After our drive through the countryside of Vietnam, we arrived to the location of our first boat trip in the delta. Small shops, cork and coconut trees, and small tin houses lined the way as we traversed down the river. Our first stop was at an old fashioned brick making factory.
After we learned to make bricks and created our new company ISH-Bricks (a play on our place of employment ISHCMC), we headed to the coconut factory where I tried to shuck one open with a large knife sticking out of the ground. Apparently a strong man can shuck 1,500 coconuts per day. By our estimates, at the rate I went, I would only be able to shuck 180. There, I also tried banana rye and got creeped out by the large jar of snakes. Our tour guide called them Vietnam’s Viagra. We’ll leave it there.
The boat continued through the delta for a while before dropping us off to see how banana leaf camping mats are made. We enjoyed a variety of fresh fruit and tea as we waited for our next ride. A motorbike pulled up with a cart with just enough room for six people to squeeze into. The next twenty minutes were spent ducking and avoiding tree branches as we sped through the countryside on our way to lunch.
After our fresh fish and relaxing rest in a hammock, we took a much smaller boat powered by our friendly Vietnamese rower. In the background of the picture below, you can see him yawning as he brought us down the Mekong in our banana leaf hats. He dropped us off at other boat and bid us farewell.
We finished our Mekong adventure and made it back to the van for our long drive to Can Tho.
After a night out in the city, we boarded the boat to the floating markets. These vendors mostly sell produce. We were boarded by a coconut salesman and we boarded a pineapple boat where they cut them into lollipops. As we were standing on the roof of the boat, a large group of Vietnamese were drinking and singing karaoke on their boat. We started dancing along, which led to them throwing us beers between the boats and handing us a microphone. This all happened before 9:00 in the morning. Our last stop before the trip home was at a noodle factory before heading on the long trip back to Saigon.