Mekong Delta Tour

we took a two day one night tour from saigon to the mekong delta.  in short it is a vast system of tributaries from the mekong river where it meets the south china sea.  extremely fertile land.  it is possible to travel on your own throughout the region but it gets a little complicated and pretty time consuming -time we choose to spend elsewhere- so we did the group tour thing.

day 1
-started with bus ride to our first stop where we boarded a lond boat with a motor.  we visited a small local floating market but only a few boats selling potatoes were around because of tet (their version of chinese new year).
-boat also brough us to a honey farm were they served us a honey/lime tea which was out of this world...mostly because it was 50% honey.  beside this farm was a coconut candy factory.  yummy candies which us suckers ended up buying.  so far the tour was a rip as these were clearly staged and not real farms or factories.  oh yeah...and the bees were swarming our coffee cups while we were drinking it.  we got the heck outta dodge after the tasty tasting.
-they brought us to a restaurant along a scenic canal.  the rewstaurant also had bicycles we could use to tour around the area for an hour.  this was a lot of fun.  i forgot how much ground you can cover on a bike.

-after lunch a woman paddled three of us on quite a tippy thin wooden canoe.  this was fun.

-we then caught a bus to bin *** where four of us waited for another tour group to pick us up to take us to our hotel for the night.  we had about an hour and this was the highlight of the tour for me.  we went to a local market (on land this time).  it was WILD!  live pigs being tied up, jumbo prawns crawling around, fish being gutted alive, live chickens tied by their feet flopping on the floor, large live snakes being sold by the handfull for dinner...amazing.
blogspot is flipping this image all on its own so please turn your head to view.  notice the tied up live chickens beside their less (more?) fortunate brothers.

bag of snakes anyone?

while waiting for the bus a woman about 40 years old asked me to play a kind of version of hacki-sac (sp?) with her.  we've seen this game played a lot in SE asia thus far.  it was a lot of fun and i surprised myself showing a little ability (i am terible at hacki-sac).  she thought i was hilarious and we played until the bus came.  i believe it was a novelty for both us.

-we stayed in can tho for night (the bus ride inhere included a ride on a large ferry after dark.  we were able to get onto the deck and let the fresh breeze cool us off) and met two girls from california in their early/mid twenties and hit it off.  there were in vietnam for their uncle's wedding.  they spoke vietnamese so it was great having them to help us understand, well almost everything.  we would hang out with then in saigon two more times before we would move on. we will definitely look them up when we get back to cali.  they're from sacramento - less than an hour from where roel is originally from.

day 2
-we visited the largest floating market in the mekong delta (tet was over!).  they sold everything on these ships (as far as food goes).  each boat has a long bamboo pole with the item that is being sold hanging from the top. we pulled up to a pineapple baot and they cut fresh ones up for us for about .60 a pineapple.  the sweetest i've ever had.

-the rest of the day involved a long boat ride through back canals to see how people lived along the river and a visit to an actual rice paper and noodle factory.  it has been passed on from generation to generation within four families that work together.  fascinating process to watch (for about 10 minutes).  ha

when we got back to saigon we had a big night out with a few people from the tour near the area where we were all staying.  we had a blast and managed to be in bed at a reasonable hour.  on our last day in saigon we needed some fun and relief from the heat so we went to a big waterpark!  look up dam sen waterpark if interested.  weeee!  the two girls i mentioned met us there and we all very much enjoyed our down-time day.  afterwards we went to a large touristy market where they sell t-shirts, trinkets, knock-offs and the like.  once again it helped a lot to have someone there to interpret for us plus they are just great fun to be with.  :)

a group pic of us at a little amusement park.  year of the tiger! (i am well aware that we are posing in front of a lion statue)

the next morning we would leave for mui ne which is north up the coast about 5 hours by bus.

we are very much keeping track of the olympics with british and australian espn.  very odd commentators.  they should not be allowed to cover winter olympics.  however i am grateful for what we do get.  go canada go!!

ps. i have gotten SO lazy that i don't even read what i've typed.  i'm just happy if i get to post at all.