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Published: October 4th 2009
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I decided to go for a trip to the Mekong Delta. Having been unimpressed with Saigon Tourist previously, I decided to go with Sinh Cafe this time.
The Mekong Delta is one of the biggest rice regions in Vietnam. Growing enough rice there to feed the whole country and more. It is not just about rice farms though. There is a lot of local produce, with many fruits coming from here. The river itself flows from the sea, across Vietnam and into Cambodia. Historically the area near the border was a dangerous place, with Cambodians attacking regularly. It is much more settled now though and regular tourist trips will travel from Ho Chi Minh City up the river into Cambodia.
For our day trip, we left Ho Chi Minh City at 830am and the journey to My Tho took about two hours. As usual the hard bit is getting out of the city, once you are on the open road the traffic is less and progress is much quicker. There was one heavy down pour of rain on the way, which was a little worrying (cruising on a river in heavy rain was not part of the plan) but
fortunately it stayed dry for the rest of the day after that.
My Tho is the nearest of the Mekong Delta cities to Ho Chi Minh City and hence it is popular with tourists. Those with more time will often do an overnight stay in Can Tho or head off earlier to get a day trip there. Can Tho has the added benefit of a floating market, and although I would have liked to have seen that I did not want to start a trip at 6am to do so. My Tho is a good taste of the Delta though and you can experience many of the local traditions quite easily.
We boarded a small tourist boat and then took a 40 minute ride on the river before arriving on one of the small islands. Here after a small work through the jungle, we witnessed rice paper being made. Rice paper is an essential ingredient for many Vietnamese foods, most specifically 'rap and roll'. We returned to our boat and took a short hop along the island to our lunch destination. Lunch was made up of basic local cuisine, although a little dry it was quite tasty.
After lunch, another short boat hop took us to see some local folk music. The people of the Mekong are very poor and so traditionally they did not have television or radio. Instead the farmers would gather with their musical instruments to play and sing. This custom lives on today and the songs usually tell a story of love or loss.
From here we had a horse and cart journey through some of the back streets of the island. You see a very different side to the island inland than you do from the water. Many local family dwellings, but the people are used to tour groups by now. Our ride ended at a bee farm where we were able to sample the honey and get photographed with an anaconda (I decided not to). The bees flew around but fortunately nobody got stung (they don't sting tourists apparently).
One more short hop and we arrived at a coconut candy 'factory'. Although they use some small machines for cooking and preparation, this is very much a manual process with teams of girls wrapping each individual piece of candy. Everybody has a job to do, no matter how manual or
boring. I decided not to buy any candy since it actually tastes quite bad.
From here we went in groups of four in a rowing boat down one of the smaller parts of the river. This was a peaceful journey and very beautiful. Some of the people in my group got a little worried once we started talking about crocodiles. We did not see any though, and i do not think they have lost any tourists that way yet.
We finished off the tour with a boat ride back to My Tho where we boarded our bus and headed back to Ho Chi Minh City. All very tired from the fresh river air, I think almost everybody slept.
Visiting the Mekong Delta is a must. The scenery is amazing and just the different pace of life compared to the bigger cities makes for a relaxing break. I could happily have spent a few days there, travelling up the river to some of the other cities or on into Cambodia. That is maybe something for another time. The My Tho trip was a good taste of life for the people of the Mekong and you truely start to
appreciate the different standards of living for the people of Vietnam.
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