Ho Chi Minh City Chapter 2 (Mekong River Delta)

Oh wow, its been a long wait for Chapter 2! sorry peeps schedule was rather pack this few weeks. So, continuation from Chapter 1 , we woke up the morning of 3rd March 2016 and get ready for our Mekong River tour. I had my coffee first as usual, the 3in1 provided by the hotel. Vietnamese coffee and it was nice. So i was a happy caffeinated girl that morning :P .

wake up!

The bus came around 7.50AM and waited for us at the lobby, hihihi. We got down and quickly got into the bus to avoid pissing them off, haha. Most of the people in that bus was Malaysian, Bruneian (Brunese?? idk) and Singaporean. TIPS: If you are concern on the halal food, our tour agent is Bismillah Tour with agent name Phuc who speaks Malay, impressive, very funny guy lots of joke. They will take you to lunch at Halal Champa restaurants, that is the only different from the rest of the tour agencies.

Phuc is giving a brief explanation on the tour

the card, contacts.

We took off from hotel at 8AM, the bus was in good condition. The traffic however, horrific as usual in Saigon. We stopped at the rest area first around 10AM. Its pretty much a souvenir centre rather than a pit stop. Lol.

the pit stop, they also have the arabic writing for idk why.

Lots of clothes and fabric sells here. The male jubah however is quite cheap if you are interested, you can buy it. I know that cos Jenny was trying to find a Jubah for her dad. They sell some coconut ice cream here as well, good for a hot weather! :) . TIPS: If u feels like its cheaper than Ben Thanh area, buy it! kiki

Us on he Bus!

The bus continued its journey and we reached the My Tho jetty around 10.30AM. It's not a big jetty, but lots of boats there.

The MyTho jetty

boats are lining up.

Some shops selling fruits and all is in front of this jetty. Its really is a big river, Mekong. Brown in color like most big rivers in south east Asia, but very big yes. No wonder there are a huge population depending on Mekong for life.

We hop onto the boat at 10.35am, the ride was smooth and they gave you coconut water :). You can see few other boats and some fishermen boats here and there around Mekong.

Mekong River

I love my coconut water, do not throw it in the river okay!

In the boat, Phuc, our tour guide talked a bit about the river. As u know, Mekong is 2nd longest river in the world, 1st  especially in Asia. The river come down from Laos to Thai and Cambodia and then Vietnam.  The left side of the river go to South China Sea while the right side to Cambodia. it is 17 metres deep. It have few major islands (yes islands cos the river is huge yall) named Coconut and Unicorn islands. TIPS: If u really wanna learn about Mekong, listen and ask the tour guide, its very informative and it will give u a great insight of the life around Mekong and its history.

On the boat, we had a talk with a Singaporean group, cos the Brunei were quite 'cocky'. Whatevah. We arrived at Thanh Nien 10.50AM. The place is also known as Coconut island. Here, we learned how they do the coconut milk and candy. TIPS: Try the freshly made, it was soooo goood, damn! .

coconut candy in the making

this u must try yall, this is soooo good!

There are also candy covered in rice paper for preservation.  It's kinda common like what we have in Malaysia. It's weird that most of the traditional cookies have quite a resemblance to the Malays. They have lots of flavor like pandan, ginger etc.  They also have the rice paper production machine here. We bought the coconut candy of cos, its good,

coconut candies for sale, its cheap dont worry, 3 for around RM10.

Rise Papper, its Rice Paper actually ;)

They also have this Snake & scorpion oil for energy, especially for men.. euww. But yes, its their tradition. I know bcos i asked Phuc. lol, imagine how my face looked like after i know what its for. Phuc was like 'i also drink it' . and me 'krik krik' :D . TIPS: so for men, u can try! muahahahah!. Oh yes, Phuc is from this island, so he knows the villagers here.

Snake and Scorpion Oil

Apart from that, there's also a local art gallery here, interesting artworks. The locals have Python as well, so you can see the snakes in front of their house. That guy offered if we wanna hold the python, his pet actually cos the snake seems to be very comfortable around him. So yes, I did.. haha. As usual snake is a very muscled being. Its tail was trying to grab my butt, must be a male! Heyyyyy..lol!

The art gallery.

It was sooo heavy.. duh

i just like this photo for no reason, so i put it here, hihihihihih :P

From the coconut island, we must take the horse cart. Ayyyy i reallly don't like taking a horse cart, but u don't have choice. Luckily the horses seems to be in good condition and it was a short less than 10minutes ride via the narrow village road. Still, if there is another way, i wont take the horse cart as there are lots of cases related to animal abuse in tourism especially in the 3rd world countries.

The horse cart

The cart took us to the market. A wet market, not clean and sell mostly fish, local products and vegetables. To go back to the boat, u have to walk thru this market, as the jetty is on the other side of the market. TIPS: Wear shoes, much safer and cleaner.

The boat then head to unicorn island in Ben Tre region. On the left side,  we saw the coconut religion temple. Mmmhm there is a coconut religion here, the people drink and eat coconut only, so they decided to worship it. Gotta respect the local believes and culture yall.

We reached the unicorn island, in Ben Tre after around 10minutes on boat. 1st thing we saw was the honey bee production. This island is known for it. U can touch the bee hives n taste the honey at the entrance. Phuc will guide you how. TIPS: Dont worry the bees wont sting you, although i prefer not to poke their hive.

Hop out of the boat! Ben Tre!

The bee hives and Phuc is explaining it

Kak don did it and the honey tasted good she said. The bees extract the nectar from the mata kucing tree (idk what its called in English, this tree, kikiki :P )

You will be offered a sit to drink honey lemon tea made fresh by this lady who also happened to be the one at the entrance, multitasking i said. The tea is free, don't worry. But she, who happened to speak Malay as well, will promote the honey and the queen's honey which is good for skin. TIPS: The honey is cheaper than Malaysian honey, so if you want it, buy it there as it is genuine, i know cos i bought 1 bottle. The queens honey is expensive, so... no. lol.

Honey lemon tea being prepared.

The Queen's honey.

After the 'honey tea' experiments, from there we take the sampan (row boat) to the Mekong village. Now, u actually cannot choose the boat but u can try. It will stop here and 4 people will go on each boats. Some rowers are teenagers, some are male, female etc. There will be one in the front and one in the back.

Our sampan, and yes u have to wear that traditional hat, mine was a bit loose tho.

The young rower

A young girl aged 15 row our boat. I asked her age that's how i know. Most of the kids here didn't go to school. They started working in 'tourism industry' in an early age. It's sad yes, it's a third world country, everything is different. BUT, they are very good in acting for good tips. She showed her hands, saying its hurt, do a sad face, said she lives in a rotten house and stuff. This is all acting actually to rip tourist off. TIPS: Don't fall for it, but give tips cos u don't have a choice anyway.

These are poor people, and it's not fair for them as well. But honestly, u should be more honest and don't lie, its just not a good moral value. The boats was packed in the narrow canal back and forth rowing. The view was great though, U can really feel the Mekong river delta.

entering it, less boats.

as u go deeper, there were lots of boats, its unique as well actually

Whether you like it or not, u have to give tips, not a choice. We gave 25k dong to the young girl and we thought it was done. Nope! the guy behind Jenny asked too, mmmhmm, u have to tips both of em!. Jenny gave 10 Ringgit Malaysia to him. Holy shit, the young girl was unsatisfied. She made a scene, left the boat and went complaints to one elderly there. Keep pointing at us. Damn, it was not a good experience at all. The guy behind refused to share the 10 Ringgit tips Jenny gave with her, that made her complaint more. Duhhh. She then went to the handicraft shop and start selling some souvenir angrily. TIPS: They want tips in Malaysian ringgit, so if possible give each of them, front and back RM5 each so they will be satisfied.

                             


However, if you are unlucky like another group of Malaysian youngsters, their boat rowers set a tips that they had to pay 100k dong each person!.  Can u imagine, that's no longer a tips, that is a fare! . The tour agency already paid them as it includes the fare for the row boat, the tips is additional depends on you. But that boat charged those girls 100k dong each. Wow, luckily we didn't hop into that boat!. TIPS: So beware choosing the sampan and please have a cold heart as these people seem poor but very tricky, not all of em of course. Some of them are very good and honest. like the boat the Singaporean group took.

So we leave the boat area and walked. We sat down at one place where the traditional Vietnamese song were singing live by the locals. It is a culture of UNESCO intangible cultural heritage called Dan Ca Tai Tu. They served you some fruits as well (guava,papaya, pineapple). Don' worry it's included in the tour package. There were few girls and a guy singing, its a very weird yet pleasant type of traditional singing passed by for generations by the Dieng Viet people. They left a box for tips, and it's good because these people just put the box with a smile, did not force anyone to tips em. So, since they were so nice and have a unique heritage, we gave few ringgits. :) . TIPS: Give seikhlas hati, honest tips.

The traditional singing

The fruits

                               


We walked a lil there, not really much to see actually, just some souvenirs shops. The main boat and Phuc already waited for us a the other end of the island, and we get on it. Head back to the jetty in My Tho. I felt relieved cos we didn't have to take the row boat again! phew!.  We hop into the bus again. It was about half an hour ride and we reached Amin restaurant halal food. It was owned by Champa people. Sadly I dont have a picture of this restaurant, i forgot to take it cos i was tired and full, hihi sorry.

We had fish head curry and some other dishes, vegetables etc, it was very nice actually. They really can cook. It was included in the package, unless you add on some tea or coffee (like me :P) then u paid extra, not so much. I was listening to the other Malaysian group interviewing the owner, as he can speak Malay like most Champas around here. He said, he worked in Langkawi and Terengganu as chef helper before came back to Vietnam and opened a restaurant. Very good ay :) .

After a good lunch and rest, we go back into the bus and it dropped us at the hotel around 4.20pm. We take some rest first, wash ourselves etc.

Around 7PM, we went out to have dinner around Malaysian street as usual, hahaha. This time we tried Man Soor restaurant. I had he Pho and it was very nice!, traditional Vietnamese mee with beef. We walked around and check the prices of fabrics n hijab around the shop there and then to off to the night market.

That night, KakDon Bought a lot of bags, kiplings esp. It was good quality, the Kiplings here and very cheap! . We did extreme bargaining this time as we know how already. kikiki. TIPS: Bargained is a must, Kiplings bag is a must buy!

choose your bags yall!

Jenny and Sherry bought a bouquet of flower for Ija, why? Bcos her birthday was the next day. Aww, Ija is now a grandma, hihi. TIPS: lots of florist here, like everywhere, if you like, u can buy it for your other half as a token of love honey. :)

That night we try to find a coffee shop. But sadly, most were closed at 11pm, only MCDonald at Pham Ngu Lao street were open but too far to walk!. So, we head back to hotel. And around 12AM we surprised Ija with the flower!!!!!!!!.  Happy Birthday Ija! Love Ya!.

happy birthday Ija!

We had a chat and eventually go to sleep. Tomorrow we will be going to the historical places of Saigon and Cho Bin Thay!, stay tuned. XOX