May 27 Mekong Delta (Katie)


On Friday we journeyed about two hours southwest to the Mekong Delta. This area is the primary distributor of rice for the country (producing 80% of Vietnam's rice) and fish (supplying 2/3 of Vietnam's seafood), and a significant supplier of a myriad of other products such as fruits, candies made from local coconuts, and snake wine.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/VietnamMekongDeltamap.png
Mekong Delta Region at the Southern Tip of Vietnam
















We observed locals making regional candies, feasted on the local cuisine, biked through a little village (dodging most of the low-hanging bananas), enjoyed some regional folk music, boated through the floating market, and rode a sampan along the muddy water. We also sampled their snake wine... alcohol which has been marinated with herbs and the venom from a cobra that is coiled inside.

























The floating market is a very unique thing to observe. Each boat has a tall pole attached to the front, on the top of which they display what they are selling so that customers can see from afar what they have (a boat selling squid potatoes, for example, will have a some squid potatoes hanging from their pole). Morning is the best time to experience it, as the boats are loaded to the brim with a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables, fish, sand, building materials, live animals, and so on with some boats loaded so full that they are just a couple inches from sinking. The vibrant colors and activity are captivating, as I recall from my visit here with my dad seven years ago. This time, however, we visited later in the day and although still well worth seeing, the area wasn't quite as active and colorful so I don't have photos that really capture the magic of the floating markets. I will still attach a couple of our pictures to give you an idea.
























I'm going to cheat a little and share some pictures from the internet to show what you would see if you visited the floating market earlier in the day...
 
 

  

It's Sunday morning now and we are in Da Nang. As I believe my dad said in an earlier post, today's primary objective is getting everything in order to visit to Lady The, Thua, and Duong on the morrow. Stay tuned!

Comments

  1. GmanMay 30, 2018 at 6:05 PM

    I never had the pleasure to experience the far southern part of Vietnam. In today's world it has to look better than it did when Neil and I was there.
    Neil, who's the gentleman between you and Katie?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Neil HannanJune 1, 2018 at 9:44 PM

      Yes, my unit was I Corp and I was never south of that until the first return trip in 2010. The guy drinking the cobra snake wine is a fellow from Montreal.

      Delete

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