16 August 2014
Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Only having a short visit to Ho Chi Minh at the end of our trip, we chose to do a full day tour to the Mekong Delta (My Tho to Ben Tre) on our last day in Vietnam. The tour bus was scheduled to pick us up around 8am and we were back at our hotel in Pham Ngu by 5.30pm. The tour company turned out to be TNK travel, the company we had seen advertised a lot, but we didn’t know this until we got on the bus as we had booked through our hotel. It was a good surprise though.
The day consisted of lots of bus travel and boat rides, as you would expect visiting the complex system of rivers and tributaries in the Mekong Delta. The guide, Yen, regaled us with tales of world-renowned rice production, Vietnamese culture, life on the rivers and general facts about Vietnam and its history. He was quite a character and enjoyed some witty banter with the mostly young, backpacking-type crowd on the tour bus, us included (about 25 people in all).
The itinerary for the day consisted of:
- Bus trip from Ho Chi Minh city to My Tho, with one rest stop where you can sleep in hammocks, buy fruitshakes or sip on Vietnamese coffee.
- Vinh Trang Temple – a Buddhist Temple complex where there were huge Buddha statues, a beautiful pagoda and temple gardens.
- Boat trip to one of the four islets in the middle of the river, for lunch (islets are named Unicorn, Turtle, Phoenix and Dragon).
- Boat trip over to the Ben Tre to see a handmade coconut candy factory, drink honey tea and have photos with a rather large (and heavy) Burmese python draped on your neck! Read more about Ben Tre’s famous coconut candy industry. and google Ben Tre coconut candy for some great images.
- Mini boat trip through the mangroves with four people on a wooden paddle boat, powered by the oar of a hard-working lady and experienced while wearing the classic conical Vietnamese hats.
- A short walk to a place where the local musicians perform on ancient Vietnamese instruments and sing of life in Vietnam (don’t expect them to look happy about it either). The tropical fruit snack was delicious.
- Walk back to the bus and sleep the rest of the way back to Ho Chi Minh city. On the way, there is a long bridge and a good view (with family fish farms built under the floating houses on the river).
All in all, not a bad day (especially for only about R 100.00 / $ 10.00).
The highlight for me was certainly the coconut candy stop – watching how the workers cook, mould, cut and package the toffee was the most interesting process. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of the product because, despite purchasing six packages, most did not even make it back home (too delicious!). It is a soft toffee, wrapped in edible rice paper before being put in a wrapper; with slightly different flavours available like coffee, chocolate, pandan and peanut. Vietnamese Food really is delicious.