Today I go on a tour of the Mekong Delta with Caz and Belgian Sam. This is a $23 trip to some Delta Islands, initially by coach, then by paddle boat, followed by a three and a half hour motor boat trip along the river back to Saigon.
The tour guide enhances the trip by exposing us to some experiences our western selves might normally consider somewhat risky. This includes sticking my finger into a bee infested honeycomb to taste fresh honey, which is fantastically sweet without being too sticky. This is followed by sampling some ‘happy water’. This is the cobra and scorpion wine, the bottle of which, as I mentioned before, includes the complete intact ingredients. We are warned that if you drink three glasses of this, you are likely to go to sleep very quickly. Unsurprisingly, I find that part of the kick to this is its poisonous nature, and I get hot sweats after sipping a couple of shots of it. It’s not as if the weather is not hot enough already either.
At another stop, we are shown the process of making coconut candy. You can buy this in the shops in Saigon, but the fresh candy here is sold only on this island. It is softer and chewier than the candy in the stores, but it’s tasty without being morish, so I don’t buy any.
Earlier, in the boats paddled by local women in the conical hats, we went down a supposedly croc infested inlet on one of the islands near My Tho. Here I divest of some funds by buying a crocodile skin belt for $9. A later offer of $50 for a croc belt makes mine either a bargain or a fake, but it’s a good belt for the price either way. I need a new one now anyway, due to my general weight loss on this trip.
For lunch, we split into tables in a hut, and I have tiger prawn. These are huge prawns which are more like adolescent lobster, though I don’t find this to have a particularly fresh taste. Caz orders the ‘Elephant Ear’ fish, which is biggish ugly thing which is propped up in a rack so that the sides can be easily scraped at.
The tour group I am with divides at the end of the island tour into those catching a bus back to Saigon, those continuing on a longer two or three day trip, and those like me who are catching the boat back to Saigon. It emerges that the boat trip has either been overbooked or that there are some people on it who have not booked it. This may have been due to some confusion due to the leaflet for the trip advertising it as a boat trip to the delta and a coach trip back to Saigon. Instead of checking everyone’s receipts for what they have paid for, the tour guide starts randomly accusing people of not having paid the higher price for the boat trip, including one fat American couple who steadfastly refuse to leave the boat.
Eventually, one person volunteers to leave the boat if he gets refunded the difference and the guide makes himself the second person who has to get off. Apparently the police will confiscate the boat if it is carrying more than its licensed seating capacity of twenty two.
It is a bit of a relief not having the tour guide loudly explaining everything on the way back as it leaves us to concentrate on the sites and the pleasure of the surprisingly fast canal boat.
The scenery and the life on the river is the best part of the day for me. There are many tug boats and barges on the river where whole families live and work. The barges are mainly to excavate aggregate materials from the river bed. Empty, these are towering and intimidating hundred metre plus ships, but when they are full they look very much like they have sunk. They are still moving, but somewhat imperceptibly, with water flowing freely over the top of their hulls. It seems this is a design attribute.
As we approach Saigon / HCMC, I see my first signs of real poverty in Vietnam, with groups of corrugated iron huts along the river serving as peoples’ homes. This scene quickly changes though as we get towards the riverside at the centre of the city and our disembarkation point. Here there are all the expensive boat restaurants, one of which I had sampled the previous night, as well as modern towers and shops.
The walk back to the hotel from here is quite perilous as at some point I have to cross the wide road along the river. Crossing any road in Saigon is risking multiple moped confrontations, but when there are six lanes to contend with, it seems downright suicidal.
I have dinner with Gary and Laurie at an Indian restaurant - Laurie seems to have abandoned her local food only policy with the arrival of Gary.
No comments:
Post a Comment