Mekong River Delta

Last day in Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam! For that reason, we decided to do one of the possible Ho Chi Minh city tourist trips which is to visit the Mekong River Delta. The other option is to visit the Cu Chi tunnels which served as the headquarters for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. Personally, I would have rather visited the tunnels, but the delta was quite interesting as well! This trip we had to book over the internet as it is a bit more complicated. For this reason, we also ended up having a tour guide in our team who gave us a lot of information about Vietnam.

When we arrived at the delta, we first sat a local restaurant where a Vietnamese band was playing traditional Vietnamese songs. The instruments they were using were very odd-looking. There was even one instrument (dan bau) which only had one string! The way to play the instrument is to constantly “tune” the string and to change its frequency in order to keep tempo. After this, we headed to the “main event” of the trip. We boarded traditional Vietnamese boats (4 people each) and we traveled through the Mekong River delta. The ride was very calming and quiet. There was bamboo everywhere around us and the waters were a bit muddy. Nevertheless, our captain assured us there are no crocodiles in the river and that we would be safe…

Once we reached the end of our ride, we reached this coconut product haven. It was almost like a small coconut factory. They had multiple coconut products as well. From coconut candy (which was totally delicious by the way) to coconut-flavored alcohol and soap. We witnessed the entire process of skinning and cracking a coconut open. The people there assured us that every single part of the coconut was being put into use one way or another. Later, we had a nice lunch on one of the delta islands. We all tried the coconuts and they were some of the best we ever had.

Our stay in Vietnam was almost over. There was one thing left to do. Party! That night we visited the Ho Chi Minh night life street in which we got to experience Vietnamese clubbing. Spoiler alert. It is pretty much exactly the same as clubbing in any Western country. Maybe a bit louder though. In the morning, we would be taking the bus to head to our next destination. Siem Reap, Cambodia!

Mekong River Delta boat trip

%d bloggers like this: