Can Tho, Mekong Delta - A Guided Tour

6 - 7 March 2015

The Mekong Delta is a part of Vietnam that I have been excited to visit.  I picture the Mekong Delta as lots of water, rural, less tourists, and traditional living.  In other words, I picture the Mekong Delta being authentic Vietnam.  At first the plan was to go down there and explore on our own, but while doing research on the area I found a review on a local tour guide name Susan Bui that provides private tours.  I emailed her and received an immediate reply saying that she was available on the dates I was interested and the cost for a 2 day private tour with a home-stay was $110 USD.  At that price I couldn't resist, so we booked the tour.  Susan then replied with information on the exact bus to take and what station to get off of and that she would meet us at the station.

We woke in the hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, ate breakfast, and took a taxi to the bus station..well...it wasn't the bus station, but is is where a van will take us to the bus station.  As expected, the van took us to the station and we got off to find us being the only Europeans there.  There were buses coming and going and a guy on a microphone outside announcing where each bus was going...of course this was all in Vietnamese.  Every time a bus pulled up I showed someone our ticket and they just shook their head "no".  Finally some official looking guy asked to see our ticket and just held out his hand in a wait position and walked away.  I was pretty confident that this guy was now going to take care of us, but Tim was a bit worries.  I can't believe that after all this traveling he is still a nervous traveler.  He is fine when we get on the transportation, but he worries about us getting on the right transpiration and then worries about getting off at the right location.  Me on the other hand is like don't worry...it will all work out.  I guess this is why we are good travel companions.  Anyway...after about 20 minutes that official looking guy pointed at a bus that we should get on, so we did.

At this point we are traveling blind.  All I know is to tell the bus driver that we need to get off at the Bình Minh bus station and we are supposed to meet a girl named Susan...even I was a bit nervous about this all working out, especially since I didn't have to leave any deposit for this tour and we don't have a phone to contact Susan if she was not there.  Three hours after boarding the bus the ticket guy pointed at us to get off and there was Susan ready to greet us...AWESOME!  After saying hello and introducing ourselves so talked to a van driver and told us to get in.  She said that the van will drop us off where we need to go and she would be behind us on her motorbike.  Uhm...OK.  The van pulled out and went down the road as I saw in the window Susan still walking to her bike.  Again that, what if the driver stops at the wrong place or forgets about us, feeling came over us.  After only 10 minutes the van stops in front of a gas stationnand the driver points to us to get out.  As soon as we got out a gentleman approached and asked if we were Tim and Gerri.  He was the owner of the home-stay and will walk us back there...AWESOME!

We walked back to our home-stay, was given our room, and was told that lunch would be served in 1 hour.  We had some time to relax, so we found the hammocks and relax we did: 

View from the hammock

View from the hammock

One hour late we were told lunch was ready, so we joined Susan and our home-stay host for an incredible meal consisting of fish baked in banana leaf, grilled okra, green beans with shrimp, duck and taro stew.

Quite the feast!

Host cutting the fish.

After lunch we relaxed for a couple of hours waiting for the temperature to cool before heading out for a bicycle tour of the area.  Around 3:00 PM we left the home-stay, rode a couple of minutes, and then caught a ferry across the river:

Once on the other side Susan showed us different fields and orchards:

Pomelo

Peppers

Harvesting green oranges...tasted just like oranges.

Helping plant green onion

We then stopped at a schoolhouse where some of the kids were outside for PE class.  The kids loved us being there:

Next stop was a temple built in the shadow of the Can Tho Bridge.  During construction of the bridge in 2007, the bridge collapsed killing around 60 people and injuring 140.  This temple was built to commemorate those killed:

Statue of Buddha with Can Tho Bridge in background

Temple with Can Tho Bridge in background

Speaking of the bridge...the Can Tho Bridge was open on 24 April 2010 and is currently the longest main span cable-stayed bridge in Southeast Asia at 1.7 miles long.

Hanging with Susan under the bridge

Next we rode our bicycles to a Khmer village.  We came across these children playing in the field as their parents harvested the rice:

We then visited a beautiful Khmer temple that was just repainted gold and had very brightly colored murals inside telling the story of Buddha's life:

Last stop for the day is the market where we bought ingredients for tonight's dinner:

Tim buying sweet potatoes

Shopping complete

Susan picking out fresh produce.

Pumpkin blossoms

We returned to the home-stay and helped prepare the food while the local kids were being kids:

Tim helping prepare the pumpkin blossoms.

Frying up the spring rolls.

Spring rolls complete and ready to fry

Thanks for the help kids!

And then on to the feast of sweet potato fries, vegetarian spring rolls, pumpkin blossoms with squid, morning glory with garlic, and sweet and sour soup with catfish, okra, and taro root.  By the way...we were so full from lunch that we didn't eat dinner till almost 9:00 PM.

After being sufficiently stuffed we called it a night since we had to be up and out of the house by 7:00 AM.

The next morning, before leaving I took these pictures of the home-stay:

Main building

Our room.. There are 5 guest rooms on the premises.

Host family seeing us off.

We walked to the river and there was a boat waiting for us.  This boat was all ours...just for Tim, Susan, and I:

Here are some views from the ride:

We then transferred to a smaller boat:

The first stop on the smaller boat is a floating market.  This market is predominantly a wholesale market for restaurants and shopkeepers with the minimum purchase being 20 pounds of produce.  The way you know what each boat is selling is to see what is hanging on the pole sticking up from the boat:

Pumpkin boat

Cabbage boat

Tomato boat

Watermelon boat

It was finally time for breakfast, but we didn't have to leave the river:

Here are a couple of videos showing the craziness of the floating market:

By the way...this isn't us, but it is what we look like if someone took a picture of us:

After the floating market we went up down river to see rice noodles being made:

Gerri laying out the rice noodle to dry

TIm feeding the large noodle in to get cut into noodles.

We then went to an orchard that pretty much grew every fruit that you can possible grow in the Mekong Delta:

Pinapple

Mangos or Papayas?

Lotus

Dragonfruit trees

Jackfruit tree

Papayas or Mangos?

Monkey Bridge

After walking around the orchard we sat down and had a sampler platter of the fruit grown there.  Everything tasted so fresh and juicy...the fresh tropical fruit is definitely one of the things we will miss about Southeast Asia!

After the snack we went back to the boat and headed back to Can Tho.  What an amazing couple of days we had with Susan.

We arrived back to Can Tho around noon, said goodbye to Susan and checked into our hotel.  Our plan is to spend the night here in Can Tho and then try to catch a boat south to Ca Mau to put us even deeper into the Mekong and see what life is really like. From Ca Mau we will take a boat the following day to Rach Gia where we will be catching a ferry to the island of Phu Quoc for a 4 night stay.

We figured we better go to the pier and try to get information for tomorrow's trip.  We get to the pier and of course no one speaks English so I show them the tour book and point to Ca Mau where we want to go tomorrow.  He nodded and pointed at the board that said there was a boat leaving at 1:30 PM going to Sông Dốc.  I said no Sông Dốc...Ca Mau, and he just nodded.  Through pointing and nodding we understood that the boat going to Sông Dốc will stop at Ca Mau.  Great!

Now time for lunch and beer:

Sharing a beer with Uncle Ho

View from rooftop bar

Beer on the rooftop bar

View from rooftop bar

After lunch we walked back towards our hotel and saw a lot of children flying kites.  We also noticed that the market was selling kites, so we thought, why not.  For less than $4 USD we purchased a kite and string and a local kid was all too happy to help us set it up and fly it with us:

All was going great and then Tim decided to take over:

And then...

Well...that was fun!  We told the kids that if they could get it down it was theirs, but there was no way.

After the crash, we went back to the hotel to relax a bit.  In case we missed our kite all we had to do was look out the window of our hotel room.  That bright orange kite sure stands out!

I got online to research what we should do tonight and found a place called Tiny's Corner.  From the description I thought it was a bar where local people go to practice English with tourists.  I thought this sounded interesting, so we went out to find the place.  It took us a really long time to find and when we finally did we were the only ones there, so we sat down with our beers and thought, oh well...the beer is cold.  Then slowly the young people started coming.  Each one was excited that there were English speaking people here so they crowded around us.  Finally the place was packed.  A woman took over saying that the discussion today was on woman since it was International Woman's Day this week  She had people stand up and tell what women they looked up to.  Would you believe that multiple guys said, beside their mother, that Hilary Clinton was a woman they looked up to?!?

Anyway, I was invited to get up and talk about the role of women in the US.  They were very surprised that I spent 20 years int he military and that I was an officer and a leader...in Vietnam women are not allowed to join the military.  I pretty much gave the "If you want something bad enough and you are willing to work hard enough,  you will be able to achieve it" speech.  We wound up spending over 2 hours there and really enjoyed the experience:

Picture from Tiny's Corner Facebook page.

After Tiny's we called it a night and went back to the hotel.  Tomorrow our adventure really starts when we head out into the Mekong Delta unguided.