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Mekong Delta Tour
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We took a 2-day trip to the Mekong Delta. It was nice, but nothing spectacular. I won't go into great detail. I'm a little exhausted from the War Remnants Museum blog, and I'm sure anyone who read it all the way through is too. So, I've posted some photos to peruse. There was lots of water involved. We visited a coconut candy making factory, which we reached on a small boat paddled by a cool Vietnamese lady. Lindsey played with a snake briefly. It looked like a Burmese Python. My roommates and I had one of those in college. Ours was albino and evil. We used to have parties and people would get drunk and try to play with it. It would bite them. Hard. And then they would fling it against the wall. Then PETA shut us down and we had to eat it. I made that last part up. Maybe I made all of it up. I don't know.
So, where were we? Vietnam? We visited a floating market, which was kind of cool, but not what I expected. I think traditional floating markets are a dying breed. The first one we went to was where vendors buy their goods from larger sellers. So it didn't look as magical as what I expected, but it was still interesting. The sellers tie one of their items to a tall pole so approaching boats will know what they have. As they sell out, items are removed. We watched rice paper being made. Fascinating stuff. I also killed one of the largest roaches I've ever seen and Lindsey cheered for me like I had won some sort of jousting tournament. I'm a hero.
We saw a lot of boats harvesting mud from the bottom of the Mekong. Apparently they are running out of dirt in Saigon, so it brings in good money. We also saw people doing it by hand on a smaller scale. It makes good fertilizer. I drank snake wine. It's made from, you guessed it, snake venom. It seems like you're getting drunk, but really you're just being poisoned and your brain stops functioning correctly. It's like sniffing paint, but with out the delicious Magic Marker smell. The interesting part of the experience was that the man who offered it to me had hairs growing out of his neck that were 10 inches long and white. We've all seen moles that have hair growing out of them (if you haven't, you're missing out). This is the same sort of thing but unabated. We had seen it all over Vietnam and finally asked our guide about it. The reason they leave the hairs in is because it's considered a good omen. So people with the long hairs are actually revered.
And most of the boats have eyes painted on the front of them. I forget why. Something about monsters. Enjoy the photos. More thumbnails ...
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