Vietnam I (Mekong Delta)

A group of fourteen (!) of CUHK exchange students went to Vietnam this weekend, Ho Chi Minh City to be exact.  Since we had so many people we decided to split up so everyone could do what they wanted to--a few people went to the beach in Mui Ne, a few people stayed in the city, and 4 of us girls decided to go on a 2-day biking tour to the Mekong Delta.

It was a small private tour, so it was just the four of us plus our tour guide.  We got driven out of the city in a van with the bikes in the back for about an hour, then we got on the bikes and started going, first on paved country roads and then on gravel paths through rice fields and villages.  It was a whole new way to see the Vietnamese countryside; biking in the local traffic really helped immerse us into the culture and allowed us to see, hear, and smell the place in a way that is not possible from a tour bus.

We watched workers peel cashews, sampled fresh dragon fruit, rode alongside children biking to school, plugged our noses from the horrid smell of durians being sold on the street, watched a moped pull a cart filled with three grunting full-grown pigs, and waved at smiley locals yelling "Hello!" out of their hammocks.

Ready to bike

Cracking cashews

Two dogs chilling out inside the cashew shop

Lindsey, Liz, and Blair eating dragonfruit (that's our tour guide in the back)

We stopped at a Caodaiist temple (the religion itself is called Cao Dai, a monotheistic religion based on Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism with a touch of Christianity) and ate lunch with the women who live there.  We watched as workers made coconut candy and rice cakes.  We heard traditional Vietnamese music.  We floated across the Mekong River in a boat.

The elderly women at the temple offered us an absolutely delicious vegetarian lunch

Pouring the popped rice into a sticky coconut milk mix--it looked like they were making rice crispy treats!

Lindsey and Liz, as we're floating down a side branch of the Mekong

It was a lot of biking--we were exhausted and at like we hadn't seen food in weeks.  The tour guide even commented on our eating habits, remarking in a surprised manner, "But you aren't fat..."  We decided to take that as a compliment and leave it at that, especially because he was very sarcastic most of the weekend--he especially liked to pick on Lindsey.

For lodging, we were housed in a homestay on an island in the Mekong, so we stayed on a Vietnamese family's property in a secondary building/hut with a few beds in it.  The family cooked us delicious food; my favorite were the fresh spring rolls:  fried mini crabs and fresh vegetables wrapped in rice paper and dipped in a little bit of sauce.  We slept like babies in our mosquito-net-covered beds because we were so exhausted from the biking.

Sleeping arrangements for the night...surprisingly comfortable

The next morning, we got up at 4:45am to make it to the floating markets on time.  We were dead, but it was absolutely worth it--we had seen the sunset the night before...

Sunset on the Mekong

...so seeing the sunrise too was almost twice as rewarding.

Sunrise at 5:30am

Floating market--pineapple and banana boats

Our butts were really sore and we were really tired; since we couldn't do anything about the former, we decided to get some coffee to fix the latter.  Vietnamese coffee is amazing--freshly dripped into your cup with a touch of sweetness.

Linds and Blair's "American coffee", served in Martini glasses and spiked with alcohol.  NOT what they were looking for at 10am.  Vietnamese drip coffee in the foreground.

We ended up getting caught in a windy rainstorm later and had to cut our biking short for day two.  We tried to tough through the rain but we had such a hard time keeping our eyes open that we had to stop and headed back to Ho Chi Minh in the van.  It was an intense and amazing two days.

Next up:  Ho Chi Minh and Cu Chi Tunnels!