The Mighty Mekong

Ten dollars in the developed world might get you a stick of gum - if you're lucky.  But ten dollars in Vietnam?  That can buy you a tour of the Mekong Delta.

And that's exactly how I decided to spend ten bucks this past weekend.

I booked my tour at Sinh Cafe, one of the three billion tour companies on my street, and woke up the next morning to catch my bus at 8:30AM.  The bus ride to the Mekong Delta (more specifically, My Tho and Ben Tre) was quite interesting: I saw cattle in the middle of the road, rice paddies, coconut huts, and of course, propaganda.  Our hilarious tour guide, Duc, smoked no fewer than 20 cigarettes on the two hour ride to the river.  Just to give you a picture of how much this guy smoked, he lit one up while he was filling our bus with gas at a gas station.  

We landed at the Mekong Delta (My Tho) shortly before 11:00AM, and took a tour boat that showed us the sights along the Mekong River, including a floating fish market, and a floating village.  (Side note: I was later told that the fishermen who live on the Mekong make a very good living: most own mansions in the more rural parts of Vietnam.)

After having shown us those sights, Duc led us onto Con Phung Island, where we took rowboats down an alligator infested estuary.  The rowboat tour was phenomenal: the tropical flora was so thick that you could barely see three feet into the jungle.

From Con Phung Island, we took our rowboats to Tortoise Island.  On Tortoise Island, we were fed a traditional Vietnamese villager meal (rice and pork).  This village on Tortoise Island made everything out of coconuts, or parts of coconut trees... and when I say everything, I mean everything.  Literally, their houses (huts), hammocks, cooking utensils, tools and clothing were made from coconuts or parts of the coconut tree.  

From the "Coconut Village," we took a boat to a honeybee village.  You could smell the village's honey from across the river - which was a good thing, because the Mekong itself smells terrible.  One of the locals offered me a taste from one of the honeycombs - you can see that picture here.

From the honeybee village, we rode donkey-carts to some remote village that was rejoicing from having caught a Boa Constrictor that was responsible for the deaths of a few villagers.  And while the villagers were living a primitive lifestyle (don't forget: they were rejoicing from having caught a boa constrictor), the village had one distinct modern feature: loudspeakers.  While we were there, the loudspeakers started spewing pro-Communist Party propaganda: a reminder of the government's control, even in the heart of the jungle.

From this remote village, we made one last stop at a Coconut Candy making village.  We learned how to make coconut candy - a popular treat in Southeast Asia.  This village also treated us to some snake wine - a drink made from fermented tropical fruits, snake bile and snake venom.  They also put a dead cobra in the bottle, just for good measure.  

After the Coconut candy village, we journeyed out of the jungle and back home.  This trip was exactly what I needed: a break from city life and an adventure into the jungle.  And it was without a doubt, the best ten dollars I've ever spent.  

(These events occurred the weekend of June 21st.)