Day 165 – My Tho Town and Mekong Delta

We left the hotel at 8:30 a.m. and had an hour and a half bus ride to the Mekong Delta and the town of My Tho.  We arrived at the harbor and had a boat rented for our group.  They driver of this boat was older than the one on yesterday’s adventure and also, the boat was in better shape.

 

Boat along the Mekong River.

The palms along the river.

We went across the river to a farm where they make coconut candy and showed us the process of how they make it.  They also grow a lot of other fruits there and mix the flavors with the coconut candy.  I wasn’t that impressed with the samples they gave us, so we didn’t buy any.  We also had to wind our way through the shops of stuff for sale before we could get on the horse carts and ride to the other side of the piece of land that sticks out in the delta.  The horse that was pulling the cart I was in was a little lame in one foot and very skinny.  I wondered if the driver knew or even cared.  We had about six carts to take our entire group there. 

 

Rose apples on the tree.

Making the coconut candy.

Wrapping the candy.  It was a family business, they said.

The "horse" cart ride.

Not sure what this fruit is.

While we were there, we had a fruit tasting session with five different fruits.  Two of them were totally new to us.  They had us start with the least sweet fruit; something called “rose apple.”  It had the texture of an apple, but not as much flavor as a good apple, but it did remind you of an apple.  The next fruit was the dragon fruit and we have had that before.  It almost doesn’t have a flavor.  The third fruit was watermelon and the fourth was pineapple.  The last fruit to try was called, Jack Fruit, and was the sweetest of all of them.  It was almost too sweet and it was also hard to bite off because it was very fibrous.  You would think you would like a fruit that was that sweet, but not for what you have to go through to eat it.  They also fed us kumquat and honey tea, which was very good!  Then they did a little show of some local music, which was nice, passed the basket for a donation, and then we could go.

 

These are the five fruits that they gave us to taste.  The lower left corner is rose apple; moving to the right, dragon fruit; move up on the right, jack fruit.  You should know what watermelon and pineapple look like cause that's what the other two are.

Jack fruit.  Was sweet but weird.

Our entertainment.

We were put in sampan boats, four of us to a boat and they rowed us down the river.  We were told not to put our hands in the water because there were crocodiles that lived in the area.  We didn’t see any, but I don’t think I would have been tempted to put my hands in that water anyway!  David had bought a silk shirt at one of the booths and when we got out of the sampan, he forgot to get it out.  It was pretty sad, but I’m glad we didn’t pay more than the $19 we did.

 

Sampan boats that we rode on.

The sampan ride, complete with hat!

The sampan let us out at the spot where we got back on our motorized boat and he took us back across the river to the dock we started on.  We got back on the bus and drove about a half hour to a restaurant that is meant for tourists (trap in other words), but the food was good and interesting!

 

Lotus flower.

These are called dinosaur eggs.  When they bake, the puff up like this.  The waitress came along and started cutting it in half with a scissor.  Then she rolled it up and cut it into pieces.  It really didn't have much flavor, but it was really sticky!  Worse than marshmallows!

The part of the meal was brought to us just like this.  Then the waitress took a piece of rice paper, tore off some fish and wrapped it into the rice paper with some vegetables.  The fish was really pretty good by itself.

This lotus flower was so pretty.  

A lotus flower with the seed pods.

More beautiful flowers.

We had an hour back on the bus to get to our hotel, but first, we had to stop at a wholesale market in the Chinatown area of Ho Chi Minh City.  We quickly walked through the very crowded area.  I was wondering all the time why we were going through this place…

Back at the hotel, we got the information about a place to get a power cord for the computer and took a taxi ride to the store.  It would have been about $200 to replace the cord and we would have paid it, but the wall plug part can only be used here in Vietnam.  That would not work in China or the US, so we decided to just skip it and be careful on how much we used the computer. 

We were outside the store and trying to decide if we wanted to walk back to the hotel or get another cab.  We were trying to orient ourselves as to where we were and where to go, when a cab stopped and another man ran up to us and wanted to help us find our way.  We decided to take the cab and get back quicker than to wander the convoluted streets of this city. 

We then had to decide where to go for dinner, so we walked down the street from the hotel and found a restaurant named, “Jaspas.”  The menu looked good, so we got a pizza and a smoothie and a milkshake.  Then back to the hotel and be our old boring selves…