Day 172 & 173 Mekong Delta

With my German friends whom I met a few months ago on the Tibet tour and whom I met again on my route, we booked a 2-day tour in the Mekong Delta.

After about a 3-hour bus ride, we made our first stop at an old Buddhist temple. Allegedly, this temple is about 160 years old. I have seen several temples on my journey so far, and my friends and I agreed that this temple could never be that old. The 3 large Buddha statues looked quite fresh.

And the rest of the temple also looked like it was built only for tourists and not really as a place of prayer.

That made us a little sad. We were then cheered up at a small bee farm.

There we had the opportunity to try a delicious honey tea and we were served fresh local fruits. To round off the coffee chat, a local band played folk songs.

If someone were to ask me for my honest opinion, it was just terrible. It felt as if the musicians were holding the instruments for the first time and simply plucking them or blowing into them randomly. However, the 'locals' on the tour seemed to enjoy it.

After an extremely uncomfortable 20 minutes, it was over and we were loaded onto small boats for our next stop and rowed through a palm forest on a small river.

In the middle of this forest, we stopped and were shown what can be made from coconuts. The village here specializes in 'coconut candies,' and we were shown the steps required to turn a coconut into a sweet.

After this demonstration, we continued with a larger boat on the Mekong. Not too long ago, I took a boat ride on the Mekong to get from the Laotian border to Luang Prabang. The only thing these two boat trips have in common is the name of the river. While in Laos, we could enjoy the wonderful view of the mountains and breathe in the fresh air of nature, there was not much to see on today's river trip, and the smell was more pungent than refreshing. There was much more activity on the river than there was in Laos. And there was trash floating everywhere, and the banks were littered with it.

But today's boat ride was also much shorter, lasting only about 30 minutes. Then we docked at a pier belonging to a restaurant where we had lunch. We had the luxury version of lunch in our package, so we were served about 7 different dishes, including a fish that we wrapped in rice paper with vegetables and ate.

It was very delicious and declared as the highlight of the day. After lunch, we returned to the bus by boat, and after another 3 hours of driving, we reached our homestay where we would spend the night.

With the mother of the house, we rolled spring rolls before dinner and then fried them.

Unfortunately, the same food was served for dinner as for lunch. The menu is very good, but not twice in one day.

After dinner, we were generously served rice wine. What was really interesting was that the wine was served in plastic bags instead of bottles. To pour, a wooden stick was pushed through the bag from the top. Through the hole, the wine could be distributed into glasses, and once they were full, the hole was closed with the stick again. I'm not exactly sure how, but the bag was sealed, and nothing spilled out.

The next morning, we returned to the Mekong on the family's private boat and headed to the highlight of the tour. On the Mekong, we met the other group, who did not do a homestay but stayed in a hotel. When we all climbed onto the big boat, we set off for the floating market.

This floating market cannot be compared to the one in Bangkok. Here, the goods were sold directly from large boats, and there were no narrow canals with sellers sitting on the banks on both sides. But even this version of a floating market was quite interesting, and there was a lot going on and a lot to see.

After the floating market, we visited the barbecue village, where you could grill rat, snake, frog, or bird. But since it was only 9 o'clock and I still felt a bit hungover from yesterday's rice wine, I enjoyed the stay in a hammock and almost missed the boat.

Our last stop was at a rice noodle factory. Here, too, like with the candies before, we were shown the individual steps required to produce the noodles.

The two-day trip to the Mekong Delta ended with a 5-hour bus ride back to Saigon. With the trip, my time in Vietnam also comes to an end. After more than 4 weeks and a journey from Hanoi to Saigon, I say goodbye to Vietnam tonight and fly on to Indonesia. More precisely, to Bali.