Mekong Delta

The usual early morning start and we boarded our bus to the Mekong Delta. We left our main bags at the hotel and just took a day sac as we were to return to the hotel in Saigon the following night.
After about 2 hours drive we stopped at a 'Rest Stop' on the road which was defiantly geared to the tourist but had beautiful gardens to the rear. back on the road we drove for about another 1.5 hours and then boarded a boat and gained a local guide LAU??. We were due to spent the night in a home stay lodge on the Delta but first sailed to a small village are to see some of the local 'lifestyle' and industry of the area. First off was a a shack where they make roofing out of palm like fronds then into a rice paper 'factory' where about 15 women sat for 8 hours a day on small stools in front of 2 ring gas burners with woks on, where they deftly produced fine wraps from rice batter. They used a small old tin punched with fine holes to drizzle the batter into the woks in a circular motion to create a fine lattice work on the hot wok, a quick turn of it and 30 seconds later they had the finished product on a cooling basket. All the women bar one were using 2 woks, the other one was using 3 woks and was considered the master as the timing had to be perfect to stop them from burning.
From here we walked to a sweet factory but on the way stopped at a fish sauce producer- needless to say many of us will never have fish sauce again. The fish 'bits' are effectively left to rot in large vats for a number of days (weeks) then the liquor is drawn of and aloud to ferment in secondary barrels and vats. The smell is indescribably bad – especially when you lift the tarp that covers the vats!
The sweet factory was little more than a number of covered areas where we were shown an variety of different ways of making sweets and confectionery – including how to make popped rice; You get a large wok over a strong heat and half fill it with sand. The sand is aloud to get hot as well and then dry rice is poured in and mixed in with the sand, which causes it to pop. Once all the rice has popped a large mesh is suspended over the wok and the contents of the wok are scooped up and dropped into the mesh; the sand dropping back into the wok and the pooped rice staying on the mesh. Then the rice is dropped into a large bowel and mixed with a sugar solution and rolled out onto a settling board before being cut into bars. (How does Kellogg's make it so expensive Eddie?) We also saw how coconut toffees are made and a different type of rice cracker which is made by steaming a rice batter over a cloth until it sets. It then has to be very carefully lifted of the muslin and dried on a rotating bamboo rack. We had a cup of refreshing jasmine tea here and bought a load of the rice cakes and toffees before returning to the boat via a salt distillation plant.
We motored on into the delta which was similar to the landscape in the Kerala Backwaters in India however this water is tidal. After about 30mins we stopped and transferred to small dugout canoes, each of which was piloted by a lady standing at the back rowing. We headed up a small cutting off the main waterway and it got narrower an narrower. The tide was receding and the water level was low, so much so that the lady was unable to 'row' and had to just push us along the waterway with her long oars on the banks either side. We paddled for about 15 minutes and got off to walk through the bushes to a house where we had more tea and a walk around a beautiful bonsai tree garden. We were supposed to return to the larger boat via the canoes but because of the very low tide they were now high and dry in the small cutting so we walked back to the larger boat long narrow paths past houses and gardens. Back on the larger boat we sailed out onto one of the main Mekong channels, then across its width which was fairly choppy in the middle (it's just over a mile wide here) and went to a brick factory to see how bricks are made. We just pulled up at the wharf and wandered in – i cant imagine being able to do this in the UK – H&S rules etc.! We walked into some of the huge kilns and took a couple of pics then saw how they fire the bricks using rice husks as the source of fuel. There was the obligatory wander through the factory shop to see all the different earthenware they produce then back onto the boat. The firing of the bricks takes over a month then they have to cool in the kiln for another couple of weeks and the stoker has to stay and tend the fire for the whole of this time 24/7 – apparently. We never actually saw how the bricks are formed and from what base materials and it was all sightly bizarre!. Back on the boat to cross the Main channel and try some of the local jack fruit and mandarins on the way to the home stay. Here we had time to relax and explore the large house build out onto stilts on one of the river ways. We had two dormitory style rooms with mozzie nets over each of the beds however I saw less mozzies here than in India. We had another great meal of fresh Elephant Ear Fish (So called because the gills look like Elephant's Ears). It was so fresh I watched the owner net them in his fish farm at the back of the house just before we had them for the meal. The food here in Vietnam is fantastic, fresh and really tasty. We turned in at around 10pm and tried to sleep as people drove boats up and down the river most of the night with what sounded like Middlewood dumper engines to power the props.