Day 6 – Melting in the Mekong
In some ways, I’m repeating the ill-fated trip to Ho Chi
Minh in 2013. The two tours I’ve booked are basically the same tour, through the
same tour company (Viator) that I did the prior time. The first of those took
up most of today, causing me to wake up at 8:00 (not too bad since I could
sleep for a good hour on the tour van). This was the full day Mekong Delta
tour, one that is almost like a rite of passage when you visit this part of the
world, giving you a good chance to get down and dirty with the locals (villager
locals, not the HCMC locals), all the while experiencing some beautiful scenery.
The tour as a whole was great, with the only real glaring
downside being the fact it was humid as hell. Apparently this is the ‘cooler’
time of year, but I think it is basically as humid now as it was months ago
during their ‘hot’ period. It was so humid. It didn’t ruin the tour, and I do
think I sweat more than most people, but my god did it make those brief moments
in the tour bus, or the times when a fan was put on, so incredible.
The tour I took was pretty boilerplate of any Mekong Delta
tour I believe, and since it was fairly entertaining, it isn’t the worst thing
that they are basically selling a commodity at this point. Before I get into
each step, I should call out a few specific takeaways. On a positive, this was
the least pushy tour I’ve been on in terms of them trying to sell you the
random wares we saw being put together. We saw them make coconut candy, and the
local bee farm, and what-not, but were never even given that much time to
actually shop around. Second, the food was great, but my God couldn’t they have
at least done that indoors instead of under a large gazebo-like structure?
Anyway, the tour starts with a long drive out of HCMC to My
Tho, the largest built up city in the Mekong Delta (basically a series of
islands and areas around the Mekong River, which goes from the Pacific (here)
all the way up to China. The drive takes about 90 minutes, give or take, and gives
you a great view of the rice fields and fairly developed random rural towns
Vietnam has. I’ve been on similar type drives in, say, India, and they don’t
compare in the least.
After 100 minutes, we reached My Tho, and went to the My Tho
Pagoda (probably not the exact name of the Pagoda, but the closest I can
remember), reportedly the oldest pagoda in the area. It was a fairly large
space, with more buddhist influences than the pagodas in Taiwan – replete with
giant smiling fat buddha statue, and other more buddhist touches. It was a nice
little start to the tour, even ifit was a first sign of the heat.
After, we drove a short while through the city of My Tho – a
lot more built up than I expected – on the way to the dock to go into our first
of many boats for the day. This gave us our first real view of the Mekong River,
with a truly not alluring brown color. However, as the guide said, the Brown is
due more to the strong silt and soil that runs through the river, enough to
provide life to this whole area. It is still clean in a sense, just rich.
The first boat took us to one of two islands we wouild visit
– with a trip through tight canals in the middle. The guide explained the map
early on of the area, but for whatever reason it didn’t have much lasting power
in my mind, and I was very early on lost among the canals.
The first real stop on the trip was to a little village,
that had a large open area (roof covered) where a group of the locals played
some traditional Vietnamese music, while we sat, drank really nice tea and ate
fresh fruit. The sustenance was better than the music, though it wasn’t close
with the food including fresh dragonfruit, lingon (a perfect little small berry
like thing) and others.
After a short while, we walked past some farmland, and
entered into small little sampan boats (essentially canoes), and were spirited
down tight canals with lush greenery towards our next destination. I’ve done
these tpyes of river canal rides in a few places now, and while I probably wouldn’t
call the Mekong Delta the best, I was impressed by how clean everything was
(thinking of a comparison point with a certain backwater canal in Kerala). The
ride was short, but it was also cool to see how well run these boats were, with
ladies on each end paddling effortlessly by tons of other sampans.
The next stop was another island with a few more touristy
fares, but again never with the added pressure of buying or tipping. The first
was a honey-bee farm. The bees were buzzing everywhere, though the locals assured
us time and time again they are used to human interaction and therefore wouldn’t
sting. They didn’t, but it was still terribly nerve-wracking. The star of the
stop was honey tea, a mix of pollen (odd!), honey, cumquat juice and hot water.
It was weird to have so much hot tea but they were all so good.
The next stop was at a coconut factory, where they turn
bushels of coconuts into coconut candy – and in that process ship off other
parts of the coconut (the husk, the insides, the outsides) to other factories
to create objects, mats, charcoal, etc. The process was complex, but again
seemingly well run. The locals didn’t mind giving us bits of in-process coconut
to sample also, with the gift of fresh coconut water at the end.
The final stop, with a few canal traels mixed in, was lunch
at another open air restaurant. The lunch was a variety of random Vietnamese
foods, though nothing that is well known (e.g. no Pho). My favorite was either rice
paper rolls with Elephant Ear Fish (their name), or a surprisingly sweet bread
dish. Overall it was a nice meal. What was even cooler was that area doubled as
a strange mini-zoo. There was a large crocodile pit with about two dozen crocodiles
– even caught one catching and killing a fish. Next to it was a block with four
giant porcupines. I realized at that moment I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen
a porcupine. They are huge, they combined a really cute face with truly
horrifying spikes, man.
We then took a couple more canals back to our bus and headed
back. On the whole, the Mekong Delta is a staple. It is a right of passage in
this area. The backwater canals are serene and beautiful. The odd wildlife you
run into, including those awesome porcupines. The local stops were all a bit
touristy, but were interesting and I really enjoyed not being needled to buy
anything. The day was also super well run, the boat always being in the right
place, the right size, great picture opportunities, and opportune food breaks
like the teas, or coconut water, or others.
Overall, I was glad to reach back to the city, and
experience some of the city life as well. My first stop back in the city was
the Pasteur Street Brewing Company. Ho Chi Minh has gone through a craft beer
revolution recently, and Pasteur Street is one of the forebearers of that.
Their tap-room was buzzing – mostly with either Western Tourists or Expats, to
be fair, but the beer was good, the crowd was enjoying themselves, and overall
it was a great time.
What’s interesting about HCMC was actually more proven by my
first post-dinner place, the Gin House, which is that they have incredibly
upscale, modern, classy, brilliant drink and dining options, but a lot of the
are still hidden by the more hardened exterior. The Gin House was down a small
lane that seemed a bit seedy, but the place was still excellent. They had a
guest mixologist representing some New Zealand gin company. He had many
thoughts on gin and how best to combine it, but most of it flew way over my
head. What made sense in the end was how good it all tasted.
Prior to the Gin House was dinner, were I went to Hoa Tuoc.
This was a nice reminiscence for me, if anything. It was the one bit of tourism
I did do last time, as I had one meal after returning from Da Lat prior to
leaving Vietnam for Cambodia. That time I went to Hoa Tuoc, stupidly walking
there. I returned years later as it was still very highly reputed. It is still
situated in an alley courtyard tucked in behind the Oepra House. It still had
an amazing betel wrapped beef paper wrap appetizer. My main was a grilled
seabass with fish sauce, cucumber and eggplant.
My last stop was The Observatory, a semi-open rooftop
bar/club that plays a bit more relaxed music and has a more laid-back atmosphere
than the premium clubs in Ho Chi Minh. Either way, it was very much more my
scene than a Canalis Club or something more glitzy. People assured me it wouild
be more crowded and more fun later in the weekend, which I intend to check out.
Overall, it was a busy, if still really good first day of
true tourism in Ho Chi Minh. There’s quite a bit more to see, and I hope to
enjoy every part of it. But for one day, being trapped in the Mekong Delta,
taking sampans down small canals, that was bout as good as it would get.
