Ho Chi Minh, Mekong Delta

Another early hotel pickup for a day tour of the Mekong Delta. The Mekong river is 4350km long and starts in China and flows through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Mekong has a huge range of marine life second only to the Amazon river and includes the giant freshwater stingray and giant catfish. Over 60 million people depend on it for food. The Mekong Delta is a huge network of tributaries in south Vietnam home to over 20 million people.

After a boat ride to the first island, our Mekong delta tour started with a honey and lime drink and crispy banana snacks both of which were made by locals and tasted delicious. We tried snake wine, which was actually snake vodka and was less delicious however. Next we walked past a lady holding a snake for tourists to hold. After seeing how this snake was lifted from a small empty cage, we opted to skip that activity. Relatively minor but that was no way to keep an animal so as per any other involvement with poorly kept animals (which still remains very common across south east Asia today) or elephant riding etc, we gave that one a miss. We then took a small boat ride to the next stop where we learnt how locals use coconuts to make sweets by reducing coconut water/ milk with natural coconut sugars and extracted coconut oils to form a fudge like sweet. It was delicious! Not only that but the coconut plant is used for building, fibres for rope making, shells for burning (used to boil the milk) and the remains ground up and used as a fertiliser back for the coconut trees - a good life cycle! They also made other coconut sweets and crispy biscuits which were good so we bought a box. Afterwards we continued the boat ride to the next island where we stopped for lunch and we’re able to explore by bicycle. The island was full of vegetation but without any real infrastructure. Again very eye opening to see how locals live, even more so considering this was likely the most touristy part of the Mekong delta being closest to Hi Chi Minh City. Something I found interesting while exploring was that a local had constructed a ‘barded wire’ like fence around his bricked property made using scrap bandsaw blades - why not I guess? On the way back we stopped off to see a small temple complex and got conned with chicken baguette that was no more than a breadstick! One last street food dinner in the evening ready for an early 7.00am bus ride to Cambodia!

Ho Chi Minh is a bustling city with a slight western feel if anything, albeit far from western culture. Vietnam is an amazing country full regional of differences from the food we’ve eaten to the landscapes we’ve seen and the history we’ve learnt. From the manic streets of Hanoi, Miami like beach strips, vibrant old towns, high altitude cities and modern skylines, Vietnam has it all! It does lag behind Thailand somewhat but I have no doubt it will continue to grow and attract more and more people in the future. Vietnam is maybe not for everyone, but we’ve really enjoyed seeing yet another way of living.

Update: we successfully crossed the Cambodian boarder and are now on our way to the capital - Phnom Penh. Cambodia will be a little shorter that we had planned due to a late flight cancellation to Indonesia with few alternatives but nonetheless should be really interesting.Read more