24th – Island hopping

We were to leave the hotel at 0800 so my alarm was set to 0700, an hour after I ended up waking up. So the day started well.

A quick breakfast later we left the hotel and drove for a couple of hours to get to the Mekong Delta where we all boarded a boat that took us around to some smaller islands where we got to see some local industries. We visited someone harvesting honey and making candy and drinks from it and a different place making various chocolates. From there we got on tuk-tuks and went to a village where we got to taste local papaya, pineapple, dragon eye fruit (longan, the lychee’s less aromatic cousin) while listening to locals performing some traditional songs.

Dragon fruit.

The bees drank any spills they could get their tongues on.

From there we went back to the boat and went to a second island where we got to see people making coconut candy with various additions (chocolate, durian, ginger, etc.) – basically a local variant of caramel. From here we got into some small narrow boats and were transported down a narrow river (or rather stream) back out to the boat. It was a pleasant 10-15 minutes, with trees and vegetation on both sides most sounds from outside were blocked. 

A big blob of coconut candy.

So serene.

We had lunch before getting back into the boats, and from there we went back to the mainland and returned to the bus that took us back to the hotel. Because it is the 24^th of December no busses or trucks are allowed in the city after 1600 so we had a hard deadline to make. Arriving at the hotel at 1500 (after having a nice nap in the bus that had surprisingly good legroom!) we got together to fill out the necessary forms for the border crossing into Cambodia tomorrow.

For the afternoon I went for a walk and ended in Saigon Skywalk after it got dark. HCMC isn’t the most inspiring city to look at even if night and all the lights makes things a bit more interesting. The skywalk was indoors with massive windows which in itself wasn’t an issue, but because they had concluded it would be a great idea to illuminate the entire indoor area and hang large bright information posters you got a lot of reflection in the windows which was really frustrating.

City hall by night.

At 1930 I met with 3 others at a food market where we visited various stalls for dinner; beef pho, Chinese bun with pork belly and pork dumplings were delicious. This was followed by a visit to a brewery before returning to the hotel a bit past 2200.

The roads were slightly crowded.

The traffic was insane tonight – there are so many scooters out and about it’s impossible to cross the road as normal. You actually have to find a crossing and wait for a green light to have a chance to cross. Crazy! Apparently, while the locals aren’t Christians they do use this date as an excuse to party and go out, so the traffic is worse than it would otherwise have been on a normal evening.