My Tho Hotels
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The Mighty Mekong
Entry 22 of 34 | show all | print this entry |
It's actually 1:30am on 12/9 presently but I don't want to miss having an entry for this date. Today, ooohhh today! Today was a new day! Today, yesterday's tomorrow, brought many a splendid thing. For instance, I am currently constipated. no loose stool. not obstipated. I AM SO EXCITED! (seriously, NOW I undersatnd what my colon CA patients feel like....) Never have I been this happy/relieved to be constipated. Means that I was recently dehydrated and not currently having loose stools. Just as long as this doesn't become some deadly ileus, I should be ok. Enough of this shit.
Since I just found this out, and it's actually the last thing that happened in my day, let's tell today's tale in reverse, shall we? We just got home from midnight snack with some aunts at Great Aunt's home. They had saved spring rolls and some other UFO (unidentified food object) for me from dinner. Mom and I had had dinner with some cousins on Dad's side of the family (Cousin Thu). Aunt/Uncle Thi/Kiem from the US were visiting their daughter Cousing Thu to help her prepare for her imminent emigration to the States so it was a perfect time to have dinner with their family. Grandpa/Grandma had dinner with Great Aunt, per usual, and they wanted to save some spring rolls for me because they heard I preferred the rice paper wrap they used here in VN as opposed to the Chinese egg roll wrap in the States. That's why I found myself eating that at midnight.
It was as late as it was because we had begun packing things for our trip home. 3 check-in boxes (70#'s each) and 1 suitcase of stuff all packed up. 2 boxes and 2 suitcases mostly filled but unable to be sealed until Sunday/Monday. I used my heart carabiner clipped to my belt (thank you Tina) to hold the tape like a tape dispenser, but then we ran out of tape! And we needed some pronto. (Tape really does make the world go round). I removed some previously used tape from one of the boxes and wound it back onto the empty roll. We were in business again, haha. We put Gpa/Gma to bed and walked over to Great Aunt's house for our midnight rendezvous. I walked hahead to let the ladies yap in priate. Cousin Linh, an impressionable, slightly awkward, but quickly coming into her own, young lady of 15, caught up with me and said she was sad I was leaving. I was touched, and realizing this could be a delicate situation, I said that it was a actually a good to be excited that we all had this opportunity to meet and we'll all see each other again. Shje didn't change her disheartened expression. She muttered shyly: "Do you have a picture?" I shook my head no but offered to try and print her one before I left. She took a deep breath just to barely whisper "I don't want you to forget me." Anyway, she ran on ahead and I didn't get to say anything.
I definitely wasn't saying anything as I chowed down earlier that night at Cousin Thu's. Wow, I was hounding down dinner--rice paper wraps filled with vegetables and nem (grilled pork) prepared using a secret HIGHly protected family recipe that is coveted by locals. They sell out their daily supply in ONE HOUR each afternoon. It is succulent and superbly flavored meat. Dipping sauce was equally special. And I had had a return of my normal appetite all day too. At lunch, I had Hu Tieu My Tho, from My Tho. This region, amongst other things, it known for its extraordinary broth in this rice noodle dish).
We were in My Tho, the city on the Mekong River Delta closest in proximity to Saigon (HCMC). My Tho serves an inland port city on the Tien River, one of the end waterways of the Mekong River. The Delta alone outputs enough rice to feed the country with a significant surplus, and it is the main reason why Vietnam is now the world's 2nd largest exporter of rice. We left HCMC at 6am to get there by 8-830. And what an experience it was. We stopped at a rest area/restaurant at the entrance to town and saw a small tributary of this humongous river running behind the establishment. The land had gorgeous flowers blooming everywhere and lush foliage trimmed into the shapes of exotic creatures. And it wasn't even the major blooming season.
After some pictures, we went into town to book a tour. For just over $34USD, we booked a private 3-hour tour for 8. We left on a charter ghe (small boat) to cross over the Tien River to Unicorn Island, one of FOUR islands in the middle of this tributary, once upon a time a haven for handicapped and those rejected by society. Now 3000 people call it home. The river was a murky brown from all the silt being washed down from upstream. This river adds as much as 80meters of riverfront each year! We shopped around on the island as we enjoyed snake wine (rice wine in which snake has been soaked for several years), honey tea made with honey from bee farms on the island and a honey milk that is made there as well. Chopsticks, figurines, etc. made from coconut trees abound, since "water coconut trees" (Dua nuoc) grew everywhere and kept the island from eroding. We ate dried coconuts, ginger, and lotus seeds while watching locals make rugs the old-fashioned way.
We walked deeper into the island to see more beautiful foliage and tropical flowers, resting at a stop where a gentleman chopped open water coconuts for us to eat. We were also served a different type of tea while we enjoyed bananas, papaya, grapefruit, and some other fruit. Three instrumentalists sat down across from us and provided accompaniment for 4 classical opera vocalists. All around us were trees filled with grapefruit, lime, lychee, and coconuts. When we had our fill, we continued hiking through the island and saw locals crossing over the famed bridges that consist of small 4-5" diameter tree trunks tied to one another across the water. At any given point across the bridge, it had no more than 2 trunks side by side! Our group then split into 2 groups to be taken down a winding waterway in long narrow canoes. Two women sat at either end, using oars to propel the vessel forward. We went through cloudy brown water surrounded by a densely green jungle of water coconut trees. We were at low tide, so the surrounding land was very muddy where high tide had just been. The Mekong River is so large, it has 2 complete tide cycles each day. I soaked in the scenery and even rowed for a bit before we arrived back at our ghe.
Back out in the river, we saw the My Tho-Ben Tre ferry go by. Out next stop was Phoenix Island, where the Coconut Monk once resided. Here he meditated all day, eating only coconuts while campaigning for a peaceful reunification of Vietnam. He founded a new religion that was a blend of Buddhism and Christianity. This highly intelligent Chemical Engineer who studied in France left many architectural treasures behind on this island. He built a large horizontal 3-dimensional map of Vietnam with Hanoi and Saigon, the beacons of Vietnam, represented by the bases of two large pillars that extended high above to support part of his temple. Nine dragon-wrapped columns formed the points of a giant compass, with the 9th and middle dragon being the lone male in the group. This would come into play in his religion. A 3.5m (11.5ft) porcelain structure shaped like the traditional Vietnamese incense burner was built from many smaller porcelain bowls that were broken and cut into small squares that displayed ornate artwork from the bowl.
We boarded our ghe to cross the river to Ben Tre, where we would get on a smaller motored boat to go upstream inland to watch as natives produce coconut candy. The extraordinary speed of production done by hand by these people was stunning. The candy is made by collecting coconut milk and processing it in a large vat that is kept stirring constantly. When all of the ingredients are added and the mixture is the right consistency, the as-yet soft and warm candy is poured onto metal tables to cool quickly. Then it is poured over molds to be flattened and shaped. A woman cuts the long lengths of candy down to the right dimensions with a large knife and pushes them over to the wrappers who wrap and sort them into boxes. Eating the candy while it was still soft and warm was a wonderful experience.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman carrying a large snake wrapped around her. I approached her to ask to take a picture with the snake. She silently put the snake around me and tended to her nearby sales table. I later learned that she was a deaf-mute, which explained why she did not seem to respond when I called her to take the snake back. Mom was extremely slow in taking the picture, but she did take one. At that point, I was beginning to get a little uncomfortable with the snake around me, so I handed it to another excited visitor.
We then left Ben Tre to head back to My Tho to have lunch. On the way back, we each had fresh coconuts (the tour guide chopped them while we were riding on the ghe)! She chopped off the top of the coconut to allow us to sip the milk through straws. When we were finished, she chopped through the coconut so that we could eat the flesh of the coconut. She also demonstrated how to chop off a sliver of the outside shell to use as a spoon. Great idea.
I noticed that my skin had a nice pink glow from all the sun exposure, as we rode back to Saigon. Along the way, we saw the road that leads to a well-known snake farm that is a tourist favorite. And we stopped to see a super exclusive gated community on the outskirts of Saigon (HCMC) where security guards are on watch 24/7. Homes feature all modern amenities and average $500,000- $1,000,000 USD.
This was a day to remember, what with all the beautiful flowers, the wonderful food, the gorgeous scenery, and delicious experiences.
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