among the traffic of the Mekong.






This is a catfish-boat heading down river and out to sea:







We crossed the river and docked at a coconut candy-making place. We were used to this from some of our tours in China. There are always a few stops to give the chance to spend money. That being said, the coconut candy was delicious and not very expensive. We also got coconut rice paper, which is absolutely awesome as a crunchy snack. Here is the rice paper being made:



From there, we rode horse carts through a local village to get a snack of fruit and tea and hear some traditional music.



Fruit!


Next up we were paddled down a narrow canal back to the docking area by these awesome Mekong Delta oarswomen.












From there it was lunch time (the fruit snack and lunch were included in the cost of the tour; which was pretty reasonable at $50 per person). The main course: Elephant-ear fish from the Mekong river!


The server peeled the skin and took the meat off the fish and rolled it with rice paper and vegetables into spring rolls for us. There was tamarind sauce and chili sauce for dipping. The meal also included some deep fried spring rolls and fried rice, all quite delicious.

From there it was time to head back across the river.





We sipped some freshly-cut coconuts on the ride back to the dock and then boarded the van back to HCMC.





This trip definitely had a tourist-package vibe to it, but none of us minded. The scenery and food were lovely, and we had fun the whole day. We missed out on seeing the floating markets (they close at 10 AM, so you really do have to be up at the crack of dawn to catch those), and there is a ton more to see on the Delta, so we well definitely be back there at some point.






















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