What a fascinating 24 hours we’ve had! We left Saigon yesterday morning for the trip by car to the Mekong River, about 4 hours total. We were told that before a strikingly stunning new bridge across the river, you had to take a ferry. The ferry ride wasn’t particularly long, but the wait for the ferry could be one to three hours. Hence, the new bridge has shortened everyone’s travel time.
We boarded our boat, Bassac, immediately upon arrival and met our fellow passengers: 5 other couples, two from the UK, one retired and one very young and three French couples. There was an English speaking guide on board for us and a separate one for the French people. The boat is small and built in the style of barges that were used to carry rice. The cabins are very compact with just enough space to turn around in and no more, but more importantly, they are air-conditioned, essential in the heat and humidity. It turns out March is the hottest month of the year with August next! After a delicious lunch of prawns and fried calamari to start followed by fried catfish, a stir-fried beef dish, sauteed pumpkin flowers (really pretty and tasty!) and steamed rice, finished off with a plate of fresh tropical fruits. we had several hours to just relax and enjoy the view.
In the late afternoon, we disembarked into a small boat with a simple motor sitting low to the water and cruised along for about 10-15 minutes until we came to a small village. Our guide then proceeded to lead us on a very informative nature walk naming all the various trees and fruits and breaking off leaves and stems to let us sniff the various herbs and flavoring agents. This area is rich in sweet and pungent fruits of many types from the more familiar pineapple, watermelon and coconut to mango, dragon fruit, manogstene and jackfruit. I liked the mangostene (slightly sour midst the sweet), but found the jackfruit too sweet. The last stop on our trek was a villager’s house where we were served tea made from the leaves of the pandan tree and a selection of fruits plus some mouth-filling preserved ginger.
Like lunch, dinner consisted of a selection of Vietnamese dishes which were the equal of lunch. After breakfast this morning, we disembarked for a stop at a workshop to see the making of rice paper sheets (circular in shape) that becomes a crispy cracker like a pappadum, rice that is heated with black sand and pops like popcorn, and a small distillery used to make a very strong rice liqueur. We had the opportunity to sample all of these and ended this visit with yet more tea (jasmine this time) and a selection of little coconut and rice candies.
On our smaller boat seen at the landing below, we passed through a busy floating market. This is a wholesale affair where the farmers bring their produce on board to sell to the shops. The growers stay here living on their boats for several days until all the vegetables are sold. Each boat has a stick on it with a sample of what they are selling–sweet potato, for example, or pineapple.
The last stop of the morning was a walk through a riverside village market. I love the colors and shapes of all the produce that is grown here and continue to be amazed by the amount of fresh meat, live poultry, and live fish that are laid out for sale. [My intention was to load more photos here, but the hotel Wi-Fi is incredibly slow so will have to upload them later on.]
I learned from our guides that the patterned masks we see on the women on motor scooters are not for disease prevention or to combat the pollution, but rather for sun protection to prevent their skin from getting darker. The ideal is very white fair skin and if your skin is too dark, you will have a hard time getting a husband. Our guide, wearing a long-sleeved sweater on our hike, was even asked by the other guide why she did it and if she thought her husband would “quit her.”
She also told us that here in the south, in their families, people have numbers as well as names. The eldest child is number 2 (there is no number 1), and so she is known to her brothers as “Sister 2.” When one marries, you acquire the number of your husband as well. So, since her husband is the third child or number 4, to his siblings, she is “Sister 4.” These numbers are also used in combination with names when addressing elders such as aunts and uncles or grandparents. She offered even more examples, but I have to admit to getting a bit lost in some of the complexity!
This afternoon we returned to Ho Chi Minh City which now seems bigger and brighter and busy after our sojourn on the Mekong. Tomorrow we leave Vietnam for Cambodia and the temples around Siem Reap.
