Once again we had a local guide to help us, Si (pronounced C), and he had a guide in training, called Dayun, helping out. We got on a boat, and whilst we motored towards the first island we would be visiting they gave us a bit of basic info on the area. The Vietnamese name for the river is Cuulong, meaning 9 dragons, as the river has 9 tributaries. It is the 12th longest river in the world (pathetic really given just recently I was on the 2nd longest), and the area is responsible for a large amount of Vietnam's food production thanks to the fertile soil.
There were 4 big islands in the area we were at, named after the 4 divine beasts of Vietnam: dragon, phoenix, unicorn, and turtle. We were visiting the unicorn island first (remember that their unicorn is basically a Foo Dog) for a bit of a walk, some fruit tasting, and some honey tea. We had some sort of local fruit that looked like a potato, tasted like a pear, and had a texture like a watermelon. I did not like this very much. We also had (comparatively) more common dragonfruit, pineapple, papaya, and baby banana which were all fairly nice.
Next up, at a different place, was the honey tea, which was like a potion, involving various quantities of some sort of base tea, honey, pollen, and royal jelly. It was delicious, and as a bonus I got to hold a bee hive. The bees were 'friendly', and wouldn't sting you so it was perfectly safe. I have no idea why they were so chilled out. As we walked the island we got to see the trees of various different fruits, most of which we had eaten earlier.
The boat had driven round the island to pick us up, and we moved on to the next island, dragon island. It also started raining super hard as we were transferring, and I finally had my waterproof on me to use it! On dragon island we were having a tuk tuk ride, lunch, and a row along the river before returning to the bus, and Saigon.
The tuk tuk ride was very good. Whilst the scenery was fairly similar to the mainland, we were in the back with no roof, and there were plenty of low branches to duck (we were wearing helmets in case we failed, as Stephanie did about 50 times. As an added bonus, the ride was super bumpy, making it all very exciting. Lunch was a multi course affair, including local delicacies elephant ear fish, and banana flower fritters. Both of those were very nice, but the remainder of the food was quite bland I thought.
Boating down the river was remarkably similar to when I did it down the Amazon, the same bankless waterways surrounded by tropical foliage. The main difference was that I did not have to row this time, since I was at the front. It is probably a shame I couldn't, as Phillipe managed to break the oar! Stephanie was also in a position to row, but given she almost capsized us getting on the boat that probably wasn't a good idea. Good job we had the guy at the back doing most of the work!
We got back to the boat safely, and we're back in Saigon a couple of hours later, after battling our way through rush hour. I had to go and get some passport photos for my Cambodian visa before our introductory meeting for the next tour, which had a different leader, some new people, and some people going home. Dave and Belle were the only ones in our group leaving, a real shame for me since they have been my best friends on the trip, and I've pretty much hung out with them the whole time. We also said goodbye to Ngyuen, since he is a Vietnam guide and doesn't know about Cambodia much.
Our new guide is called Sakmony, or Mony for short. He surprised me as he looks and sounds almost Indian, a lot different to Vietnamese, and not what I had expected from Cambodian people. He seems nice though, and calls us 'Mony family' when he refers to the group. There are 6 more added to the group, an oldish Australian couple, a middle aged Australian guy, 2 Australian girls around my age, and an English girl. As we each had a farewell dinner with our respective Vietnamese groups, I haven't yet had a chance to talk to them much.
On the way to dinner, I happened upon a pharmacy, and decided to buy some ibuprofen and panadol for my sunburn (ibuprofen because it is supposed to help with it's anti inflammatory effects, panadol to help me ignore the itching to sleep). I got a pack of each, and the lady wrote 15 down, I assumed that meant 150,000, which I thought was a little steep, thought not outrageous given that the panadol was the proper brand name stuff, but no, she meant 15,000 (aka just under 50p!). Medicine here is insanely cheap it seems.
I had a set menu meal for my last night in Vietnam, with seafood soup, spring rolls, prawn and papaya salad that you had to shovel into prawn crackers, tofu topped with pork mince, garlic fried morning glory, chicken with cashew nuts, and banana fritters. All of the courses were very nice, and I was ready for exploding afterwards.
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