Ho Ci Minh City - Thursday 9th October,2014.

This morning we left for a day trip out to My Tho, towards the Mekong Delta about two hours drive from the city in a transit van. Only seven of us on the tour. We  started off with a boat ride down part of the Mekong Delta River. Then had a ride on a hand rowed sampan through small islets under the green canopies of water coconut trees to catch a glimpse of the daily activities of the local people. A visit to an orchard to observe the pastoral life  and to enjoy seasonal fruits, tea ,coconut milk and lunch.We visited villages on two different islands on the river. The weather was good, cloudy, a little sun but not too hot. Nice breeze on the river.  All very interesting seeing how the village people live. Arrived back at the city about 4.00pm.

Leaving the port of My Tho.

This is the motorised boat that we travelled on to the islands

Above and below are some of the boats we saw on the way.

Look at the colour of the river. They tell us  a lot of the muddy look is from all the mud washing of the rice fields. I am sure there is a lot more to it than that. The Mekong River is the eighth longest river in the world at 4350 kms long.

Getting off the boat at our first island stop

We walked through the gardens of the locals and stopped for a special tea. Jasmine tea, honey and coconut jelly. Very nice and refreshing.

Showing all the ingredients that went in the tea and of course they were trying to sell all this to us. No good for us as we can't take honey into NZ. They made their own honey. We saw the bees.

We then went walking further through the village to the next stop where we were given all sorts of fruit to taste.

Here we are trying every thing with an Aussie couple.

We then got into small rowing boats which they called sampans and  and they rowed us through  small inlets under a green canopy of water coconut trees as below.

You can see the lady in front rowing.

We past an area where there was a house with the boat pulled up under the trees. Look at all that mud.

Passing some happy locals

Continuing our journey to the next village

Our get off point, up the stairs.

And then through another village

One of the houses in the village. There are plenty of hammocks that are fully occupied.

We arrived at a small factory where they were making coconut toffee.

The girls were packaging the toffee which we tried...... very nice. In the foreground of the photo there were six different flavours of coconut toffee. We bought the chocolate one, nice.

We were then picked up from our first motorised boat to take us to the bigger of the islands. Passed this old boat on the way. We saw all sorts of interesting boats today.

We have now arrived onto the bigger island, which has this new connecting bridge from the mainland. It is only 3 years old. But we went by boat......more fun.

We walked through more pathways to arrive at these horse and carts. Didn't realise at first but we were going off to lunch in one of these. So we all climbed in. Bit bumpy and we all felt sorry for the horses.

We were sitting in the cart, looking through to the horse. He was trotting quite fast. Poor thing. When we got off  PT went over to the chap and said make sure you give the horse some water.

We arrived for lunch by horse and cart.

Walked through the village pathways before we arrived at the lunch venue.

At first they brought out this snake and asked if anyone wanted a photo with it wrapped around their neck. Didn't see PT for dust, he was off.........

They brought this fish out to the table, all cooked ready to eat. The yellow coloured ball is rice made with something sticky, possibly honey and rolled into a ball. It was actually very nice. Like sweet sticky rice.

The lady cut the fish and rolled it up into rice like thin pancakes with lettuce,tomatoes, cucumber and a few other things, Yum We also had chicken, pork, some sort of green veg, nobody knew what that was. Boiled rice and all the sauces to go with the different things. We had so much we didn't think that we would need dinner, but as I write this we are just saying do we need to go outside to get something very light and decided we should.

  

Above and below more walking through their village.

Such a different way of living, but they all seem happy.

Now onto a smaller motorised boat to take us through the canopies of more water coconut trees. This passage was a little wider than the narrow one we went through with the sampans.

If the water wasn't so brown it would be picture perfect.

We were then transferred back to our bigger boat to take us back to the mainland. Giving us all coconut milk. Not that keen on it.

We had a good day, enjoyed the experience of visiting the locals and seeing their way of life. Some different ways of cooking. Quite an experience. Nice to get out of the big cities and see the real Vietnamese.