Mekong Delta Trip

On Friday we took a three hour bus tour to the Mekong Delta.  After arriving at the river we boarded a motor boat to take a tour of the river.  Many people live on the river in small boats. They live, eat and sleep on these small boats.  They also go up and down the river selling their fish, potatoes, pumpkins, watermelons, etc.  The river itself is pretty dirty.  They bath in the river and also use it as their toilet.  The landscape along the river was beautiful.

We came to our next stop where we were shown how they make coconut candy and rice paper. We were given samples that were delicious.  We were offered tastes of rice wine, but only the strong were daring enought to try it.  It is made with snake or scorpians and no one seemed to like it.  We also were shown how they pop rice to make rice cakes or rice cripies.  They heat a kettle with sand and when it gets very hot they add the rice, that then pops.  After this they transfer it to a strainer and any that are not popped they use again.  They then add sugar and malt and cook for 15 mins then spread it out on a table and cut it up.  It was pretty tasty.

After this tour we continued down the river to an island where we were treated to a real Vietnamese lunch, we had soup, pork, rice and spring rolls, that are so famous here.  For desert we were offered a series of different fruits.  After lunch we were serenaded by a group of workers that live on the island.  They also had two ladies sing stories which were quite beautiful.  

Another 15 minutes down the river and our trip concluded in a market place, much like the ones in Thailand, which sells, fruits, veggies, and the eels, snakes, frogs, etc.
It was a long day and hot but we stopped half way home at a beautiful rest area and restaurant which provided the ice cream to top our trip off.