Tet – The Kinetic Canuck

We have now seen the Mekong River in 3 different countries: Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. We also saw where the Mekong acts as a border between Laos and Thailand. I’ve felt connected to this river since we saw the Irrawaddy Dolphins in Kratie nearly 2 years ago. So when we realized that we could see where the Mekong connects with the South China sea, I knew that it was a ‘must see’ destination for Dave and I.

mekongmap — The Mekong begins in the Himalayan mountains and flows into the South China Sea, off the coast of Vietnam.

About the Delta

The Mekong Delta is considered a “biological treasure trove” due to its fertile soil and an abundance of wildlife. More than 1000 animal species live in this small area. We didn’t see much wild life, unfortunately, but the plant-life in the area is absolutely gorgeous!!

The Mekong Delta is an area of agriculture. Dragon fruit, sugar cane, corn, sweet potato, and coconut are all grown in the Delta, but the area’s main agricultural purpose is for rice. More rice is grown in the Mekong Delta every year than in all of Northern and Central Vietnam combined! That’s saying something, given that the enormous Sapa rice terraces are located in the north of the country!

sapa-rice-terraces — We wanted to visit Sapa while in Vietnam, but we chose to go to Laos instead. The Long Ji Rice terraces in Guiln are similar and we really wanted to see something new. Some day, we both hope to make the trip to see these beauties too though!

Of the 17 million people who live in the Delta area, 80% of them work in rice agriculture, so you can imagine the rice fields we got to see!

Our Trip to the Delta

Michael, like Dave, loves driving motorcycles, so when we were all still in China, we planned a motorcycle trip out to the delta together. There are many places you can go in the Mekong Delta. My Tho is the most popular because it isn’t far from Saigon. It seemed a bit touristy for our taste though, so we opted to drive a bit further and went to Ben Tre instead.

The drive to Ben Tre was dusty and a bit boring, because we’d mistakenly taken the most direct route, which also happens to be the busiest. Our pollution masks came in handy on the ride there!!

A helmet protects your head…one of these fancy masks protects your lungs

We were thrilled to see the gorgeous pool waiting for us at our hotel. We all washed off the dust from our skin and hopped in to cool down.

In Ben Tre

We only had 1 day in Ben Tre, so we spent it doing the most popular thing to do in the Mekong Delta…we rented a boat (and a captain!) and saw some of the beauty the area has to offer!

Although we found plenty of boats, we had a bit of difficulty finding a tour office that was open during Tet! After some riding around, we managed to find one place that jumped at the opportunity to make an easy sale.

We had a grand time driving around looking for a shop though!

While we waited for our captain, we strolled along the river, admiring the boats and the view.

Motorbike tours in Vietnam

I noticed that all of the boats had ‘planks’ going down to them, which bothered me a bit. Dave, of course, didn’t care, but I was worried they’d make clumsy ol’ me walk across a rickety piece of wood to get to the boat!

I was right…I did have to “walk the plank.” It wasn’t too bad, and I didn’t fall, but getting into the boat was only step 1 to us getting on our way down the river. Next, we had to get the boat ‘unstuck’ from the muddy Mekong River bank!!

ichael and Dave trying to rock the boat out of the mud

We were finally rescued by another boat. They pulled us out!

Michael, unimpressed with our ‘stuckedness’

In the back of the picture, you can see the railing. We had to climb over that, and then walk along the boards to the boat. I was convinced I’d fall, but it was a pretty uneventful journey!

The boat trip was definitely longer than we’d wanted (3 hours…), but there were plenty of gorgeous sights to see along the way!

This was a coconut farm, I think.

I wasn’t feeling the best, so Dave ended up getting a bunch of these pictures. These 3 are my favourite though (and I no longer know who took which lol! We’ll call it a combined effort!)

The Way Home

None of us wanted a repeat of the trip TO Ben Tre, so Dave and Michael put their heads together and planned a less direct route home. Their efforts paid off, because WOW did we see some beauty along the way!!!

We also stopped quite a few times on the way back. Sometimes we stopped for ferry rides…

Sometimes it was the lure of hammocks that convinced us to pull over…

But the scenic stops were my favourites. As I mentioned, the Delta is home to Dragon Fruit farms, where we stopped for a few pictures.

This is what a field of them looks like

They are grown on concrete pillars

You can see lights hanging between plants

Coconut is synonymous with the region, and we definitely stopped for some coconut candies along the way back to HCMC.

My favourite stop was definitely for the rice fields. They were golden, green and beautiful and it was so nice to stop somewhere quiet and clean.

This particular field (like many in Vietnam) was also a cemetery of sorts. The Vietnamese often bury their dead family members in very specific places, close to the home and in a certain direction, so not to disturb balance in their afterlives. We saw many of these coffins during our trip.

I’ve gotta say, this would be a nice place to be laid to rest

With such a beautiful backdrop, we couldn’t help but take some pictures of ourselves as well, and I got some beautiful ones of my dear friends, Michael and Miya.

That wraps up our trip down to the Mekong Delta! It was a great experience and I’d recommend for anyone in the area to take the trip! Here’s the route we took both on the way there and the route on the way back (the one that’s slightly to the left is the boring route…the one on the right is MUCH better!)

c1705a804e066020a0e2a429745473285aff499b5cd4518c31pimgpsh_fullsize_distr — Special thanks to my husband for putting together this route for me!!

Up next I’ll be writing about Phu Quoc as well as some posts about Vietnamese and the things you realize being in these parts of the world!!

Cheers!

As the 3rd leg of our adventure comes to an end, I am realizing that I have a lot of catching up to do! I’ve been neglecting both my journal and blog, so I figure it’s best I get started now, while I wait 3 extra hours for my delayed flight to depart (at least they gave us access to the VIP lounge!!).

img_20170201_135143 — An Empty VIP Lounge 🙂

Ho Chi Minh City

Our latest stop has been in Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon. HCMC is the largest city in Vietnam (but not its capital). Its population is around 8.5 million people, and I’m pretty sure every person here owns a motorcycle and driving them 24 hours a day!!! The bike traffic in this city is nuts!!

It’s difficult to get it on camera, but at this intersection there were probably 50 motorcycles and maybe 2 or 3 cars

The roundabout in front of the market (near our hotel) is absolute mayhem

We stayed in District 1, which is the Back Packer’s district. There are lots of overpriced bars and restaurants in the area and there is a much bigger party scene here than either Dave or I had expected! Liz was telling us that there are bars down that street that are open 24 hours a day!

Our hotel was down an alley off of this street

We did enjoy a few beers down this street, but we had a lot more planned than just Saigon Red and Iced Coffees!!

We also had plans for drinking lots of coconut milk…but more on that in my next post!!

Our Holiday

A few months back, when we were planning our holiday in HCMC, we discovered that our friends Liz and Jeff were going to be visiting at the same time as we were. We made sure to be staying in the same area, and then as we were planning it, a couple more friends decided to join in on the fun! It turned out that 6 of us were all in Saigon at the same time! The best part is that Liz actually lived in HCMC for 4 years, and she was super excited to show us around.

Michael and Miya were the first to arrive in the city, so we had beers and dinner with them while we waited for Liz and Jeff’s delayed plane to arrive

mmexport1485520478413 — When we estimated that Liz and Jeff’s plane arrived, we went to a crappy little bar and tried to get online. Liz and I messaged back and forth for a while until we realized that she, Jeff and their friend ‘Risky’ had been sitting at the bar RIGHT across the street from us for an hour already. We could actually SEE Jeff from where we were sitting!!!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to do a lot of the things Liz had wanted to do, because it was Tet (Chinese New Year). Just like in China, everything closes down during the holiday. The few places that DO stay open, charge an extra 20% too, which was unfortunate. We still managed to have a good time though and we did lots of exploring in the city and also in the area.

The whole city was beautiful decorated for the holiday!

Those balloons are all attached to the back of a bike

BBQ dinner with the gang!!

Beer Towers!

Delicious, delicious Vietnamese food!!

The Sights

There are a few cool things to see around HCMC. Dave and I had a day and a half to ourselves before everyone else arrived and we were able to explore the War Reminents museum (I’ll be writing about that in a separate post) and the Flower Street that is set up yearly for Tet.

Gorgeous Displays

The eggs were my favourite thing there. It’s now the year of the chicken so everything was sort of Easter themed haha!

This was Dave’s favourite one. He loves desert plants

There is a huge market near the backpacker street where we were staying called Ben Thahn Market. Dave and I explored on our own a little bit and we ended up back there with Miya and Michael later in the week. Our first visit was short and overwhelming, but the second time around we took some time to explore the place. Bargaining is always part of the experience and I learned a new tip from Miya! If you want them to drop the price a bit more, just tell them they’re beautiful!! It actually worked!!!

It’s literally just one shop after another. There’s hardly any room to move around

Dave and I have a rule that if anyone tries charging us more than 2x what the price should be, we walk away and don’t even give them a chance to earn our money. We always try and stick with people who are being reasonable.

Another stop we made with Michael and Miya was the Notre Dame Cathedral and post office, which are actually right next to one another. Both buildings are beautiful. I can now say I’ve seen Notre Dame cathedral in 2 different cities (I also saw it in Montreal). Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see the one in Paris…though one day I am sure I will!

The cathedral from behind

The inside of the post office

The outside

Saigon is home to several museums, including the War Reminents Museum (with information about the Vietnam War), an art museum and Reunification Palace. We went to the palace yesterday, mostly to escape from the heat. The building was the center of government for many years and it now acts as a museum where you can see original furniture, decor and even an underground bunker from when the palace was still in use.

Although the palace has a tonne of potential for being a great stop for tourists, there are definitely some key issues preventing it from really shining.

For one, there is a real lack of signage in the museum. On the main floor there are some explanations regarding which rooms functioned as what, but in terms of the smaller rooms, it would have been great to have some stories that tied people to the rooms we were looking at. Without that kind of information, we were just looking at dated desks and chairs.

And telephones….so…many…telephones!!

Overall it was pretty cool. The bunker was interesting enough and I found the kitchen pretty neat to see.

Now THAT’s a mixer!!

The bedroom was also interesting. They had a really cool old hair dryer and for some reason, there were 2 toilets in the adjoining bathroom.

Overall it was a fine way to spend an hour, but I think the War Remnents museum was a lot more educational and it definitely left a bigger impact on me.

Our ‘pompous’ faces in front of the ‘pompous room’

We also had a chance to find a Geo Cache while in Saigon. Miya was pretty excited because it was her first chance at this game. I, as always, dragged my heals until we were there, and then got into it. The cache took us to a very pretty fountain where I got some great shots.

I saw Michael trying to take a picture of Miya for her, and I offered to help. It’s nice having a willing model to photograph lol!!!

So that’s what we managed to see in Saigon proper. We also ventured out to Monkey Island, about 2 hours outside of the city. We rented motorbikes for the day and followed Risky and Liz all the way to Lam Vien Can Gio. There, you can see monkeys and salt water water crocodiles.

We had to take a ferry to get there!

Lizzy Bug

Dave and I 🙂

Once more, Tet prevented us from the full experience. We weren’t able to see the crocodiles, and we were given 5 minutes to take some photos of the monkeys before we were shooed of the park so that the guards could go home. To be fair, those guides did stick around and they even called the monkeys over for us, even though it was their holiday. That was pretty awesome of them!

Of course, as is often the case, we made a feline friend along the way….

When we left, he was sitting at the reception desk

He didn’t seem keen on our departure lol!!

The best part of this trip was the small detour we made on the way back. We stopped by the ocean to see where the Mekong mixes in. The water isn’t exactly clear, but it was a gorgeous way to see the sun start to set.

That’s about it for Ho Chi Minh City! Next, I’ll be writing about our trip to the Mekong Delta, which is one of the most lush and beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life!!

Tag: Tet

Moseying Through the Mekong

The Sights of Saigon