Saigon and the Mekong Delta

(Written 19 September 2008)

Saigon ... shit.

Actually, it's not shit at all! It's beautiful.

I'm on a food and textile tour of Vietnam, with my mother and six others. Our tour guide, a very lovely woman who was born here, grew up in France and is now an Australian citizen, is a textile student at RMIT, and this is her first attempt at putting together a thing like this. And - so far so good!

We arrived safely, driving through the peakest peak hour rush I've ever seen (you would never have known that many motorbikes and mopeds were possible on one road) to get to our guide Pauline's grandparents' house for dinner. Her grandma had been ill, and was still in hospital, but was expected home the next day. But we met her grandfather, and her aunts and uncles and cousins, and had a lovely meal, which was too enormous for us to finish.

We had an amazing day today. We left early and drove to the Mekong Delta, where we got onto a boat, which took us to an island where we had a tropical fruit degustation (yum!) and were serenaded by some traditional musicians. (Three very cool dudes - on a guitar and two instruments that looked like large wooden banjos - and a singer).

Then we hopped into three separate canoes (there are eight of us on this trip, including Pauline) and were paddled down a waterway where we hopped on to another boat - which promptly broke down. As we drifted along the mighty Mekong, waiting for another boat to pick us up, we congratulated Pauline on organising this gentle, relaxing part of the day, and suggested that she build it in to future tours.

Eventually, we were rescued, and taken to a much smaller boat (tho' bigger than the canoes), which took us up a canal. Remember the scenes in Apocalypse Now, when they're travelling up a canal in a small boat? The surroundings were so like that I had a freaky flash of the movie in my head.

It was SO amazing to be looking at the terrain that I've only ever heard about or seen in movies, and to have it brought home so vividly just how completely and utterly the Americans and their allies were OUT OF THEIR DEPTH in this country.

As Pauline put it, how on earth do you defeat people who can disassemble tanks in China, carry the parts all the way back home through the jungle, and then reassemble them to fight you? The sheer determination, skill and profound knowledge of country!

We visited a coconut candy 'factory' - a thatched shelter with five or six girls making and speed-wrapping the most delicious candy, and then went back down the canal a bit to have lunch.

Lunch was fabulous, and served by a cheeky-charming young man who made us all laugh, and who had taught himself his excellent English through serving tourists in the restaurant (which was perched on a platform on the canal, by the way, in amongst the palms). We ate whole fried fish, pieces of which were pulled off and wrapped into rice paper rolls and dipped into a tamarind sauce that was truly excellent. Oh, and a barbecued king prawn each.

When I say king prawn, I don't mean the measly sort you get in Australia. I mean a KING prawn. Easily about 30cm long, unfurled, not counting the two very long clawed arms that were like a narrow, elongated crab's. The meat was dipped into a delicious salty lemony mixture, and eaten with much lip smacking gusto.

We finished up with sweet, milky iced coffee - perfect.

Eventually, we said our fond goodbyes, and rolled back down to the boat, putt-putted back down the canal, back into the bigger boat, and made our way back to the mainland. Some snoozed on the way home - we were all very tired, but happy.

This evening, some of the knitters among us found a lady selling bamboo knitting needles, and then a lady selling yarn. Most of it was crappy acrylic, but she also had some really beautiful, lustrous mercerised cotton in fabulous colours, so now we've all got a new project to be getting on with.

Dinner was at a rice paper roll restaurant, while Pauline went to visit her grandmother, who would have just come home from hospital.

Tomorrow we leave Saigon - for the beach, apparently! I've bought a swimsuit in anticipation: I haven't owned one since the one I bought in Avignon in 1985 died.

Everything's very cheap - I'm going to have to be careful.