Berry's SEAJ trip Day 4: Mekong tour – pt 2 of 3 (6/9/15)

Slept well as being away from HCMC there is very little honking or motorbike noise throughout the night. After breakfast, we got on a motorboat to go up the river to meet up the rest of the tour to explore the floating market which is a bunch of boats selling fruits and other goods (coffee anyone?). Kinda cool as the big boats with all the goods have small boats that load up, come to your boat, hook on to stay with you and then carry out the transaction before unhooking and going about their business.

The homestay had a hair washing chair so Berry got his hair done. 

Berry made more friends with the young pups on the premise.

Got on the boat at the homestay and went into town to meet up with the group. This was that river behind our homestay from last night's pictures.

Height and width measurements (presumably in meters) with a rice farmer strolling across the bridge. 

We joined the group and then explored the floating market. Each of the boats has their own commerce.

The big boats have smaller boats that approach boats with buyers and they hook on so the people can make their transaction then release and go to the next one.

The large barges go on for days. Was cool seeing the density of those ships; was a like a town on the water.

Another vendor. This one selling fresh produce. Big boat workers behind him hard at work.

After the market, we toured a rice noodle factory, which was cool to see how they are made. They make a thin pancake of rice mixture and then sun dry it, once dry they pass it through a cutting machine which probably was the predecessor of the paper shredder we use now a days and they grab the noodles and package it right there.

After the market, we learned how rice noodles were made. This was a large flat stove where they would spread the liquid really thin (just like a crepe) and let it cook. In the foreground you see a bag of rice hulls and other non essential parts of the rice plant that is used to make the fire to cook the rice paper. Again using all the parts of the plant in the process.  

When the paper is done cooking, they use this medieval torture device to roll the rice paper up on it to remove it from the fire.

Rice paper sticks to the roller and then you move it over to the drying racks.

Once on the drying rack, you undo the roller to lay the rice paper flat.

Then put the dryer sheet in the sun on elevated platforms for the sun to completely dry out the rice paper.

Once the rice paper is dry, they bring it over to the cutter where you slide the paper disc into it and out comes evenly sized noodles. The guy sitting on the ground grabs all the noodles and puts them into the bag for sale. 

This is how we cut the rice noodles.

Berry was helping stoke the fire waiting his turn to turn some rice paper.

Berry checking out the rice plant, seeing where the rice paper came from.

The rice farm had a couple animals as pets. This looked like a mongoose of sorts. Pretty lil guy. 

They also had guinea pigs which apparently love rice plant leaves. 

After that we go to a fruit garden where some people paid a couple bucks to rent a bike to go see a monkey bridge (single piece of wood you walk across). I chilled at the garden and watched them grill some frogs and snakes for people to eat.

Our next stop was a place to grab a bite, rent a bike to explore if you want, or just walk around the grounds for this restaurant. Berry wanted to explore the grounds and we found this walking bridge (I believe they call it a monkey bridge)

Nearby waterway with some lilies and pretty flowers floating around.

Berry was checking out this fruit we found in a tree nearby. It was prickly and sharp. Clearly trying to protect its delicious innards. 

Just a couple local delicacies - snake, frog, whatever else can be found nearby. 

We then go back into town and have a little bit of down time as we wait for our buses (Me and one other person were spending another night out while everyone else was going back to Saigon).

After that, we go back to hotel to grab lunch on our own time before those of us on the 3 day tour go deeper into the delta. We drive close to the Cambodian border (town of Chau Doc) and the rice patties go on and on, as far as the eye can see. Very beautiful as there are the mountains in the distance providing contrast to the flat green pastures. Get to a marsh and get in a boat to explore around it in hopes of seeing some birds (akin to the egret I think). The marsh is pretty and quiet.

We stopped to stretch our legs and this pit stop had a monkey in a cage. Berry wanted to say hey, but the monkey was TERRIFIED of Berry. This will not be the only animal Berry meets on this trip that is terrified of him.

Driving closer to the Cambodian border, becoming more remote with mountains and tons of rice fields.

Another rising mountain in the distance. Countryside is beautiful and serene.

Berry and I go walking down a path at our next stop where we are to explore the marsh.

Berry boating around. This boat was  a quick motorboat to get us to the launch of the marsh.

Got in a new boat and started exploring the marshland with lily pads everywhere.

Calm waters with Berry hanging out on the boat enjoying the silence of nature.

The marsh was filled with birds. This one perched in a tree just hanging out.

Forest of the marshland area. 

We check into the hotel in Chau Doc and I then walk around the city to just explore and to grab some food. Saw some people in the town square playing a hacky-sack kinda game with a shuttlecock type of thing which was cool to watch. Kept walking around until I decided to head back to the room and get some sleep.

Hotel room for the last night of the mekong tour. The room had AC and all the amenities one gets used to in the west. 

Berry's SEAJ trip Day 3: Mekong delta tour – pt 1 of 3 (6/8/15)

Booked this tour through the hostel as well. They use TNK travel which is cheap (9$ for cu chi trip and 59 for the 3 day trip of Mekong) but they def take you to places where food is inflated (4-5$ instead of 1-2 on the street) and have these options that seem like they would be included but you have to pay more for (for instance, I paid extra for the home stay the first night, because of that, if I wanted to join the tour for the fishers market early in the morning, I had to pay an extra 5$ to get a scooter to get me to the place where it was (people who paid less for a hotel  stay were right next door and therefore didn't have to pay extra)).

Berry taking a rest in a hammock at the rest stop. He didnt want to share, selfish bear!

Coconut water from a coconut? Berry wants to try it all!

Boat houses. Technically floating houses but since they are floating I guess that makes them boats.

First stop was a place where we had honey tea and some fruits and listened to  some locals sing and play music (our guide played guitar) – this whole thing was them trying to sell batches of their honey, and their cds which is annoying to be pedaled crap but whatever. After this, we take a little rowboat down a narrow, palm-lined river to our next stop, a coconut candy factory that also makes soap and other coconut products. They also had rice wine, where they call anything with alcohol wine apparently cause this wine tasted like spirits not like sake which is rice wine that is actual wine tasting. After that, we took a motorboat to a Buddhist temple with giant statues.

Bee keeper demonstration on how they get their honey for the honey tea and other honey products (it was like Bubba in the honey business)

Berry made a friend while we drank some tea. 

Berry's friend wanted a close up so I took it. These bees were just hanging around. No one got stung that I remember.

We had some of the locals and bee keepers play some songs and our tour guide even got in there and sang along. 

After drinking some tea, we get into the paddle boats and cruise along through the canals.

Peaceful cruise to our next stop. Can see the next boat way up there.

Its a ghost ship!

Our next stop was a coconut everything factory which specialized in coconut candy but made all sorts of stuff with coconut (again with the Bubba assortment). A cool thing was they used the coconut shells to fuel the fire to melt their taffy and cook their coconut for their business. Smart!

Our tour guide was showing us how they shred the coconut. The medieval nature of some of their machines is pretty awesome - no frills, just pure work horse. 

Hydraulic press which squeezed the water out of the coconut to dry it out faster. Each of those pancakes is a bag full of shaved coconut.

Berry is a social bear. Hanging out with his friend at the coconut place. 

Now we get to board a motorboat to go a longer way through the bay.

Cool pagoda we passed on our trip across the bay. 

Beautiful. I kept being amazed at the mix of new and old throughout the region.

Berry found another Buddhist temple on the other side of the bay. These grounds had tons of plants/trees everywhere, many with flowers of all colors and a few huge statues. 

Fountain out front of the main temple in the complex.

Berry was jealous that Buddha got to sleep. We got to explore the grounds for a bit of time as we waiting for our shuttle bus to come get us.

Berry is taking in the sight of the awesome, giant, Buddha statue.

View from in the complex looking at one of the main gates (not the one you walk through) with a giant statue in equally giant lotus flower. 

Berry likes how he can see both his statues from this view.

Berry posing on the front side of the gate from before. Once again, the ornamentation is ridiculous. 

Close up of one side. Dragon fighting a tiger? 

Rice fields on the way to our first night's stay. There are plenty of these fields as the Mekong delta region is one of the top rice producing regions in the world.

That night we stayed in Can Tho where I chose the home-stay which had some of the nicer rooms I would stay in on the whole trip. The family was great as it was 3 generations living together with many animals and lots of space. They were clearly doing well for themselves with this home-stay business as their property had rooms all over it. The dinner was great and we got to learn to roll spring rolls and then drop them in the frier and cook them.

Berry chose the homestay as opposed to the hotel. It was more or less a hotel just outside the city as they  had multiple rooms. Not at all what I was expecting based on previous homestays.

View from my back porch.

Sun setting beyond the trees. View from my back porch again. 

They had a ton of puppies running around. This one was showing off his blue steel.

We learned how to make spring rolls. They were tasty. They used chopsticks to turn the rolls and take them out and what not. Chopsticks are equivalent to a multi tool from what I am learning.

Rice Wine (to them wine = vodka hahah). Again they use the chop stick to puncture the bag and leave the chopstick in there as a cork then slowly remove the chopstick to allow the liquid to flow down it into your glass then stop it back up. Berry was trying to get some of the wine.

The host pouring the bag of rice "wine" like a boss!

We all hung out after dinner with more rice “wine” and at one point there were 4 languages (German, Spanish, Vietnamese and Czech) being spoken at the table and I just sat there in awe as its so cool that you can be in a place and at one table there can be such diversity in people/languages. This was when I realized that the shower set up with the shower, sink, toilet in one room without walls was a common thing in Asia; The shower is just a shower head hooked up to a spigot in the same room as the other water devices.

My room. That bathroom was strange to me. The toilette, sink and shower were not separated by a tub or anything. The shower was the shower head on the wall that you just spray yourself down in that room. Dont bring anything in that room that cant get wet in other words :).

Flower in the back yard. Found them beautiful.