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  • Day 24

    A day on the Mekong River

    February 18, 2020 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Up bright and early to meet our tour bus at 8am to take us on the 90 minute ride to board our boat on the Mekong River. We had a couple of stops along the way, first just a rest stop, and the second at a beautiful pagoda with some lovely Buddha statues - I particularly like the Happy Buddha! Left there and headed down to the river where our boat was waiting. There were about 22 of us on the tour from places all over the world!

    We started cruising down the river seeing lots of vegetation and some floating fish farms on the way to our first stop at Cu Lao Thoi Son Island. We got off and we’re treated to honey tea at a small establishment where they maintain their own bees for the honey. The tea was poured over freshly squeezed kumquat juice, bee pollen and honey, and was very tasty! There was also honey, bee pollen and Royal Jelly for sale. We walked around to the back of the honey place to another little business where we got to sample freshly made chocolate and view the process of how they make it from the locally grown cacao. Behind this area was a small enclosure where we could have had our photos taken with large live pythons - but opted not to!! 😳😂. Next we were taken to a lovely area where we were given fresh fruit and entertained by local musicians and singers. We were then taken by golf carts to a pathway that led us to row boats which were paddled by two little Vietnamese ladies for 2kms through a narrow jungle inlet. Our paddlers were pretty strong as we passed many other boats along the way!

    We got back on the boat and headed to the next Island, which our tour guide called Unicorn Island. Our first stop here was to sample some delicious coconut candy and to watch the process of making it - the whole coconut is ground up and mixed with the juice, then heated and stirred for 24 hours before being made into candy. Our next stop was lunch at a lovely restaurant on the water where we were served soup, rice, fish, omelette and salad rolls. We had the next hour free and there were bikes available for us to ride, so Dave and I took off to explore - good thing there were no hills as the bikes had no brakes!! We got back to our gathering area and had a nice chat with our tour guide. He gave us lots of insight as to the changes Vietnam has gone through over the last few decades, and how it has affected the different generations of people. He said that about 70% of the people living in this area still call it Saigon as opposed to Ho Chi Minh City. We all got back on the boat for the return trip along the Mekong River to where our bus picked us up to head back to Saigon. As we approached the city, the traffic was absolutely insane, which is apparently quite normal here!

    Got back to our hotel, went for dinner, and while walking back, discovered another brew pub called East Meets West, which was started up 2 years ago by a Vietnamese American from Portland. We checked that out for Dave’s flight of beers and my glass of wine - quite the place! Headed back to the hotel for some shut eye before tomorrow’s adventures!
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