Saigon and the Mekong Delta

Good Morning Vietnam!

Peanut seller in Market outside our hotel in Can Tho

We had a 6 day stretch in the Mekong area of Vietnam including 2 nights in Saigon where we capped it off with a 6:30 am live start (Monday Morning) watching the Super Bowl at an Aussie Sports Bar a half block from our hotel.  Most of us don't want to talk about the Super Bowl ~ so I will instead share with you our time preceding that sad affair.

When we left Kep, Cambodia we took a mini van through the border crossing at Ha Tien, Vietnam and transferred to a rickety #2 bus to Can Tho which is a city of more than a million people in the heart of the Mekong with the largest floating market and pretty nice riverside parks, etc.  We stayed at a beautiful hotel "West Hotel" and if you ever find yourself in Can Tho ~ Go there!!

                                           View of the Mekong from our Hotel Room

                                         enjoying an afternoon coffee along the Mekong

We got in late and we were pretty beat from our #2 bus ride - so we did a quick tour of our neighborhood and visited the night market where we found a good banh mi sandwich and pork skewers for dinner.  We went to bed early as we lined up a boat trip to the floating market - about 6 km. down the Mekong at 6:30 am as it starts as early as 4 am.  Our guide was Miss Rose and the boats woman "Hy" and off we went.

 

    Miss Rose & Hy                             You can tell what a boat is selling by what's up the mast

                                                                       boat traffic

                                                                          watermelons

                                                   our morning coffee

                                                        Cabbage and Water Melons

Part of our tour was to go by a local noodle "factory" which is a fascinating process of cooking a rice flour~tapioca slurry and using the spent rice hulls as fuel - cooking the slurry in thin sheets and drying for many hours in the sun and then cutting and packaging the noodles.  Very efficient and they use everything in the process.

Cooking the slurry on a large round griddle ~ notice the rice hulls on left

 

Miss Rose helping out ~ removing rice sheet with bamboo bat

 

 

                                                    rice sheets drying on bamboo racks



                                                     Cutting rice sheets into noodles

Our street is a big market street ~ and being on the Mekong, seafood reigns supreme.
the street was packed with 100s of small merchants selling all sorts of seafood and everything under the sun (a 90 degree sun at that!

                                                                      Octopus, etc.

                                              Live fish, dried fish, fileted fish, eels, etc.

                                                     Cured meats and dried shrimp                                                         

                                                                 The Butcher Shop....

                                                          Beautiful Produce too!

We also spent a couple of nights in Ben Tre which is 3 hours north of Can Tho ~ also a Mekong River town ~ but much sleepier and off of the tourist track (only saw 2 other foreign couples while there.  Very authentic and our hotel had bikes for us to ride so we road around town and along the Mekong boulevard.  Very nice!  Cho Ben Tre (Central Market) is very nice as well:

                                                                  Vietnamese Broom Merchant

                                                                         Crabs

                                                 Mmmmmmm  ...     Eels & Shellfish                             

                                                           Beautiful Dragon Fruit and Produce

 

     So from Ben Tre we headed to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)  for  2 nights.  We did quite a bit of walking and visited the Art Museum, the Central market, War Remnants museum, the Notre Dame Cathedral, and just explored the city along the river and back streets.  It is a very busy city with more motor bikes and scooters than you can imagine.  Crossing the street as a ped. is a real experience. 

                                               Posters line the streets in Saigon and other cities

As my family and many of you know ~  when Saigon fell in 1975 my parents sponsored a wonderful Vietnamese family who have remained good friends of ours.  The 2 sons are Tuan and Tu ~ so I couldn't resist a picture of this restaurant in Saigon.  Unfortunately it was closed on Sunday when we went to eat there.

                                  War remnants at the War Remnants Museum ~ though it had a
                                     good deal more of the early history of Vietnam as well.

                          It is not unusual to see overloaded bikes and motos in Vietnam
                                      - though this may be a bit of an exaggeration.

                                              Canal going into the Mighty Mekong

                                 Carol with a friend at the Saigon Art Museum

 

            Thanks for coming along...... We are NW of Saigon in Dalat and slowly working our way north ~ and if you look at a map of Vietnam you will see that is a long trek!  Hope you are all well and will keep you posted!
Don and Carol