Short getaway to Ho Chi Minh city - Day 4 (31/12/10)

sorry was held up with other things.... hence this entry came a little late.
Onward to 4th Day in HCM city. another day cruising in the Mekong Delta. I booked this day tour only after we went for our 1st day tour. I felt that we've got another day... and there are not much things to see in HCM city... unless my family members are into museums & lots of shopping... and i've asked them a few times if they wanted to watch the water puppet show... but they did not give me very clear answers... so i juz decided to book another day tour. hahaha... and that time i was contemplating booking a day trip to Muine or Vung Tau. When i went to the tour agencies then realised that its not possible to have day tours to these places... they only have buses there... and its inevitable for u to stay at least 1 night in these towns. coz they are juz too far from HCM city. so i had to abandon that idea and juz book another day tour to the mekong delta region. I got my day tour from Delta Advertures tour agency. I've read about this agency from the trusty Lonely Planet guidebook and also checked out its website. Pretty gd and also affordable prices for the day tours. and the guides all spoke pretty good english and they will explain things. If u're interested u can check out Delta Adventures website:
www.deltaadventuretours.com
the tour agency is situated at: 267 De Tham St.,Ward Pham Ngu Lao, Dict 1 HCM City

for the 1st day trip, we paid USD 9 (does not include lunch & entrance fee to the Cu Chi tunnels), 2nd day we paid USD 15 (lunch included) and 3rd day tour we paid another USD 9 (lunch included). pretty reasonable prices. =D

 anyway as usual in the morning we bought our baguettes. But this morning we bought them from another auntie. she sold them at a much cheaper price. for the ham baguettes, she sold them for 10 000 dong!!! that's 5000 dong cheaper. today the number of tourists in our day group was slightly larger than yesterday's. and our guide was a nice person and his english was very much better than the previous 2 guides. But pity we had a couple of difficult & rude french couple. They were talking whilst he was talking. So he asked them if they want to contiune talking or he should stop? and u know what the French couple said?? "If you want to stop u can do that." wah... super super rude! Coz its basic human curteousy that when someone is talking u shld keep quite and listen even though he/she does not explain that well. anyway for the rest of the bus trip, all of us engaged in our own conversations.

Jetty where we board our boat. that's not the boat that we'll be boarding

This is the sort of boat that we'll be taking... lol

 For this day trip, today we'll be visiting unicorn island (think this is where they've got another coconut factory here) and another island (i cannot remember whether is is dragon island or tortoise island) but i do know that the unicorn island is the largest. and the dragon island was named as 'Dragon Island' as it was said that the people living on the island saw the island was shaped in the long manner. Sort of like a snake. But naming it as a 'Snake island' does not sound good, hence they chose another animal that may sound good and can bring wealth & good fortune. Hence 'Dragon' was chosen. We got onto a boat at the My Tho city (the vietnamese pronounced it as 'Mee Tho'). Hmmm... its mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook that My Tho is sort of like the capital of the Mekong Delta region. However, its one of the poorest citied in Mekong Delta. But we did not have time to explore this town, hence I can't really tell u if i do agree with the guidebook. But the jetty looks better as compared to the other jetty where we were at yesterday.

This little boy was looking at us (maybe we're aliens to him) when we were 'trekking' to the river banks

lane in front of a house sunning pomelo skins

For the island that the coconut sweet factory is at, on this entire island, the villages only planted coconut. They did not plant other fruits or veggies or rice for exporting or to be sold at the market. The reason being, the water is slightly saltier than normal water, hence this is not suitable for planting other crops. Whilst for coconut, the plant is able to survive in such environment. That's why everyone plant coconut or keep bee farm as a form of living. On the coconut island, we were treated to the same sort of coconut sweets and sight that were similar to yesterday's. We also visited the farm that kept bees. They were selling royal jelly and honey. At this bee farm, one of the promoters told us that besides using it to apply onto our face (especially for ladies who are into facial care) we can also eat it. she scopped a little of the royal jelly and some honey for me to try. I tell u, never will i ever try this again! its really repungent! i almost gagged! coz the taste was juz tooooooo horrible!!! tasted sort of like vomit! and the lady still dared to tell me its nice! its really puky. it tasted worse than those 'exotice' stuffs i've tasted in my previous SEA trips like fried tarantulas, 1/2 formed egg, snake wine etc. but come to think about it, royal jelly should have some sort of vomit taste huh... coz its a form of by-product from the bees. Royal jelly is the milk of the queen bee. whilst honey is the vomit of the bees. yuck!
After the exciting tasting of the royal jelly, its onwards to switching to another island. its at this other island where we took the similar sampan as yesterday. But for this tiny boat ride, there were 2 rowers instead of 1. we were rowed down 1 of the mekong canals back to our boat,

1 of the typical village house we passed on our way to the mekong canal

Me, mum & dad in sampan

where we were then brought to another island where we had our lunch and also another biking session. lunch was almost similar to what we had yesterday. But my family ordered an extra plate of fried spring rolls.

Restaurant where we had our lunch

This water buffalo was cooling fof in the longkang in the restaurant

my lunch. finally i see leaves on my veggies!!!!

after lunch, my brothers and I took bikes and rode around the village. We did not venture far, coz my parents did not want to bike around. Coz after yesterday's biking, my dad was feeling a wee bit tired and mum does not know how to ride a bike, so they waited for us. My brothers and i rode around for about 45min before heading back to meet my parents.

Banner in the middle of the road. Not sure if its the name of the village

Brothers on their bikes

a small alley in the village

But we had 2hrs for us to move around the island. and whilst riding around the vicinity, i took pictures of the day to day events of the vietnamese. pretty interesting... its sort of like going back to the 1960s of singapore.

A woman having her eye brows shapped at a village beauty palour

Pedicure anyone??

took this with 2 village girls who were sitting at the road side watching the world pass by

Another beauty palour. women were there for haircuts & facial

Woman selling longangs while watching tv

after riding for 45min, we went back to put back our bikes and get our parents to walk to the town with us. its better than sitting at the restaurant to wait for the time to pass. I told my parents that there are things u can buy in the town... and when they heard that they 'perked' up and went for a stroll with us. and there was a group of vietnamese (think its a friends gathering) having lunch together. i stood across the road trying to get a picture, and a couple of them saw me and they started to wave in my direction hoping that i'll be able to get a good picture of them. hahaha....

they are the ones who let me take their picture. they were having some sort of friends gathering

My mum saw some huge dragon fruit and after asking the price realised that they were really cheap and tasted very sweet (coz the vendor (husband & wife) cut up 1 dragon fruit for us to try) my mum decided to buy 2kg of the fruit) whilst i saw some super huge mangoes and took pictures with them. lol and some weird sort of fruit which the villagers preserved.

i blend in pretty well with the mangoes

These are the bottles of preserved fruits i'm talking about

after the fruit shopping spree, we headed back to board the boat to another place. and on this island, we were treated to some tropical fruits and vietnamese tea. at the lunch place, some of the tourists left 45min earlier coz they were taking the boat trip back to HCM city.

the boat that we took

anyway there weren't much things to see on this island. it was pretty boring...we were treated to some vietnamese songs.... hahaha... but i could not appreciate it as i do not understand what they were singing. anyway the melody sounded pretty 'chinese' like.

cultural performance by the Vietnamese

CK swinging in the hammok

after the performance and tea, its back to the boat on which we'll be transported to the main land. hahaha.... and on mainland, our bus had not come. in fact we had to wait for like close to 40min for the bus coz it was being held up in jams. and during the wait, we sat around, talk, eat and drink water.

When is the bus coming???

there was a polish family (parents & a young daughter) the wife suddenly yelled at the husband. we were shocked. and she was like weeping. but that lasted for a short while. Could be she was a little 'high' after drinking the beers (2 cans). finally our bus came and we managed to reach HCM city around 7.15pm.

My family and I asked to be dropped off at the Ben Thanh market. Coz we wanted to take our dinner at Pho 2000 (the shop juz beside the Ben Thanh market) and also to view the lightings that had been put up for that night's New Year's eve celebration. After dinner we walked down to 'Orchard Road' of HCM city and saw there were lots of people. More than the past few days when we were here. Perhaps everyone is out to join in the celebration party that was going to take place that night. u see lots of kids playing with a sort of catapult thing. shooting a lighted item into the skies and catching them as they fall to the ground. and lots of people snapping pictures in front of the city hall building. The Vietnamese media was also there to do a coverage. We saw a TV presenter interviewing someone. the whole place was 'chaotic' in a happy sense. and the decorations... hahaha... its like u've been transported to a communism world?? hahaha.... coz the red communist icons were put up in front of the huge Ho Chi Minh statue. But its not so bad... i mean looking across the streets, u see green lightings welcoming 2011 and another building with all the Christmas deco still intact.

Communism deco

Welcoming 2011!!!

Posing in front of the city hall building

One of the big shopping centers in HCM city

after taking all the pictures, we left the place and went to the street market. We want to buy some stuffs. and because the main roads were being barred from traffic, hence motorcycles had to sift through small roads and this include the streets where the night markets were. it was really irritating that motorcycles horned u when u're looking at some wares/items wanting to make a purchase. really terrible. hahaha... but its an encounter.

Night market infested with motorcycles. Chaotic!

after buying what we wanted, we headed back to our hotel to call it a day. and that night the area that we stayed in had a short blackout again! hahaha... by now my family was a little used to such things. and we had to packed our bags tonight coz tomorrow we'll be leaving HCM city for Singapore. But since we've got some time tomorrow in the morning, we'll be visiting another market whilst i'll also be doing a short walking tour that was recommended by the Lonely Planet guidebook. =D