Vietnam - Saigon and Mekong Delta

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After a quick shower we caught the mini bus to Cu Chi Tunnels. Our guide, Joseph, showed us around the ‘jungle’ demonstrating the Vietnamese traps to catch US soldiers and explained how they used the tunnels to escape and hide in the Vietnam war. Over 20,000 people lived in the 250km of these very small tunnels and the Americans were unable to penetrate or destroy them as they were built on different levels, the deepest being 12 metres deep. We were able to walk through a specially adapted (for Westerners!!) and it was pretty claustrophobic walking 20 metres so can only imagine what it was like in the war, but no real conception. It was a pretty interesting tour, with the opportunity to fire machine guns and look at rusty captured American tanks.
Back in the minibus to the War Museum, which had horrific stories of what the Amerian soldiers had done to the Vietnamese people and how the Agent Orange had caused many deformities in children and was still causing problems today. There were cuttings from newspapers of the demonstrations by the rest of the world, wanting a halt to the war, as well as life size cells where the prisoners were kept.
We left in a fairly sombre mood, with no real enthusiasm to do more sightseeing, so just walked past the Independence Palace, Catholic Church, Opera House and onto the Market! Plenty of bargains to be had here and wishing we had a bigger suitcase! It was rush hour when we came out and I have never seen so many mopeds and traffic! It is the norm to just ride the mopeds on the pavements when the roads are gridlocked so there was no escape from them, but quite an amazing sight!
The next day we were off to the Mekong Delta. It was a 4 hour drive so got there about 12.00am and boarded our boat! There is an enormous amount of activity on the waterfront and makes for some fascinating photos! There were the house boats, where the people lived at the top, but deliberately sank the bottom half of the boat to keep fish! Scores of sandpans loaded up with fresh lychees, ferry loaded up with mopeds and washing hanging everywhere. Our first stop was to Mr Ba Linh’s house where we were shown the bags of rice that was used for the cooking. The owners were sat in a hammock in the centre of the room whilst we all traipsed through! Very bizarre. Onto a coffin factory (!!) and then to a shed where there was a little old lady was sat tying rushes together to make roof panels. Onto Mr Tam Ho,s house where the women were banging sheets of metal to make peelers, using the coconut shell to make the handles. What is then left of the coconut shell is ground up for fertiliser.
Lunch was prepared for us at Mr Ba Hungs house – a wonderful elephant ear fish that we made into fresh spring rolls, some fried spring rolls, rice and chicken, followed by fresh pineapple. Each dish was decorated with a cut melon into Vietnamese people! Very clever! Relaxed in the hammocks and took some pics of the huge butterflies before going across the bridge to see the baby crocodiles and the fish farm. We then visited a fruit farm, where we weren shown all the different fruit trees and then treated to jasmine tea and fresh dragon fruit, jack fruit, mango and grapefruit. Onto Mr Tam Bias’ house, (who had a very large pet python that we were allowed to handle!) before transferring to smaller sandpans and being rowed up a smaller stream! Chris offered to have a go at rowing and I think the woman was quite glad to have a rest! Onto Mr Hai Hoangs Bonsia garden and some fruit and a glass of snake wine, which is supposed to cure all ills! The sankes head is cut off before it is put into the rice wine and the blood mixes with the wine to make snake wine! A bit like a whiskey and very nice!!
Our overnight stay was with a family at a small village on the Mekong – Hai Dao. We were in large dormitories with plenty of beds so were were able to spread out quite a lot. Some of the group went for a bike ride, whilst Chris and I decided to just walk along the river bank to the ‘village’. Crossed an old bridge (the concrete centre had broken so it was fixed with some wooden planks!!) and then walked along the ‘main road’ a slightly wider raised mud path with a steady stream of mopeds and bikes, to the dam. Found a small cafe, but it was shut and also discovered the bee farm where there was about 60 beehives.
Back for our delicious dinner cooked by the family and then had a few beers and a quiz in the evening! A very busy day but my favourite so far!!
The next day, after our cold shower and breakfast prepared by the family, and a walk to Monkey Bridge and the local ‘shop’ to buy some rice bars, we got the boat to the floating market. Basically it’s just a series of boats that sell stuff, but we were able to climb aboard a pumpkin boat and a banana boat to have a look! It was very buzzy with boats coming and going, loads more lychee boats and past the famous boat L’Amant. (need to look up on internet to find out what its famous for!!)
Our last stop was a sweet factory, where they made the rice paper and candy from coconut milk and also ‘popped’ the rice in an overheated wok of river sand, before flavouring and making into the rice bars. Back to the boat and farewell to our excellent tour guide Nam before getting the coach back to Saigon.
Went back to the Independence Palace in the afternoon to educate ourselves on some history of the Vietnam War and then popped into Ben Thanh market to pick up some last minute bargains! A farewell and a welcome meal in the evening and off to Cambodia tomorrow!

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Comments

[Bjoerg Sandvik]

I am impressed :)
Hi Jackie and Chris! What a experience you have. I have to travel more thats for sure :) Vietnam looks really interesting, are you going to rank the places you have been visiting? I have been working for two weeks an d you to are still traveling..... ;) The pictures are fantastic, you are a good photographer, but you must have a good camera also - what kind of camera do you have. wish you all the best. Bjørg x

[jackieandchris2011]

Hi Bjorg! Yes - still travelling!! We are in Laos now - rain forecast! Managed to find a wifi cafe for breakfaast. Hope work is going ok. My camera is Panasonic TZ5 I think - they have brought our newer models now....important thing for me was that it had to have at least 10x optical zoom! Take care!