See Travel Blog

It’s the start of week 2 in South East Asia, and our last full day in Vietnam, but (as with every other) our schedule is jam packed for today.

We meet tour guide Kevin in our hotel lobby after breakfast and wait for the bus to arrive.  Today we will be visiting the area surrounding the Mekong River, known as the Mekong Delta.  It’s about 60km out of the city as the crow flies.  As we know, crows don’t tend to fly in Vietnam, but rather ride scooters, so it’s a much longer drive than it would seem on paper.

To break up the journey out, we stop at a roadside service station.  I know these things get a bad wrap (or you get a bad wrap at them) but this one was special.  There is a beautiful lily pond, and some traditional Vietnamese houses, and feels like an interesting attraction in its own right.  Perfect for some Insta friendly pics.

I was in search of somewhere like this to record a short intro for my Instagram stories, so brought my pointy hat along too.

Just as Dad and I are waiting for a few people to finish taking pictures and clear off, a girl comes up to me and takes my hat out of my hand.  Next thing she’s posing with it by the side of the lake.

Don’t worry, I think she only intended to borrow and did ultimately return it, but it was the cheeky look she gave as she lifted the thing out of my hand that had me taken aback.

Back in the bus, Kevin explains to us about local industry, and rice in particular.  We know Vietnamese love rice.  Kevin tells us that he eats it for every meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner), and in many forms.  Bread, pasta and potatoes aren’t so popular for some reason.  The average Vietnamese person eats 7.6kg of rice per month.

Vietnamese rice has won awards and is considered by some to be the best rice in theworld (surely this is subjective?).  They export to places like the Philippines and China, which even though they produce plenty of the stuff, don’t produce anywhere near enough to be self sufficient. 

We cross the Mekong River itself via the Rach Mieu Bridge.  This bridge isn’t half as interesting as prior research suggested, so I shall gloss over.  

The source of the Mekong River is in Tibet, China, and flows 4,350km long, through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before splitting into many tributaries and exiting into the South China Sea.  The water, and the fertile land around it provide most of the areas industry and employment.

We’re more interested in the tributaries today so carry on further, across some very narrow lanes.

Soon, the bus pulls in at the side of the road and a burning smells fills the nostrils as we disembark.  Aside from thousands of empty coconut shells heaped on the floor.  

We walk down the lane past a number of exotic trees and plants, and Kevin explains what some are:  Nipa Palm (check), banana, tamarin and pomegranate trees.  The banana is the only one here with any fruit growing on it – they’re small and green.

Here we can see several boats moored up, but we are directed away towards an old machine covered by a tin roof.

This is a brick making workshop, and the machine is used for shaping the clay by forcing it through a mould.

There are two types of brick produced here, solid ones, and hollow ones (with four holes for insulation more suited to the hotter temperatures, or hiding cables in).

We are shown a brick kiln, where the shaped clay is heated and hardens.  The fire is fed by rice husks.  The ashes are later sold to farmers for fertilising fields.  It’s clear there’s no waste, absolutely everything has a use.

We make our way over to the boats and get ready to board.  It’s a petrol powered motorised boat, and the roof is particularly welcome given the heat.  We have some coconuts waiting for us on arrival.

The juice from the coconut is very refreshing, and we begin to make our way down one of the Mekong’s many offshoots.

The river is muddy brown – the sort of colour the milk goes when you eat a bowl of Coco Pops.  Wouldn’t want to be tasting any of this though!

Tour guide Kevin explains that there have been some big fish caught over the years.  Particularly Giant Barb.  I’m told there are no crocs.

At one point, the boat driver leaves his station and walks to the back of the boat.  When he returns, he’s holding a meat cleaver.  Automatically I’m thinking we’re about to become subjects of a Netflix murder documentary.  Thankfully it’s the coconut he’s interested in, and slices the now empty shells into smaller pieces.  We can see that the insides are lined with a white gel.  This will ultimately become the coconut texture that we’re familiar with, but there are a few other steps beforehand.

The boat continues down the river, and every so often some floating debris will come past – fallen branches / coconut shells / leaves etc. 

The boat docks and we disembark at what appears to be some form of restaurant.  At the entrance, a lady is deshelling coconuts.  A spike cemented into the ground harpoons stands firm while the green pods are being smashed over the top.  The shell breaks away to reveal the brown furry exterior that we are familiar with.

Next, the lady takes out a cleaver and strikes the coconut, with a bucket below to collect the juice.  The insides are again lined with that white gel.  She then takes another coconut (which has been left to dry) and presses half of it against a spinning razor.  As she does so, coconut shavings gather in a basin below like swarf from a drill.  This is coconut as we know it (unfortunately I’m not a fan!)

The pile of discarded coconuts here is even bigger than the one earlier.  We’re told even these shells will have a use.  

In the shop, Coconut candies are a big things. They just taste like flavoured toffee sweets to be honest.  I gave the offer of snake wine a hard pass.  Having the snakes head poking out of the bottle was almost traumatising.

Were ushered over to some tables with cling film wrapped fruit, and a traditional  Vietnamese folk group begin to play a few metres in front.  During one song, a man and a woman reenact a hard days labour out in the fields.  

The same boat takes us on to the next stage between what looks like dense jungle.  As we pass through, I think to myself that this is how I had imagined the Amazon rainforest to feel like. 

The boat pulls in beside a set of steps, where a motorbike drawn cart waits.  It feels like we’re celebrities being driven from one function to another. 

The next stop is a shed where a few old ladies are sat with legs folded on the floor weaving something. It is a mattress factory.

These women are among the happiest I have ever met.  They appear to have nothing, and speak next to no English, but can communicate through laughing and gestures.  Their smiles are as wide as the Mekong River itself. 

The ladies invite us to help them out, and dad accepts.  Kevin explains that South Vietnam is like a paradise.  They have everything they need here – food, work, water.  There are no rules, and have an abundance of food right at their doorstep.  I get it, the contrast with the busy city couldn’t be greater. There’s no fear of not falling into line, they are masters of their own fate.

Lunch was an experience, and not one I would want to revisit in a hurry.  The menu was all fish.  Squid in the soup, squid in the rice, king prawns, and then to top it all off – a complete fish served to finish.  The thing was looking at me as well, with a chilli stuffed in its mouth like it was being gagged and tortured.

But that’s ok, I had a backup plan in my bag for this very occasion.  Last night in 7 Eleven, I found a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk.  I whipped the chocolate out to discover it was now a bar of hot chocolate – ie in liquid form.

Not beaten, I ripped the end off and squeezed it out like a sports gel.  Not ideal but sometimes you just have to adapt!

Just as we finish eating, there’s a clash of thunder and the heavens open.  We’re advised to wait this one out.  Thankfully that’s only 5 or 10 minutes.  There are bugs everywhere, and dad has left his bug spray and backpack in the bus!  🤦🏻 

When the rain finally ceases, we walk half a km or so to another boat and another river.  This one is human powered, with another lady rowing it stood up at the back, just like a Venetian gondolier.

Overhanging branches form a natural archway over the river, this keeps the sun off the river, and temperatures are very manageable. 

Plastic bottles in the river look like pollution, but we’re told that they have been positioned to try and catch fish.  The people are so resourceful here.

Reaching the end, the lady jumps into the water, barefoot and knee deep, before hauling the boat into an angle where we can safely get off.  It’s a hard job, but she does it admirably. 

The boat trip concluded today’s tour, but we still had to get back to Ho Chi Minh City.  Honestly that boat was probably the most enjoyable thing we’ve done in Vietnam did far.  

There was more heavy rain and a lot of heavy traffic coming back into HCMC; a combination of weekend traffic, the weather and some accidents causing further mayhem on the roads and adding an extra 90 minutes to our transit time.  

As I mentioned earlier, tonight is our last night in Vietnam, and there were a couple more things to tick off while we were here:  the first being the iconic Saigon Skydeck (or Skygon saideck as I like to call it).  

We’d admired this from across the river last night, but when I see a skyscraper, I’m always itching to go up to see the view.  In particular, this one’s proximity to the city centre, means landmarks should be easily visible and the vibrant lights should look spectacular from the sky (that’s what I’m hoping).

The skydeck is the public observation deck on floor 49.  Disappointingly, this is below the helipad, so there’s not much of that to see, but we are told by the man at the ticket desk that this is only really used in case of evacuation.  In which case, it begs the question why it’s even there at all – probably just a gimmick.  That said, the helipads incorporation has made this the 5th most iconic building in the world (the Empire State Building is number one for the record).

The views matched (maybe even surpassed) the anticipation:  City Hall, the market and the Cafe Apartments just some of the buildings we’d visited which were visible.  

This city is electric at night.  What appears to be a sleepy place through the day just comes to life when the neon lights are turned on, and you could really get a sense of that from above.

Making our way back to the hotel, to freshen up before dinner, a lot of bars were now open for business.  Every single one of these had young women sat out the front, like the bait to lure men in.  All of these girls were sat on their phones, and as Dad and I passed one by one would put their phone away and stand up.  It was like a sleazy Mexican wave.

One elderly man makes his way out of one bar, and as he does so (looking worse for wear), kisses one of these girls on the cheeks and walks off.  The girl is all over him but clearly there in a paid capacity.  It’s twisted, and you wonder how much choice these girls have about the lives they live.

I hear that Bui Vien is the place to be in the evenings, and on a busy Friday night, it is absolutely manic.  It honestly feels like half of the city is on this street.  Live music spills out from the bars.

The behaviour in this street isn’t much better.  Here ‘sexy’ dancers flaunt themselves on a stage beside the front door of every bar.  Again most people here are loving this, but I’m finding the whole thing deeply uncomfortable.  It’s a world away from what I am used to, and to be honest I think most of the world has moved on from these kind of attitudes towards women.  We walk through as quickly as possible, and having already eaten, try to avoid restaurant staff in the process.

I’ve been warned that this place is rife for pickpocketing, but thankfully we see no evidence of that tonight.  

Tomorrow it’s another (yes… another) early start to head to Cambodia.