Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We met the new tour guide last night, his name is V, i cant pronounce his full name so that will have to do...He supports Man Utd. He took us for dinner at the night market in the Ho Chi Minh city and I thought I would be adventurous and get something called "wild boar with little water" , I'm not sure what the little water was all about but the meal wasn't the best. I didn't eat much of it as it must have been 95% gristle, the sauce or "little water"'was nice though. Another poor nights sleep, I keep waking from really odd dreams, I think it is the antimalarials. Today we were going to the Mekong delta to do another homestay, I'm looking forward to it as it'll be interesting to see how it compares to the Cambodian homestay. We drove for about 2 hours where we caught a boat that took us around a couple of islands. We first stopped at an island where we got to try some tropical fruits such as jack fruit, dragon fruit, mango and pineapple. Tried pineapple with chilli salt and normal salt both of which are a new taste sensation. The second island we visited they we were well into their coconuts and they use everything from the coconut. They were making coconuts sweets, the recipe was lots of sugar, butter and coconut of course. I bought some in the shop to make up for tea that i didn't eat last night.
After visiting the coconut place they put us into threes and we got into smaller boats very similar to the kayak. We had a guy row us up a tributary of the Mekong river, lined with banana and coconut trees, where we were going to have our lunch. It was very picturesque although I was a bit anxious as I had all my valuables with me on the boat and i was worried that it may capsize. Lunch was good, we had fish, spring rolls and banana plant, all deep fried.
After lunch we travelled to the homestay to meet the family and drop the bags before going on a bike ride. The house was alot better than the one in Cambodia, we had single beds for a start of and a fan in each area and each mattress had its own mozzie net. I sat on the bed expecting it to be comfy but it was rock hard, so no improvement on that front, I think I may have to drink excessively tonight to get some sleep.
The bike ride was good, we cycled through 2 villages and both were similar, except the first village had a narrower path to cycle on. The bike itself was an improvement to the bike we had in Cambodia, it looked newer and the breaks worked too. Both villages we cycled through it looked like they had blocked off pieces of the Mekong to create themselves a little pond where they could keep fish, I thought it was quite a good idea. They were also living off the land which I always find fascinating. I found the people at both villages very friendly, they kept running out of their houses to greet us. At one of the villages they were filming some kind of advert/film so they had all the film crew there, we all cycled through it as they filming so they'll prob have to repeat that section of the film.
For dinner we helped make spring rolls out of rice paper, they tasted really nice, in fact the whole meal was nice. We had spring rolls with rice and pork, they gave us a shot of rice wine (moonshine) too which tastes more like meths than wine...I nearly threw up at the table. Another poor nights sleep too, the bed was far too hard, to be honest i should have slept in the hammock outside as that would have been a vast improvement. It must have been bad as I've never been in pain getting out of bed before, I felt crippled. Typically we had the usual wildlife in the village keeping us awake and the roosters started again before 4am, then just before 6am a car with a loud speaker drove around the village announcing that he was selling dumplings, great.
We left the homestay and drove for 3 hours to see the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels were used by the Vietnamese as a place where they could hide away from the Americans during the war, also they were able to ambush the Americans by popping up and taking a few out before disappearing underground. We also saw some of the booby traps, they had a guy set them up and trigger them to show them in use and they were pretty horrific, you wouldn't want to go that way that's for sure. They also had a tunnel that you could go down to see what it was like be a Vietnamese living in a tunnel. I went down the tunnel and got quite far but with being so tall it started to get a bit precarious so I got out one of the exits. They also had a shooting range where you could fire an AK47 machine gun, it seemed a lot more organised than the event I went to in Cambodia as if they had a system going. That is one of the big differences I've noticed in Vietnam (so far) compared to Cambodia is they seem to be more organised and have systems, in Cambodia they has systems but they were there to be broken if you had the money to break it...which didn't take alot.
Catching my first sleeper train tonight to the beach resort of Nah Trang, if it is anything like the sleeper trains in Thailand then I should be ok. We've been told that we have been upgraded to comfort class, but not to take it for granted as this is only train journey out of the 3 where we will be living the life. The other train journeys we need to fight for a hard or soft sleeper,if the hard is anything like last night in the homestay then it's going to be tough. Oh I'm so looking forward to going comfort class, hopefully the beds will be comfy and will have a mattress thicker than a baby nappy change mat.
- comments
Ralph Methanol Great stuff Steve. One thing about the rice wine. If it'sthe same stuff as I use in chinese cooking, the bottle I buy says " not for drinking" on the label. Probably just cause it's extremely high alcohol content. If you survive I'll try some of mine one night, thanks mate.
stevennokes Prob is the same stuff, they'll give you anything and tell you it's ok