9.10.2010 - Second day of 3-day Mekong Delta Tour

Waking up at Can Tho city was a torture for Ryan. 5 am morning call, to catch the boat. The reason was, our highlight of the day was a boat ride to see the floating market in Phong Dien and Cai Rang. Cai Rang had the biggest floating market in the Mekong Delta. Phong Dien was a smaller floating market not far away. The floating markets started very early in the morning, about 5 am, and would be almost done by 9 am. So got to be early to catch the action.

We walked from our hotel to the nearby jetty to board a big boat.

Sleepy tourists on the big boat. River breeze was nice.

Waiting for daybreak while cruising along Mekong river.

A bit like Venice?

As the day brightened, we had a simple breakfast of French loaf with jam or cheese and bananas on the boat.

Scenes along the Mekong river...

A barge for river crossing.

Beauty.

And the beast.

"I want to sit ship", sounded almost like "I want to shee shee".

Our first destination was the Phong Dien floating market.

River transactions.

Quack quacks on a boat.

Trading bananas.

Anybody want to buy my bananas?

Boat loaded with coconuts.

A lady came near to our boat to sell pao. She got many customers, coz our free breakfast wasn't just enough. And it was just so cool to buy something off the river, from a traditional lady on a traditional boat.

We stopped somewhere along the river to visit a rice noodle factory. Not a real factory, more like a backyard industry kind of thing.

This was how rice noodle, the main ingredient of the ubiquitous pho, came about.

Firstly, grind rice into flour. Add tapioca flour at 1:10 ratio (a way to cut cost... tapioca much cheaper than rice ma). Mix with water into the right viscosity.

Spread onto a hot plate. Like how our Indian friends make thosai.

When it is cooked, flip out the sheet with a rattan roller. Alex the tour guide said nothing goes to waste in the countryside. Notice that they used rice husks to feed the fire. The ash would be used as fertilizer later.

Gracefully does it.

Spread a few sheets onto a rattan stretcher.

Put out to dry in the big oven outside. Pray that no bird droppings land on them.

Put the dried sheets thru a shredder. Walla, you get rice noodles. Watch that your hand don't become meat noodles.

After that we continued to visit the Cai Rang floating market. The sun was high already and it was getting hot.

Didn't need to shout to advertise your goods. The poles were for the traders to hang their goods for all to see from a distance.

Orang puteh enjoying the sunshine.

When it was done we headed back to the Can Tho jetty, and then to our hotel. Well, I didn't find the floating market particularly interesting. It was a wholesale market (trading bananas mainly), and our big boat didn't go really near to see the action up-close. The floating market in Bangkok was much more lively and interesting.

I had some free time before check-out. Some street shots of Can Tho city.

"Thanks to the gods for giving me a nice car."

"Thanks to the gods for giving me a nice body."

Spare parts street.

A Vietnamese wedding lunch reception. Very similar to Chinese style. Hey why wasn't the bride dressed in an ao dai.

Almost empty streets in mid noon, so unlike HCMC.

Around the Can Tho fresh market...

Fruit stall with gigantic durians.

The famous Vietnam rice. Alex told us that Vietnam was the second largest rice exporter in the world after Thailand. Reason was, Vietnamese couldn't work as hard as the Thais because Red Bull didn't set up factories in Vietnam. Ok, we were supposed to laugh at this part of the joke.

Vegetables.

Pork.

Bananas, again.

Apa lu tengok?

We left Can Tho at about 2 pm. Tourists who bought the 2-day tour went back to HCMC on the big bus. Us who bought the 3-day tour packed into a little van to go northwards to Chau Doc, the border town between Vietnam and Cambodia.

Sardines in a can. Ohh... van.

The tour made a brief stop at a crocodile farm.

"I miss the Crocodile Hunter."

Baby crocs.

Needed some help to peek inside.

We reached Chau Doc at almost 6 pm. Before going to our hotel, Alex brought us to visit a temple atop a hill. It was called Phuoc Dien temple. It took a long walk up the stairs to reach the temple.

The temple structure was quite nice. But we came here more for the view... Alex said we could see the border between Vietnam and Cambodia from the temple.

New extensions still in construction.

Monk at peace, lepakking.

I wondered which was the Vietnam-Cambodia border.

After a nice bath in the hotel, we walked around Chau Doc town to explore the streets.

There was a nice waterfront park where the locals hang out. Families with kids running loose... joggers... pak-tor couples...

Interesting Mickey Mouse rubbish bin.

Symbol of Chau Doc: a catfish statue.

From there we walked to the market to look for food. The market was closed by then, but there was a food square which was still open.

You guessed it. Noodle soup with sugarcane drinks.

The winds were blowing hard as we finished dinner. So quickly went back to the hotel, just in time before it started to rain heavily.

8.10.2010 - First day of 3-day Mekong Delta Tour

Food in HCMC was about noodle soup. I hoped to find the best noodle soup in HCMC during our short stay there. After eating at the franchise shop the previous day, we wanted to try out some real stuff on the streets.

By the way, beef noodle soup was called pho bo in Vietnamese. How do you pronounce it? Foe-boe? Poe-boe? Nooo... the lady in TNK Travel elegantly called it four-ber, with a twist in the intonation. Cool!

And then we found this delightful little stall in an alley at the other end of De Tham Street where we were staying. The stall was flashy... the aluminium stall, tables and chairs flashed under sunlight. Made it looked cleaner than the other stalls. It became our favorite noodle soup stall for breakfast. At 20k dongs per bowl of noodle soup, it was half the price of same thing in Pho24 shop.

Ryan was still in sleepy mode. Here he had to get up at 7 am to get ready for the 8 am tour. At home, he wakes up at 11 am for the 12 pm lunch.

You get to mix and match your pho. The trick was... point to one meat (beef, chicken, pork slice, pork leg, shrimp or meat balls), point to one noodle (mee-hoon, kueh-tiao, mee, or macaroni), and the hawker would get the point. I suppose you could point-point at everything and hope he'll mix everything for you in one bowl. Notice the plate of vegetables accompaniment... we partook 10% of it only. Not herbivore enough to become Vietnamese.

Gosh that little stall served the best Vietnamese coffee I had in HCMC and Mekong Delta. Really kaw-kaw concentrated coffee with a strong fragrance, served with crushed ice. The tour guide warned yesterday that you need a strong heart for Vietnamese coffee, now I understood what he meant. This RM 1.70 ice coffee from the streets beats anything from Starbucks I tell you.

Packed some sandwich for the trip. Oh, sandwich was another popular breakfast in HCMC. They stuff a variety of fillings into a little French loaf... ham, egg, tuna, vegetables, onions, tomatoes, butter, cheese etc. You could buy the 10k dong ones from the roadside (wonder how the ham remained good all day under the sun), or 15k dong ones from a nice bakery like this.

After breakfast we hopped onto the tour bus to begin our 3-day Mekong Delta tour.

Soon after leaving HCMC, we made a stop at a lacquerwork factory. Seen one the day before, not interested anymore. Hmmm so lacquerwork shops in HCMC were the tourist stop equivalent of tea shops and jade shops in China tours. We left the crowd to have a nice cuppa ice fruit shake across the road. Notice the small chairs and tables they used. Almost like kindergarten furniture. Tells you that Vietnamese are generally very fit and thin, difficult to find obese people around.

Two hours later the bus stopped at a house in My Tho province. Or was it Ben Tre province. The tour guide sat us at a cafetaria and served some fruits. Same stuffs that we got in Malaysia... banana, pineapple, rambutan, and pomelo.

And the show began.

They found a pair of Vietnamese auntie and uncle to sing a couple of songs for us. That was Alex the tour guide on the left, accompanying the musicians with his guitar. So this was what the advertised "be entertained with local songs and music in a traditional orchard while sampling local fruits" was about. Hahahaha... the orang putehs might find that interesting.

A walk in the kampung.

Vietnamese buried their dead near their houses, or right in the middle of the paddy field. The reason was to prevent future generations from selling off their ancestral land. Clever. Would you dare sell a piece of land with your grandma's grave on it? You could be sure your relatives would curse you for many generations to come.

After the walk thru the kampung, we came to a jetty and hopped onto a little boat for a cruise along some narrow canals.

"Look, I got my own cap."

The ride ended at another jetty 20 minutes later. It was located "strategically" just beside a coconut candy factory.

Step by step on how to make coconut candy (in case you want to try at home):

First, grate the coconut and squeeze into coconut juice.

Mix it up with some flour and sugar over a slow fire. Get a machine to do the stirring (we could use the same trick to make dodol).

When the dough is formed, press them into strips on a wooden mould with grooves.

Line the strips nicely on the chopping board...

And then chop chop chop, a few strips at a time. You get coconut candies.

Get some friends to help you pack the candies. Emm... make sure they washed their hands.

The more the merrier.

After that they serve us "honey tea". Basically, pour some honey into a cup of tea, dilute with a bit of plain water, squeeze in some lime juice if you like.

"Look ma, real honey wor, got bees on the bottle!"

Tourist stuff: took photo with a snake.

Then we took a bigger boat for a ride along the Mekong River.

Quite nice really, if only the weather wasn't so hot.

Ryan seemed to enjoy the boat ride. He had been asking for more "sit ship" "sit ship" since then.

The ride ended at a Tortoise Island. Didn't see any tortoise. Just an orchard with a cafeteria inside. The free lunch was very basic. They were pushing hard for tourists to buy the must-try "very delicious fried elephant ear fish" at RM 25 per fish... just ikan tilapia la haiyo.

Hammocks to nap after lunch.

Feeling energetic after the meal. Back to naughty mode.

A boat trip back to the bus.

Stopped at a playground with a big fatty statue for tourists to take photos. Ryan was more interested to climb the gates.

And then on the bus again. Some snipe shots from the bus (putting good use of my 300mm lens).

Vietnamese students cycling home in the evening. Their girls' uniform was the traditional ao dai, Vietnam's national costume. Although they looked very elegant with the gown flowing in the wind, the white cloth must had been every Vietnamese mothers' nightmare. I think "whiter than white" washing powders would sell very well in Vietnam. And need to make sure the dress don't get caught in the bicycle wheel... ouch.

Those farmers' hats were very popular for everyday use.

It was dark by the time we reach Can Tho city. And to our surprise, the city was flooded?!

Not it's not the rain. That's what you get living in the Mekong Delta. The rivers would swell and overflow onto the streets at certain times of the day. Those folks biasa already.

Had a quick bath and walked to the riverside for dinner.

Had some fried rice with sugarcane drinks and Saigon beer. Nice rest after a long day's journey.

Night market beside the river.

Wondered what they sell in the shop. My dung? Hahaha....

Ryan did some trampoline exercise before dozing off.