Ho Chi Minh - Mekong Delta

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We are in Vietnam!!
One if the countries I've been looking forward to most and also our last before we head to Australia.

We flew into Ho Chi Minh City and caught the local bus to the backpacker area in district 1. We had no idea when to get off the bus but luckily there were lovely local girls who helped us find our way.

We stepped off the bus and into traffic mayhem, crossing the road was a real risk of harm and took us a while to get the hang of, we started by always crossing with an Asian.

We checked into our hostel and went in search of some local food, we knew we had found a good place because it was teeming with Vietnamese, we couldn't read the menu but we noticed that the table next to us had some yummy looking dishes so we just ordered what they had.
Dish 1 arrived and it was a green long vegetable possibly morning glory cooked with about 10 cloves of garlic in melted butter and it was delicious.

Dish 2; clams with a spicy peanut and scallion garnish with a sweet chilli dip. I have never had clams and this was a pleasant treat.

Dish 3; it was BBQ beef wrapped around morning glory with a garlic, pepper and chilli dip and it was lush.

Dish 4; BBQ ribs coated with an unidentifiable spicy paste.

We left happy and full.

The following day we did the walking tour spending most of the day sweating in the mid day sun, we visited the war remnants museum and learned about agent orange and how the Americans sprayed millions of litres of this chemical over Vietnam during the war which they call the American war, this chemical still causes birth defects today and how it affected people is horrific.

We decided to head south to see the Mekong delta where the great Mekong river meets the sea and you can experience the morning floating markets first hand. We spend 7 hours with our lovely guide Thao who is a 24 year old girl who studies tourism
and English at university. She picked us up at 5am with hot tea in a bag with a straw and some bananas from her farm. We met Long our boat driver and amazing Origami master at the boat. As we slowly chugged up the river Long stripped reeds of the water coconut plant with her cleaver and created many amusing gifts for us.
We enjoyed the floating market, the big boats selling to the small boats, all of the old women with triangle hats on smiling at us, they all wanted white wives for their sons. They were all so cute and endearing. Thao introduced us to many new fruits and veg that we don't get at home like water coconut, milk apple, yellow berry ( which is super sour like a sour haribo )

After the market Long drove the boat to the noodle factory where we watched them cook rice paper and then shred it into noodles, the process is long and hard work.
We also got to see white hedgehogs which they had as pets.

We then went for a walk and Thao showed us all the fruit trees and spices that grow locally. Holly and I were awe struck at the sight of a Pineapple plant. We had lunch and the waitress asked if we would like to buy our driver some food so we felt obliged to buy both of them lunch, as is the case in all Asian countries the place a tour guide will take you to eat will be the most expensive. We ended up using out entire days budget on that meal. Oh well that was their tip.

We bid our farewell to our new pals at midday and went for a beer and ice cream followed by a very long nap.

Tomorrow we head back to Ho Chi Min City.

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