The beauty of blogging is this: when you don't have the words to express something you can use images and when you don't have the images to express something you can use words. However, when you have neither the words nor the images, you get this blog post that you're reading. I presume this is not the last time this will happen on our trip. Some moments just can't be capture nor explained. Today was filled with those moments.
We left Lewis and our hotel at Elegant in this morning at 8:15 and were placed in the hands of our tour guide, Mr. Thangh (pronounced Tong). It was bittersweet. Sad to say farewell to the place we had called home in Saigon for the past four nights and mostly, sad to say farewell to a new friend. We drove three hours outside of Ho Chi Minh City to Mekong where we took a tour of the Mekong Delta. We left Vietnam's concrete jungle and entered the actual jungle (or, at least it felt like the jungle). A dense assortment of trees and palms hovered above of us in a broad spectrum of greenish hues.
The first stop on our tour was to a honey farm where we sipped Royal Jelly (the food consumed by only the queen be; basically special honey), which is known to heel a variety of ailments and prevent aging (literally listened off every medical condition and I'm not convinced about the anti aging effects, but it tastes yummy. Then we were served a small plate of various fruits including, papaya, dragon fruit, banana, Jacob's fruit, and pineapple while being serenaded by traditional Vietnamese folk music. The music was... interesting. Luckily that was a moment that could be captured by video (please do your ears a favour and watch my snapchat from today to hear the full extent of the music).
After tea and fruit and honey we walk further into the dense jungle to one of the many canals that stems off the Mekong Delta where we got on to small boats (best I can describe them is a mix between a Native American canoe and a Venice Gondola). Here is where we enter one of those moments that can be described by neither words nor images. This was one of the most incredible nature moments of my life. Little noise but the lapping of the water as the paddle pushed the boat onwards down the canal. Palm branches stemmed high above us making a path for the boat. We were given authentic Vietnamese straw hats to wear while we sat there and revelled in the natural beauty around us.
After what was much to short of a boat ride we stopped at a little place that made coconut taffy and by golly was it tasty.
We then walked to a bigger boat which took us down the Mekong Delta to the restaurant where we ate lunch.
I know I've spoken at length about Vietnamese food and I intend to do no differently today. Included in our tour was a four course meal which is always a question mark in Vietnam because half the time no one tells you what you're being served. However, today left little room for questioning as the moment we sat down an entirely intact (but well cooked) Elephant Ear Fish was placed at the centre of our table. It was quite possibly the most unappetizing thing to look at and right away were convinced we would not be eating it. But, we embraced the experience and indulged and were pleasantly surprised with what we had been given. We were also given an assortment of different rice dishes (I had no idea you could do so many things with rice until I came to Vietnam).
Following lunch we took the larger boat back up the Mekong River where we boarded our bus once again. Our last stop of the day was at a Buddhist temple where, let's just let the photos do the talking there....
Biggest Buddha I've ever seen, that's for sure.
We then drove two more hours to Can Tho and as we drove we watched the sun set over the breathtaking Vietnamese horizon. Oh how I wish the bus would have stopped at every turn so I could ha eat least attempted to capture the beauty of the moment.
We made our way to our hotel and found some dinner and were showered and in bed before 9pm. Tomorrow we're up at 6am to finish our tour of the Mekong before heading back to Ho Chi Minh City.
As always, thanks for following along and prayers for safety and health of always greatly appreciated
-mo
