Today we visited the Mekong Delta. We left the hotel at 8:00. It took quite a while to reach our destination because the traffic was horrific. The Mekong River starts in China and flows through Myanmar, Thailand, Loas, Cambodia until it finally reaches Vietnam. It’s the twelfth longest river in the world. Twenty million people depend on it for food. China recently built a dam that is significantly impacting the delta. Brackish water is making its way further upstream, impacting a number of aspects of the environment – primarily fish and the cultivation of rice. Like many a delta the water is very brown as a result of all the silt, which is dredged on a regular basis. The Mekong typically floods several times per year.
Our first stop was Turtoise Island to meet a farmer and his wife. Approximately 700 people live on the island. He had many pet birds to provide music and entertainment. At the house they had a unique ancestor altar with the lower level honoring their ancestors and the upper level honoring Buddha. The farmer grew mostly pomelos, jack fruit, and cocoa. He took us on a walk through his land. They had canals for river water to irrigate the trees. It seemed hard to believe that he could make a living in this environment.
After the walk his wife joined us for a discussion. Theirs was an arranged marriage. They had 4 children but one of their sons died in a boating accident that involved alcohol. He was buried on the property. We tried cocoa seeds which didn’t taste at all like chocolate. They were actually very sweet. We also had a fresh pomelo, which tastes similar to grapefruit. It was quite good. The farmers wife made fried rice paper which she normally she sells to the kids at the mainland school for their walk home. Today our group bought all that she’d prepared, saving her a boat trip to the mainland.
We left the farmer and headed off in our boat to another nearby island where we boarded sampans. They sampan captains were all ladies. They used their motors part of the way upstream and used their oars to get us the rest of the way to our destination. We got off the sampans and got on a lambro (similar to the one we took to the restaurant on January 11). The lambros took us to a coconut candy factory where they shows us how they make it.
After a little shopping for local clothing, candy and some embroidered clothing we went for lunch. One of the things on our menu was elephant ear fish. The fish arrived standing up in a bamboo frame and a lady came to our table to make spring rolls with noodles, mint, other herbs, pineapple and the fish. It was pretty good.
After lunch we took the boat back to the bus and headed back to Saigon. The group had signed up for another scooter adventure, this time through the streets of Saigon. We got off the bus and were escorted by our drivers onto the scooters. We drove through the crazy traffic of Saigon’s Chinatown with decorations being erected in preparation for the Tet lunar new year. I was feeling fairly comfortable on the back of the scooter but not comfortable enough to try to take pictures. So sorry no pictures of the colorful decorations. We stopped at a coffee shop where we had some lime juice that was quite good. Then we stopped at a Cao Dai temple. Cao Dai a combination of all the major religions. Wikipedia describes it as “a Vietnamese monotheistic syncretic religion that retains many elements from Vietnamese folk religion such as ancestor worship, as well as “ethical precepts from Confucianism, occult practices from Taoism, theories of karma and rebirth from Buddhism, and a hierarchical organization from Roman Catholicism”. Here are some pictures from the temple.
Then we hopped back on the scooters and headed back to the hotel.
That evening Mai had wonton soup and baguettes delivered to our hotel rooms for us.