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Flying into Saigon I was just sooooo impressed - I literally saw a neverending ocean of lights whichever direction I looked. Within the city I could spot several larger streets with large light up billboards - reminded me of flying into Vegas, just this here was much larger...
Immigration was done in a second, although the lady did not say a word, nor did she smile only once... My luggage only made it as one of the last pieces out of the aircraft - I was happy to see it undamaged, since I already started to worry it could have gotten lost. Ok, well, all I needed to do now was exchanging some money and find my taxi. The poor guy seemed to have waited for quite a while already... he sat among other cab drivers on a bench, holding up a sign with my name. I felt super happy to have a save ride to my hostel in this already pitch black city (Sundown is already between 6 and 7 pm... Sunrise around 6 am). The drive took about 30 minutes and cost me 14 USD - I later learned I could have had this a lot cheaper. But hey, my backpack was carried right into the hostel for me, first thing they did, was preparing a nice cold lemonade and shortly after I stood in the cleanest 6-bed-dorm you could imagine. Before going up, I asked the lady for Mekong Delta Trips... I do have one more hour to decide, she said. Well, since I´m really good at those kind of things the tour was booked in no time. Start: 7.30 am the next day. Awesome. Being tired from the travel and the heat I fell asleep that first night very quickly.
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Breakfast was a huuuuuuge white wheat bun, an egg and tea, which was nicely prepared for me. Not sure whether that bun will last me very long, but that´s another thing. The guide was awfully on time - I have to admitt, I did not quite expect that in this country. The bus took us about 2 hrs out of Saigon. The group consisted of mainly Asian people, probably Chinese. Only 3 English and 2 other Germans.
In My Tho we changed onto little wooden boats and cruised through the Mekong! They all had a really loud and dirty engine though... The Mekong river was more of a brownish color, which was due to the rainy season. The monsun brings in so much water and dirt and the ground gets stirred around. Ok, that´s what the guide told us. But lets´s face it: people do throw their stuff into the river, don´t they? Maybe just the banana and coconut parings - I did not see any plastics or other things. In one presumably unwatched moment I smelled the water though - just to be sure - and really, it did not smell dirty or rotten. It was really just the soil in there. The Mekong river was huge. Like a lake it lay in front of us and one could not really determine which way it was floating. Everywhere were larger and smaller boats and a few banana leaves. 80 million people are living in Vietnam - thereoff 18 million in the Mekong delta. The river crosses 5 other countries (China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar) before entering Vietnam. It is about 4.300 km in length and is (or was) home to about 1.200 different kinds of fish. Mekong catfish is probably the best-known one. One can imagine, that the former huge fish populations are well overfished these days. The very same fate is shared by the crocodiles which used to live in the river. Nowadays they can be seen on crocodile farms only. What still persists though is the fact, that the Mekong delta is the rice basket of Vietnam. Only Thailand is exporting even more. But that is a close tie every year. (One wonders: what about China? Google says: China is the largest rice producer - however they must need most of it for their own population. In 2013 India was in fact the largest rice exporter, followed by Vietnam and Thailand.)
Around My Tho and Ben Tre are a ton of little islands, which we were exploring now. On Unicorn-Island we visited a honey bee farm, made a very short walking tour and got shipped around through tiny canals in the woods. Each boat carried 4 of us, plus the two people who did the rowing - one in the front, one in the back. They were in this crouch position the whole time. How can someone do that all day? This part of the tour seemed to be a really touristy thing, and so we put on the straw hats, as was expected from us.
On the next island we visited a coconut-sweets-manufactury. Everything was handmade and seemed to take for ever. Then it was time for lunch - springrolls, rice and vegetables, served with a fresh coconut. Great! Next station was one of the fruit plantations, where we had a fruit tasting, complemented by a local music group. The most noteworthy thing there was the waterbasin which was set up in a tree.
Sooner or later we returned to our bus and drove further into the delta, via Vinh Long to Can Tho. The Mekong does have 9 major arms in his delta and on our way we crossed several of those. All of them equally large and brownish. The organized hotel in Can Tho wasn´t all that, but it was just for a night and I luckily brought my inlet sleeping bag. So nothing to worry, but about dinner! We found an awesome little place called "Mekong", which served good and inexpensive food. Although it seemed to be a bit cooler here so close to the water, we were sweating pretty bad due to all the spices.
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I shared a room with Nina from London. We did not have airconditioning in our room and so the night was pretty hot. But very short... 7.20 we were supposed to gather to go to see the floating markets of Cai Rang. Once again we were on one of those little cute boats, that had eyes painted in the front - to scare away the monsters and crocodiles ;-) As we came closer to the market we could already see the trading ships and they could see us coming. It was a guy with a tiny motorboat who came towards us and approached us from the side where I was sitting. When we signaled him, that noone of us wanted to buy something he turned the boat around in a way that created a huge splash - which I got right in the middle of... and was soaking wet. Oh well it was hot anyway.
Although there were quite a few boats on the market, it seemed a little small to me. My first impression was confirmed by the Australian guy who was in the group. He had been here 10 years ago and painted a very colorful picture of the market: Back than they could not even drive through the market in their small boat, because it was so crowded. One ship used to be right next to the other, so you could walk from one "shop" to the next, and fruits were just thrown from one person to another till they got to the buying ship. Well... this is kind of how I had imagined it... But it seems the country has changed and the market is more or less only still there for the tourists... or maybe it was so empty because today was a holiday... Or we should have been here earlier than 8 am!? Who knows... It was still very nice and one boy amazed me... He was on the boat with his mom and a very very charming little guy who knew about the effect he had on other people - so he managed to sell coffee to almost all of us and several fruits as well.
After an hour on the market we drove further down the river (or was it up!?) to visit a rice noodle factory. The factory was tiny and it was pretty hard to believe, that all the rice noodles are made like this - but educational anyway... They cook water, something like maniok and rice until it is a thick mush. Then the put it on hot oven plates - but very thing, kinda like we do crepes and then let it harden and dry in the sun. The round table-set look-a-likes are then cut into noodles on a machine. Seemed pretty simple, but it must take forever...
And we went back to the boat. On the way I must have lost my sunglasses... I could not figure out, when I had it the last time for sure - they might have fallen into the water, when I got back on the boat... so for a few minutes I was pretty sad - I´ve had them forever, they even have a scratch on the right glass - but they remind me of the trip to Florida with my best friend and they had been in so many places already ... But hey we now approached a rice factory and I had to listen again...
Reentering the boat I all the sudden saw them... laying in the seat in front of mine... Oh how happy I was!
After a late spicy spring-rolls and Pho lunch we already had to get back to the bus and head back to Saigon. Once again throuhg the paddy rice fields - which had such a mellow green color... Most families only own 1 - 1.5 ha - which is not a lot and most times not enough to feed a family. The fields became smaller and smaller as every father divided the space equally among his kids. Some fields were already harvested and all the sudden we were covered in smoke, because they burn the stubbles... Again I did not sleep at all on the way back, because I obviously had to watch out of the window the whole time... And when we were going over one of those huge and endless bridges, there was just one question coming to my mind: Do they have Container Ships here? The big ones? - Well I had made friends with a Vietnamese girl, so I tried to explain to her what I meant. As she did not understand I did a drawing... Well that only did the job to a certain degree... finally the guide passed by and understood the question but could not answer it. He had not seen any... While there was a little confusion around, it occured to me, that most of those people probably had not left their country before - at least the girl next to me was on her first trip right now and had never been to Saigon before... - so, none of them might acutally know what I was really talking about, when I asked for container ships.... I had just been wondering, since the Mekong is certainly deep enough for shipping, I had not seen a single large ship those days... A short Google search later at the hostel did not bring any significant results, but the Mekong apparently still has some large waterfalls further up in Cambodia... and since there are not really any big cities on the river, there probably is not a lot of stuff they could be shipping here in such large amounts...
***
Back in Saigon I went to have dinner with Kate (Blackpool/UK) and Nina and Will (both London) who had also been on the Mekong Tour and then I had the first goodbyes to give... They all left that evening to either go back or to go further north ... But hey, tomorrow is another day and Anna + Co will arrive.
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