...no you can't go back to Saigon, it's nobody's business but the Vietnamese."
Hopefully everyone gets the "They Might Be Giants" song reference.
Anyway, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh at about 9pm, met our new guide, Rose, and headed to the hotel. We stayed at the Majestic Hotel and it was...majestic. It was established in 1925 and is located across the street from the Saigon River (interestingly enough, it's not the Ho Chi Minh River). The hotel is French Colonial and had a lot of character.
The next morning we had a 9:30 start. We met Rose in the lobby and she had two conical rice paper hats for us. She also had a beautiful bracelet made out of brown stone for Nicole. We hopped in the car and started out on our drive to the Mekong River. After driving for an hour Rose informed us that it took about 2 1/2 hours to get there - we were missing Nam (our Hanoi guide) already.
The Mekong is the richest agricultural area in Vietnam (interesting fact: due to all the silt run-off the Mekong Delta increases by 75 acres a year). The river is also known as Cuu Long ("Nine Dragons") which we think has something to do with how the
dragons make their way to the sea (there are a lot of dragon references in Asian culture). The Mekong starts in the Tibetan Plateau, splits into the upper and lower river at some point, runs through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (not necessarily in that order - still brushing up on our Asian geography). The delta is referred to as Vietnam's "rice bowl" because farmers produce coconuts, sugar cane, a variety of fruit, fresh seafood and - you got it - loads of rice.
On our way to the Mekong we stopped at a Caodai Temple at Ben Luc (located along a stretch of highway eerily similar to US Route 1 - the Jersey City section). The Cao Dai is a recent religion (established in 1926)
which is a combination of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and European humanist elements. We can't begin to explain everything about Caodaism in this post but if you have time and nothing else to do you should look it up. It was all very interesting and a bit kooky at the same time.
We arrived at the Mekong Marina Club (ha, you haven't been following if you think there was a marina club). Anyway, we arrived at the river and boarded our vessel. All of the river boats look alike and seem to be outfitted with a lawn mower engine attached to a long pole. The boats all have two large eyes painted on the front - the better to see fish with.
Along the ride we saw people who live and work on the river (envision a floating market). Many families sell fruit, vegetables or other goods directly from their boats. We saw lots of men and women fishing before making a quick stop at a large tourist trap.
But we did see how rice paper, puffed rice and a variety of confections are made. We bought
some lotus tea, which apparently is good for combating insomnia. We also purchased some coconut milk taffy which reminded us a lot like salt water taffy. We also 
picked up some candied ginger which is good for digestion (Chris wished he had some 48 hours earlier). They also have rice wine that they bottle with snakes, scorpions and other things that make the tequila worm look like a gummy bear. The Vietnamese people believe these drinks make you stronger and can maintain youth - more often than not they're intended for men's virility.
The puffed rice process was something you'd see on 'Unwrapped'.
Basically, the rice is put into a large pan (and we mean large) with scorching black sand. Nothing is wasted - the fire is fueled by the rice husk (so we also learned that rice has husk). It doesn't take much time for the rice to puff and after it does, it is dumped into a sifter and separated from the sand.
We headed back to our boat and continued to travel down the river to our lunch destination. Our boat captain took out two large coconuts and used her machete to make a handy straw hole. We never had fresh coconut milk before. It has the consistency of water but has a nice sweet flavor - very refreshing even at room temperature. We need to take this opportunity to describe our fearless boat captain. She was as tough as nails. At one point, the boat's propeller got covered with water weeds. We heard a splash, turned around and noticed our captain was gone. A few minutes later, a machete jumps into our boat and our captain hauls herself back in and takes her post back at the helm.
We arrived at lunch and we were treated to a feast. It was so much food so we really didn't put much of a dent in it. We had fried fish that we rolled in rice paper with lettuce and cilantro. Then, there was soup (mind you it's like 95 degrees out), stir fried beef, stir fried pork and a platter of fresh fruit (obviously we had learned nothing from our previous encounter with uncooked Vietnamese vegetables and fruit). After lunch, we found some hammocks and rested until Rose came to get us for our journey back to Ho Chi Minh.
When we got back from our day, we headed down to the hotel pool and took a refreshing dip. We were so sweaty and sun burned from being on the boat (SPF 30 was no match) that it was the best swim ever.
After our dip, we showered and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to a great French restaurant called Camargue. It was a really nice relaxed setting; the restaurant was an old French Villa and it had lots of outdoor seating. It was a very good meal and a nice change of pace.
Unfortunately, we got a not so nice taxi driver on the way home. We had heard a lot about how Westerners are usually overcharged. Well, this cab driver tried to charge us $10 for a $2 cab ride (little did he know that he had two New Yorkers as his fare and we knew how to count). Long story short, he got a tongue lashing from the police officer in front of our hotel and no tip from us.
Hopefully everyone gets the "They Might Be Giants" song reference.
Anyway, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh at about 9pm, met our new guide, Rose, and headed to the hotel. We stayed at the Majestic Hotel and it was...majestic. It was established in 1925 and is located across the street from the Saigon River (interestingly enough, it's not the Ho Chi Minh River). The hotel is French Colonial and had a lot of character.
The next morning we had a 9:30 start. We met Rose in the lobby and she had two conical rice paper hats for us. She also had a beautiful bracelet made out of brown stone for Nicole. We hopped in the car and started out on our drive to the Mekong River. After driving for an hour Rose informed us that it took about 2 1/2 hours to get there - we were missing Nam (our Hanoi guide) already.
The Mekong is the richest agricultural area in Vietnam (interesting fact: due to all the silt run-off the Mekong Delta increases by 75 acres a year). The river is also known as Cuu Long ("Nine Dragons") which we think has something to do with how the
dragons make their way to the sea (there are a lot of dragon references in Asian culture). The Mekong starts in the Tibetan Plateau, splits into the upper and lower river at some point, runs through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (not necessarily in that order - still brushing up on our Asian geography). The delta is referred to as Vietnam's "rice bowl" because farmers produce coconuts, sugar cane, a variety of fruit, fresh seafood and - you got it - loads of rice.On our way to the Mekong we stopped at a Caodai Temple at Ben Luc (located along a stretch of highway eerily similar to US Route 1 - the Jersey City section). The Cao Dai is a recent religion (established in 1926)
which is a combination of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and European humanist elements. We can't begin to explain everything about Caodaism in this post but if you have time and nothing else to do you should look it up. It was all very interesting and a bit kooky at the same time.We arrived at the Mekong Marina Club (ha, you haven't been following if you think there was a marina club). Anyway, we arrived at the river and boarded our vessel. All of the river boats look alike and seem to be outfitted with a lawn mower engine attached to a long pole. The boats all have two large eyes painted on the front - the better to see fish with.
Along the ride we saw people who live and work on the river (envision a floating market). Many families sell fruit, vegetables or other goods directly from their boats. We saw lots of men and women fishing before making a quick stop at a large tourist trap.
But we did see how rice paper, puffed rice and a variety of confections are made. We bought
some lotus tea, which apparently is good for combating insomnia. We also purchased some coconut milk taffy which reminded us a lot like salt water taffy. We also 
picked up some candied ginger which is good for digestion (Chris wished he had some 48 hours earlier). They also have rice wine that they bottle with snakes, scorpions and other things that make the tequila worm look like a gummy bear. The Vietnamese people believe these drinks make you stronger and can maintain youth - more often than not they're intended for men's virility.The puffed rice process was something you'd see on 'Unwrapped'.
Basically, the rice is put into a large pan (and we mean large) with scorching black sand. Nothing is wasted - the fire is fueled by the rice husk (so we also learned that rice has husk). It doesn't take much time for the rice to puff and after it does, it is dumped into a sifter and separated from the sand.We headed back to our boat and continued to travel down the river to our lunch destination. Our boat captain took out two large coconuts and used her machete to make a handy straw hole. We never had fresh coconut milk before. It has the consistency of water but has a nice sweet flavor - very refreshing even at room temperature. We need to take this opportunity to describe our fearless boat captain. She was as tough as nails. At one point, the boat's propeller got covered with water weeds. We heard a splash, turned around and noticed our captain was gone. A few minutes later, a machete jumps into our boat and our captain hauls herself back in and takes her post back at the helm.
We arrived at lunch and we were treated to a feast. It was so much food so we really didn't put much of a dent in it. We had fried fish that we rolled in rice paper with lettuce and cilantro. Then, there was soup (mind you it's like 95 degrees out), stir fried beef, stir fried pork and a platter of fresh fruit (obviously we had learned nothing from our previous encounter with uncooked Vietnamese vegetables and fruit). After lunch, we found some hammocks and rested until Rose came to get us for our journey back to Ho Chi Minh.
When we got back from our day, we headed down to the hotel pool and took a refreshing dip. We were so sweaty and sun burned from being on the boat (SPF 30 was no match) that it was the best swim ever.
After our dip, we showered and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to a great French restaurant called Camargue. It was a really nice relaxed setting; the restaurant was an old French Villa and it had lots of outdoor seating. It was a very good meal and a nice change of pace.
Unfortunately, we got a not so nice taxi driver on the way home. We had heard a lot about how Westerners are usually overcharged. Well, this cab driver tried to charge us $10 for a $2 cab ride (little did he know that he had two New Yorkers as his fare and we knew how to count). Long story short, he got a tongue lashing from the police officer in front of our hotel and no tip from us.
