Meandering Up The Mekong
Our first foray into Vietnamese eating....
21.10.2010 - 23.10.2010
View
Flying South
on aspindi's travel map.
After lots of chopping and changing our route we decided the best way to enter Vietnam would be by boat. We wanted to explore the Mekong Delta and our guesthouse offered a range of trips so in the end we booked a two night/three day group tour.
Day one consisted of a four hour boat ride across the border and by early afternoon we rocked up at the shabby looking riverside town of Chau Doc. The tour guide on our boat asked us if we would be willing to talk English to some students and we thought it would be rude not too so after a wander round town (and our first tasty bowl of Pho Ga - chicken noodle soup), a tuk tuk driver picked us up to take us to the night school.
India and I were split into two classrooms and then spent over an hour talking English slightly awkwardly to some young Vietnamese students. I hope they found it useful although I think most of our chat was lost in translation : /
I had a hard time trying to explain the Mercury music prize and at one point I looked into India's class to see her drawing jellyfish on the white board?
Back at the hotel we met some fellow East Londoners and the tuk tuk drivers took us to their favourite bar in town - a huge pool hall/ bar. We all has some beers with the drivers and then they drunkenly got back on their wheels to race us all back home.
Day two of the cruise, we were woken at 6:30am and taken to see some fish and a floating village. We then drove to the riverside city of Can Tho for the night. We wandered the city and looked at very small-sized clothing in the market.
We found an amazing street-cafe and cooked our own dinner on a charcoal barbecue. We ordered fresh prawns in chilli and beef in soya bean both of which were served up with a side of okra. The whole thing cost under five quid! Some very nice Vietnamese businessmen on the table next to us asked us to join them and then started offering us all of their food and pouring us endless shots of vodka - which we felt rude not to accept.
Day three we visited a rice noodle market, local orchard and floating market. We stopped for lunch and although the menu included rat, snake and frog options India went for one of the local favourite dishes - a sweet and sour soup with pineapple. We're not too sure if the ants were supposed to be part of the dish?
Posted by aspindi 04:47 Comments (2)