February 1, Sunday – Ho Chi Minh City – Mekong Delta discovery

Destination: Ho Chi Minh City – Accommodations: Huong Sen Hotel Saigon

After breakfast we boarded our bus for another Learning and Discovery day and on the way, James told us a little bit about life in Vietnam.

Key agricultural exports are rice and coffee and actually, Vietnam is very famous for its coffee. Fruit is beginning to become a major export as well.

Vietnam is a religiously diverse country where the majority of the population practices a blend of folk religions, ancestral worship, and Confucianism/Taoism. Vietnam is often labeled as having “no religion” in surveys, despite active practice of Buddhism. Buddhism is the largest organized group followed by Catholicism.

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is an authoritarian state ruled by a single party, the Communist Party of Vietnam and James said you are either a communist or you’re not. The President of Vietnam has no power. The Communist Party of Vietnam has absolute power. The General Secretary directs national policy and the Prime Minister heads the executive government and economic management. The President just acts as the head of state.

It is compulsory for children at attend school from K through 12th grade and it is free. After they graduate, if they go to college, they have to pay the tuition themselves.

The average pay in Saigon is about $447 a month and he said you can easily feed a family for about $20 a week. There are tall apartment buildings all over Saigon because there isn’t much land to build out so they build up. A home in the wealthy section of town would cost about 2 million for a small house. However, you don’t own the house. In Vietnam, land is collectively owned, so homeowners are technically purchasing “land use rights” and that would be for 99 years.

We finally arrived at our first destination. We stopped at a coffee shop to savor the taste of freshly brewed Vietnamese coffee. We each had our own mini French press of Robusta coffee and we could either drink the coffee black or add condensed milk, which I did. I poured my coffee over ice and it was delicious! Allan drank his black and strong and loved it! Then we all got into hammocks to enjoy our coffee. It was relaxing and so much fun. Vietnam is the second-largest coffee producer in the world after Brazil and the most popular way to consume the bold, local brew is iced with sweetened condensed milk. I agree!

We then went into My Tho, the gateway to the Mekong, where we boarded a motorized wooden rice barge. We saw life on the Mekong River – fishing vessels, barges, san pans, and houses on stilts.

After a leisurely cruise, we boarded a sam pan and cruised through Vam Xep, a natural canal through a canopy of mangroves.

We stopped to visit a farmer who grows pomelo fruit and gac fruit. Pomelo is a large citrus fruit that is native to Southeast Asia. He gave us a taste of the fruit which is similar to a grapefruit, but much milder and less acidic. We dipped it in chili salt. So delicious!! He also grows gac fruit which is inedible but is used instead for food coloring. Since his fruit is organic, he uses garlic, chili, and alcohol mixed together to spray his fruit to prevent bugs. We also tried rice paper with sesame seeds and coconut milk. It’s a snack the kids enjoy…and we loved it so much, we all bought some to snack on later.

We bid goodbye to the farmer and stopped for lunch. At first I was not thrilled when I saw a whole fish on the table, but a lady came over and filleted the fish and wrapped it in rice paper with vegetables to make spring rolls. They were delicious, but poor Allan did get a bone. (Yuck!). Then prawns came to the table and the lady prepared those for us followed by a type of pancake that was filled with vegetables and shrimp. We also had a rice cracker filled with shrimp and veggies. The lunch was very different from what we’ve had before and really a treat. Then we went to where they make coconut candy. We sampled candy all over the store and watched as the people wrapped the candy in paper to sell. A man split open a coconut for us and we enjoyed tasting it.

We boarded our ship for the return cruise to get back to our bus to return to the hotel. It was a busy day and a day filled with new discoveries. So much fun!!

We went on a quick orientation walk when we returned to the hotel, had dinner with friends at a Vietnamese restaurant, and then enjoyed drinks with friends at the roof top bar.

What a fabulous day!!! Tomorrow should be interesting as Vietnam is getting ready to celebrate Tet… the lunar new year. There might be red flowers strewn in the river!