Mekong Delta!

We woke up excited for our trip to the Mekong Delta today! After breakfast we were greeted by Long and a massive 12 seater passenger van. He said they didn’t have any smaller cars available so that would be it! We started the hour and a half drive to My Tho and actually spent a lot of the ride talking. It was very interesting to talk about Long’s views on the war and of Americans in general. It’s great because at this point we have a great relationship and can be very honest. We were commenting that we think Americans often come off arrogant, because, as a whole, we are (yes, we included ourselves in this) and he agreed, until he started giving tours. He said spending more time with tourists has helped him see that not everyone is like the “typical” American.

Our talk about the war was interesting as well. Long’s father is from North Vietnam (was in the army after the war) so his viewpoint comes from that of a northern Vietnamese. But he basically said he thought while the US said it wanted to help southern Vietnam, he believes it was very political. It still amazes me that they have no hard feelings towards Americans.

Another interesting thing we learned on the ride was how people are buried in the rice patties so the land will stay in the family. Mom commented how maybe she would be buried in the back yard so we’d never sell the house..we shall see about that!

We arrived and met up with a friend of Long’s (who is a local and gives tours). Long said he knows the information to give tours but really thinks it better to have a local. We took a beautiful, QUIET boat ride and it was so nice to be on the water and feel the breeze and not hear the sound of busses. We went to a coconut area, where they build a million things out of coconut, it was great! They can use every part of the coconut for something different and they use coconuts (and the tree) to build houses which is cool. We had some honey tea, which was just A LOT of honey and tea, but it was yummy.

We then took a local taxi (horse and carriage) which was exciting, although we felt bad for the poor horse that was obviously not use to Western woman. We had Long tell the horse (in Vietnamese) we were sorry for being so much bigger. It was funny because as we were experience the “old” life, the horse driver’s cell phone rang. So we had a bit of old and new. Our taxi dropped us off at a place where we had fresh fruit and listened to traditional music. The fruit was delicious, MUCH better than in the US!

We were then brought to a rowing boat, where a man rowed us down the river. We got to wear the hats Vietnamese women wear. Long’s family was saying we were so beautiful because our skin was so fair. Women are often covered up because they strive to have fair skin. Anyway our boat brought us to a place where they make coconut candy and Long fell in love with the coconut candy maker. We had to practically drag him away from her!

After watching how coconut candy is made (it’s like taffy) we went to lunch. It was interesting because they had it set up for just me and Mom, but we asked that Long and our guide (Duyen) join us! They did but said they were going to give us our privacy. I guess if you didn’t know your guide well it could have been awkward, but we consider them friends! I guess the waiter was asking Long where we were from and how he knew us and he said we were his friends. We had a MASSIVE lunch; they just kept bringing us MORE food. We felt awful because there was no way we could have eaten it all (even if it was American food). I made Long be honest with me and he did say they are upset (maybe that’s not the right word) when you don’t eat what they have prepared for you (basically when we didn’t eat much at his house). But, it was fun to sit down and talk as both Long and Duyen have a great sense of humor and I felt like I was talking to friends at home.

We then took our final boat road back to the dock where we said goodbye to Duyen (who invited us to her house for dinner, even though she has seen how little we eat). We got back in the car and Long gave us a quick Vietnamese lesson. He was teaching us the word “hoa” (flower) and depending on where you put the accent and say the word it can mean 5 different things (although all the words sounded the same to me)! I think the three of us were asleep within 5 minutes after our lesson.

We said goodbye to Long (until tomorrow) and after a quick rest stop, mom and I headed out to the market (which she hadn’t seen). However, neither of us are really “market” people (we don’t like hot, stinky aggressive vendors) so after a quick tour through we found a “western” ice cream shop and decided to stop in to cool down. We passed a sunglass vendor and I have wanted another pair, so I stopped to see what he had. I found a pair I liked and he got out his calculator (to start the negotiating) but I was shocked when he wrote down 2,200,000 VND which is about $100 dollars. I then realized he had designer sunglasses (I was holding a pair of Gucci) but they obviously aren’t real so I still don’t know why he started so high. Once I realized what I was dealing with I quickly put them back and said I was all set. Normally this would be the start of negotiating, but I really was NOT interested. I felt bad because the rule of thumb is if you’re not interested don’t start looking, but I didn’t know!

We went into the ice cream shop which was a “make your own sundae” and the ice cream was SO cold and yummy, I loved it! We sat down at a table and when I looked up the sunglass man was outside the window! I felt like I was being stalked! Again I felt bad because I really wasn’t interested at all in buying them but he kept standing there waving them at me. I felt trapped in the ice cream shop (worse places to be trapped I guess..) and when I saw him look the other way I told my mom to run and we were off! I did hear him yelling some number as we crossed the street. Oh well!

On our walk back we were fascinated with the traffic. There was a 12 seater passenger van going straight and there were a bunch of motorbikes coming perpendicular (it was an intersection) and NOBODY could move (I am still not sure why the van wasn’t moving). Anyway the whole thing was a mess (more than normal) and people were hitting their horns, etc. Finally we saw a cop in green (dark green, and its night out) with a baton (that barely lit up) trying to direct the traffic, although he did NOT seem to help at all! The big van managed to make it through, although everyone behind him had to wait through that round of their light. We couldn’t leave the scene JUST yet and it’s a good thing we didn’t because the SAME thing happened the next time, although this time it was a taxi van. We started wondering WHAT on earth the man in green was going to do to help this situation and THEN we saw he had backup! Not only was this traffic director in TAN but he had a HELMET! He came ready for battle! His baton still could have used some help, but I think his helmet showed he wasn’t messing around. Now not only was he faced with the traffic jam, he also had two kids trying to cross the street. I will admit, I was nervous for this guy, until I saw HE brought a friend, another tan man with a helmet! Now I KNEW everything was going to be ok! The tan men definitely took over to show the green guy how it was done and before we knew it traffic was flowing and the kids were on the other side of the street! AMAZING!

We then decided to go to Pizza Hut..I know, I know, but my mom will take full responsibility for this one in saying that it really was her idea as she wanted to know what to expect for dinner. They also have great wifi (the hotel’s is so spotty) so we were off to dinner at Pizza Hut! We both wanted cheese pizza (easy right?) but it seems like all they have is a cheese lover’s pizza (two kinds of cheese) but we just wanted regular cheese. This was much easier said than done because she didn’t seem to understand. Finally we had to explain to her we wanted the cheese lovers but with one tomato and one cheese. We ended up with cheese pizza so I guess it worked! She was so cute because she was running around all night trying so hard to make everyone happy! Although they kept running out of everything, so we kept hearing her say, “I’m so sorry, we are out of ____”. We figured they wouldn’t run out of cheese since they had extra cheese from both our pizzas!

We were tired when we came back and after well needed showers we crawled into bed!

Hugs and kisses from the Mekong Delta!