Mekong Delta Tour

The name Mekong Delta had a significance for us from the many Vietnam war films we had seen. I had images of hot, dense jungles, muddy swamplands teaming with leeches and vast paddy fields. Instead our 2-day tour started in what I could only describe as a well established city called My Tho. Fortunately within minutes we were leaving the asphalt behind and boarding a large boat to enter the watery world of the Mekong delta, where boats, houses and even markets float upon the brown waters of the rivers, canals & streams.

We then enjoyed a ride along the tiny channels of the island on a rather small boat. It could take a maximum of 6 people and if you stepped anywhere but the centre whilst getting on and off it you would capsize, leaving you and everyone in it in the muddy waters. Luckily we stayed dry and actually this was a really fun way to see the unusual environment. To make our experience that much more authentic, the owners of our boat gave us lovely cone hats and Mark looked especially fetching in his :-).

After a nice lunch of deep fried river fish (complete with all it's scales), we enjoyed a fruit tasting session. The delta has optimum growing conditions; with bountiful water, good soil and so much sunshine, it's not surprising that it has so many orchards and grows such a variety of tropical fruit. There was the usual pineapple and mango, as well as some strange fruits we had never seen before. The tasting was interesting to say the least and was complemented by beautiful traditional music and singing.

That night we had booked to stay in a homestay in Can Tho, which is the epicentre of the Delta. Our family's house was quite a way back out of the bustling city and our rooms backed onto the quiet river, so we could enjoy what was left of the beautiful sunset on the porch. I think it was a little false to call it a homestay really, as it was catering for around 20 of us, all in separate en-suite rooms; however the family who lived there got us to try our hand at traditional Vietnamese cooking and their kids came over and played with us. It was a lovely setting and quite nice to sit and enjoy the evening chatting to our fellow travellers and tasting some locally brewed happy juice.

Early next morning we were picked up on a long boat and taken along the river into the heart of one of the biggest floating markets in the region. This market was mostly for the wholesale of fruit and veg, and you could see exchanges of huge baskets of cabbage, pineapple or carrot from large boats into smaller ones. The produce would ultimately end in one of the land markets. All the wholesale boats had a long stick strutting out of their bow on which they had tied examples of the fruit and veg they were selling as a form of advertising. Our guide explained that the family would live in their boat within the market until all their stocks are sold which could be a few days or a week or two. Some of the boats were tiny. You could see women hanging their washing down the side and the children playing with their pets. there were also a couple of coffee and snack boats especially catering for the tourist boats. They would moor next to our boat and sell anything from hot drinks to peeled quartered pineapples.

Along the river we got glimpses of everyday life in the  Delta. Within the same stretch of water there were construction workers knocking down an old bridge (most of the concrete going into the river), kids swimming, women washing their clothes or vegetables, whilst others would be cleaning fish and I am sure all the waste pipes would flow into the same river. It was hard to see how they maintained hygiene levels, but you could certainly tell the brown waters were the life blood of the local community.

Our next stop was a rice noodle factory, where they made a thick white mulch with broken rice and spread it out thinly on a stretched fabric to be steam cooked. The steamed rice sheet would then be taken off and air dried for a few days before being put through a slicer to make the  long thin noodles. All of this was being done in a family's back garden. It was a strange factory setting and again you could see very little consideration had been given to hygiene with so many of their chickens, dogs and pigs occupying the same space. Its funny how you never really think about where your noodles comes from and how they are made... Anyway, we had already seen how they had dried the rice after the harvests. It would be on the side of the roads and they wouldn't even have a sheet under it. On our motorbike tour we had to ride through some stretches of rice to avoid overtaking cars. When they needed it off the road, they would sweep it into buckets along with all the sand, rocks and the dirt. Really I should not have been surprised with the factory setting.