Sunday, January 28, 2007

The Mekong Delta

Hi

I hope you enjoyed the photos of HCMC. While there we took a trip to the Mekong Delta.

It felt like being in an Attenborough nature documentary, travelling in a little boat, along canals lined with mangroves, their roots reaching deep into the river. Rickety old boats are used for transporting and selling of goods (veritable floating supermarkets) or are home to whole families.You can see us with our friends John and Jen setting off in the boat.

You can see Daniela learning how to make rice cakes at a local workshop. They told her not to give up her day job…

We had lunch at an ancient house with a beautiful garden full of plants in old Chinese vases and with a huge python in a cage. We were treated to a musical/theatrical performance, then we were given rice and a fried fish served standing up on a bed of greens, with a large chilli sticking out of its mouth!

At a local fruit farm, instead of the usual tea and fruit, we were offered rice wine, by the master of the house, Mr Tiger, an 82 year old with a lot energy! Clinking of glasses, the traditional, shouted, “Yoh!” and down goes the rice wine.

A brilliant trip.

Two more editions on Vietnam to come.

Tomorrow I am going to Taipei for work and then Daniela will join me for a three day stay. So after Vietnam I'll post photos of Taiwan.

Have a good 2 weeks

Love

Alan












1 comment:

Joanna said...

I agree the trip to Megkong Delta is one of the best things you can do from Ho Chi Minh City. Our attractions were a bit different. Firstly we went to hold a snake and try to sneak out some honey from beehive, then taste a bit of fruits in honey and tea with honey and finally spirit with honey hahahaa yes a bit sweet all of it ;)
We tasted fruit while listening to traditional music and songs. Really different from what I heard before. The paddling through narrow canals was fantastic! And then we got to a place where they manufacture coconut toffies yummy To warn everyone they are more expensive at the source than in a shop and less eager to bargain.
In the prie of the trip we got lunch(tiny bit of meat, little veg and some rice) but of course you could buy an astonishing fish served on a wooden sticks constuction. It looked as if it was still swimming in the water. I'm not sure if I remember correctly but they call then rainbow fish or someting like that.

And if I can recommend a dining place in Saigon, go to Kim's on De Tham. I don't think we had such a good food anywhere else in Vietnam. I'm usually after local cuisine but you can get there also western food (not sure about quality though).