Week 5- Vietnam (HCMC) Day 1

We rose at 6:30am this morning to go on a day tour to the Mekong Delta despite being on a night bus the night before, tired was a bit of a understatement. The guide collected us from the hotel and took us to the bus station, the Mekong Delta was a 2 hour bus ride from Saigon. Once we got there we got on a boat to take us to some of the different Islands that are along the river (Unicorn Island, Dragon island, Phoenix Island and Turtle Island). The first stop was Unicorn Island, we visited a bee farm that makes pure natural honey and different honey products. We tried honey tea, honey coated peanuts, honey coated ginger and honey coated dried banana. They showed us a cream that was made from honey that can be used for various different things and healing. At the Bee Farm they also had a massive snake and we all got to hold him if we wanted. We both had pictures with him, which was very brave for char, she still can't believe she held it. Then it started to creep into her armpit which freaked her out, I took a hilarious picture at that moment! We then got a small rowing boat through the canals back to the main boat that took us Ben Tre Province which is the 'biggest hometown of coconuts' here we watched the locals make coconut candy. First of all they break the shell off with a spear that is fixed into the ground, it was a little bit scary to watch! They then crack the coconut open to get the milk, they then mix the milk with sugar cane juice and malt and boil it down until it becomes very thick. They then out it in a board with indentations in and flatten it out and then once it's cooled they cut it into pieces and package it in rice paper and the wrapper so it doesn't melt again. We tried peanut coconut candy whilst it was still warm it was so yummy we both bought 2 packets of it! After that we got back on the boat to go and have lunch at a restaurant along the river. For dessert we headed to another Island where we had 5 different types of fruit (dragon fruit, papaya, pineapple, banana and a fruit that looked like a hairless kiwi before it was peeled it was orange in colour and had a similar texture to mango) it's safe to say we still aren't keen on papaya after trying it several times. We also tried some Vietnamese tea here and listened to local traditional Vietnamese music and singing. Then it was time to get back on the boat and head back to HCMC. By the time we got back it was almost dinner time so we headed straight out to dinner, char was sick of rice and noodles at this point so she ordered fajitas and I tried pork cooked in a clay pot and some spring rolls, was very tasty!