Mekong Delta

Yesterday was our last full day in Ho Chi Minh and in Vietnam so we planned a day trip to the Mekong Delta. The Mekong river is 4350km long, starting in China and flowing 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. In total, over 60 million people depend on the river for food with the Mekong Delta network of tributaries in south Vietnam home to over 20 million people.

The bus picked us up at 8am and after a two hour journey we arrived at the delta. 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 well, lets just say it was nice to try but we won't be having it again. 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 this 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 SE 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 used coconuts to make sweets by reducing coconut water and milk with natural coconut sugars and extracted coconut oils to form a fudge like sweet. They tasted so good! Not only that but the coconut plant was 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! After sampling some of the coconut sweets and biscuits made in the small shop we couldn't resist buying a box.

Afterwards, we continued the boat ride to the next island where we stopped for lunch and had some time 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 Ho Chi Minh City. Something Dan found interesting while exploring was a ‘barbed wire’ like fence around a bricked property made using scrap bandsaw blades.

To finish off our final night in the country, we of course had some street food, but an early night was in order as we have a 6am wake up call to get the bus to Cambodia. Vietnam certainly did not disappoint and we've really enjoyed learning about the Vietnamese culture and exploring the diverse city, mountainous and coastal landscapes of this beautiful country.

As we write this, we're now on a 6 hour bus journey to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Luckily the seats recline so we have plenty of leg room thankfully. However, we are sat behind a Vietnamese child who has been singing the English alphabet on repeat for the last twenty minutes…Baca lagi