the bus that we boarded was in much better condition than yesterday. and today the number of tourists was much lesser than yesterday. think there were about 40 tourists in yesterday's day trip whilst today was about 22 tourists. we were the only family that were singaporeans... there was 1 japanese and the rest were all westerners.
this was taken along our way to the jetty
When u're in HCM city, u'll be awed by the cable posts. hmmm... why do i say this? coz they look really dangerous.
Dangerous looking cable post. But this is a very common sight in HCM city
Anyway, our guide today is called Phu (i think) but he has an english name, Poppy. hahaha... interesting huh... coz its not everyday u hear a guy's name as Poppy. anyway he is a rather interesting person. He shared quite a bit of things with us.
well... for example he shared with us why are there eyes drawn onto the boats which are cruising in the mekong delta??? Guess u also don't know right? he told us that in the past, there used to be quite a number of alligators and crocodiles in the mekong river. So to scare these crocodiles & alligators away, crocodile-like eyes were drawn into the boats. hahaha... i can't believe such explanation either. but he also told us that its imporant that boats have 'eyes' so that the boatmen will not loose their way. yeah i think this is the better explanation.
anyway Poppy told us that as he was not able to recognize most of us, especially for westeners look similar to him, and now is the peak season for tourists to visit HCM city, so there will be quite a lot of people at the jetty. So he gave each of us a sticker to identify ourselves and easier for him to spot. after about 1 hr on the bus, we had a toilet stop. hahaha... talking about toilet... Poppy enlightened us to something. To vietnamese 'toilet' = everywhere is toilet, whilst for 'happy house' = the toilet cubicles. why such names??? hahaha... reason is because, as u travel in vietnam, u'll sometimes see men standing near to walls, holding their pants. Yup! they are urinating. Initially i was put off at such sights. but somehow this was their vietnamese custom. and if u want to have nice toilet seats, basins for washing hands, these are called 'happy house' coz once u relief ur bladder or intestines, u feel much happier. hahaha... pretty interesting huh. =P
ok! Over at the rest stop, Poppy also encouraged some of us who had not have our breakfast yet to take our breakfast and also to drink the vietnamese coffee....talking about coffee.... my friend, Dung, had told me that i must definitely try the Vietnamese coffee when i'm in HCM city. Coz the coffee is of very good standard and very potent. hahaha... i 1/2 believed him. anyway it was at this stop that we tried our very 1st Vietnamese coffee! and the coffee was made in a very traditional way. take a look at the picture to get a clearer idea of what i'm trying to tell u.
Vietnamese Coffee made in the traditional way
Me & mum having a cuppa
interesting isn't it?? and it was really hot. so we could only wait for all the liquid coffee to drain off before we stirred our coffees and take the 1st sip. and i must say.... when the coffee touched our taste buds, my family members commented that this is damn potent coffee. and it was really sweet. so u know what i did? after a couple of mouthfuls of coffee, i added plain water to it to dilute the sweetness. hahaha..... but i must give both thumbs up for the coffee. its really very strong stuff. and each cup of coffee cost us 10 000 dong (if i remembered correctly) if u happen to be there like us, do try this!
another 1.5hrs later, we reached the boat jetty. all of us boarded the boat and its off to view the floating market.
Jetty which we boarded the boat
CK relaxing in the boat
mum, dad & me in the boat
and along the way, we say the lives of the people staying at the river banks of the mekong river and boat people. very different from the lives of the people staying in the city. why do i say this??? especially for those people who are staying on the boat. the boat is their house!!! yes, they sleep in it, do toilet business in it, cook in it, wash in it, selling their wares on it. basically everything that we do in our house, they do it in their boat house!
Woman washing clothes on the her house-boat
Man rinsing clothes at the river
Typical houses at the mekong river banks
Can u see the eye on the boat??? those are the crocodile eyes
Boatful of longans
Poppy cautioned us not to purchase the goods from the floating market, coz the people sell in bulk. i.e. they sell 10 watermelons at 1 time to each customer. u can't really buy individual items. i felt that the floating market was not really as colourful as the ones that we may have seen in Bangkok. hahaha... u can say that i was a little disappointed. but at least it allowed me to catch glimpses of the lives of the people living in the mekong river region.
Jars of fish gravy
House selling bamboo poles
Man bathing
Woman washing her hair
man taking a siesta
Finally we reached the island where we saw how coconut sweets were made. and most of us bought coconut sweets.
Man slicing the coconut sweets
they also showed us how rice paper were made. Poppy also let us tried snake rice wine. think the alcohol content is about 40%. my family tried but i did not as i've tried that when i was in Luang Prabang. hahaha... they commented that its too strong.
Making of rice paper
and Poppy also brought us to another place where they showed us how the people harvest honey and royal jelly. and Poppy enlightened us to something about bees. he asked us, how many queen bee is/are there in a hive? u must be thinking what a stupid question this is. of course there is only 1 queen bee. but the answer is wrong! hahaha.... he told us that along the way there are numerous queen been. and when another bee gets stronger and becomes bigger it will try to overthrow the current queen bee to become queen bee herself. that is y when u look closely at the honeycomb, there are sections that are buldge out. in such regions were the previous 'house' of ex-queen bee.
at this farm they tried to sell us banana fritters
Banana fritters sunning under the sun
and also the royal jelly. they so claimed that the royal jelly was very good for skin. ladies like to use it for cosmetic reasons. and u can also eat it. it was sold at 200 000 dong for 1 tiny bottle. after this, we went for lunch. lunch was also very exciting. coz all of us had the usual plate of rice with bbq pork. But they also introduce the elephant fish, which u're to warp the meat together with veggies and rice paper to make it into a vietnamese springroll. My family ordered 1 elephant fish and we rolled and tried. I must say it was interesting and pretty nice to eat.
my lunch. bbq pork, fried spring roll & some veggies
elephant fish!!!
after lunch we had some time... and Poppy told us that we can go cycling if we want. Coz we had like about 30min. so most of us took a bike each and went off.
mum & dad on tendem
CK on bike posing for a pic
name of the town (i think)
and when we came back... some of the tourists were taking pictures with a huge python! hahaha... seeing it my brother and me also tried to be 'heros' and carried the python. when my brother put it onto my shoulders i nearly cried out. coz the python was really heavy. it weighed about 50kg! and it was trying to slither away from me... so i after a few seconds i was screaming a little. hahaha.... wanting to get rid of it. coz it was too heavy and wanted to 'run' away from me.
CK & his 'good friend' the python
python sitting on my shoulders
after the exciting & courageous episode, all of us went to take the 'sampan' sort of boat. where there was 1 vietnamese to 1 boat. He/she will row us down the mekong canal to the mekong river where our boat was docked. not my 1st time in such boats. 1st time was when i went to the perfume pagoda in hanoi and the 2nd time was in luang prabang, laos.
trying to stay stable in the sampan
self portrait
the man rowing our sampan
CK trying to act 'hero'
cruising down the mekong canal
once all of us boarded the big boat, wanting to head back to mainland... our tour guide realised that we left 2 of the tourists on the island! oops.... hence we had to wait for them to be brought back. and in the midst of waiting.... we went to another island with a huge goddess of mercy statue in front of a buddhist temple. Our tour guide told us to go and view the temple and pray that the other 2 tourists can join us safely.
sitting at the banks
goddess of mercy statue in front of the temple
yeah... after waiting for close to 30min, the other 2 tourists joined us. we boarded the big boat and head for Vinh Long. pity we did not have time to walk around the market. people were still selling things at the market. I managed to capture some interesting photos of the market. and mum bought some interesting fruit. my friend and told me to try them when i'm in vietnam. and he told me that it was called 'mother's milk'... hahaha... i found out from the tour guide that this fruit helps lactating mum to produce more milk. but the english name is 'star apple'. i later tried the fruit later when we went back to the hotel. this fruit is rather weird. i mean when i tried to suck the juice from an opening in the fruit, i discovered latex on my lips!!!! and when u open the fruit, the flesh is slightly white-pink and the seeds is somewhat like soursop's seed. hahaha... but its nice....
bored aunties selling their veggies.
a lady selling live chicks at the market
anyway after walking through the market, we got on the bus and head back to Ho Chi Minh city. and i sat beside the Japanese tourist. he went on the day tour himself coz his wife was not interested. His wife is a vietnamese... so almost every year they will travel to vietnam. hahahaha... he told me that this time round they will be in vietnam for 2 wks... and most likely next wk they maybe heading to hanoi as his wife wanted to visit hanoi. after 3 hrs of bus ride we finally reached Ho Chi Minh city. Today we went to the restaurant that we ate on the 1st day that we were in HCM city. Tomorrow its another day trip in the Mekong delta again. But we're going to another place in the mekong delta. =D
