Day 9- Cycling in the Mekong Delta

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM! (Always wanted to use that line)

Woke this morning with the sun to  the 3 H’s, hazy, hot, and humid.

Dave and Molly and Rich and Suzanne arrived on separate flights at almost exactly the same time last nite around 10:30 and got to the hotel in record time (40 minutes).  7 am came pretty early.  We found a small restaurant  around the corner from the hotel that served a decent  breakfast. 

                                       

It took forever , though, and we made it back slightly late to meet our guide, Chau (Joe).  Our first order of business was to look like a team-bought Vietnam bike shirts and  did a quick change.  The 10 of us hopped our mini-bus  and headed out of Saigon to the Mekong Delta. 

A Huey was the method of choice for travel back in the 60’s and I see why.  It took about 1 ½ hours to get out of Saigon, and given the quantity and quality of drivers on the road, I’m not sure a helicopter in the 60’s  was much more dangerous. 

Along the road we passed  a huge number of rice paddies.  Surprisingly, scattered amid the paddies were small mausoleums. 

It seems that Vietnamese Buddhists prefer to be buried  rather than cremated and the rice paddy is the burial site of choice.  Burial is not possible in the city due to high land costs and huge populations.  I think it would be weird eating rice grown in a paddy where a loved one permanently resided.  Gives new meaning to Sawyer’s song, “Now You’re a Part of Me”,  from his high school musical “The Donner Party”.  Rice is definitely king in the Mekong Delta.  Nearly everyone farms rice paddies.  It is apparently even more difficult being a farmer in Vietnam than in Vermont.  They are up at 4:30, work the rice paddy until it gets too hot, then a variety of farm related chores until dark, then get up and do it again. 

Because of the stable weather here, farmers can have three plantings per year.  The enormous production of rice from this area has led to the Mekong Delta’s nickname, the rice bowl of Vietnam. 

The Mekong delta region encompasses a large portion of southwestern Vietnam (15,000 sq mi).  The Mekong River starts in China and it is the world's 12th longest river with an  estimated length is 4,350 km (2,703 mi). From the Tibetan Plateau the river runs through China,Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and finally, Vietnam, where it dumps its contents into the South China Sea.

We finally reached our jumping off point where we met our bikes.  It happened to be a Buddhist Temple in a small village in the delta. 

We adjusted our bikes and were off.  I had my seatpost as high as possible, but still felt like I was too low.  After about ½ mile, we realized that Molly and I had  our bikes switched.  A quick switch made for a more comfortable ride.  It was a short ride to our first of 3 ferries of the day.

The ride, which looked to be very short on paper, turned out to be about 40-50 km(25-30 miles).  There were no hills except for the “causeways”, but the heat (95deg) and humidity (98%) even affected our Florida contingent.  I had initially packed electrolyte tabs, but switched packs at the last minute and forgot the electrolytes.  Plain water just didn’t cut it.

The ride past through tiny little villages with small huts, many on stilts over the water, interspersed with some fairly fancy looking homes.  The route included nicely paved roads, paved paths about 6 ft. wide, and single-track mountain bike trails covered with roots and mud.

Whenever we passed any children, we heard shouts of “hello”, and many were happy to pose for pictures. 

                                     

The most dangerous part of the ride was the constant stream of bikes and 

motorbikes going in both directions on the narrow lanes.  We had no fewer than 4 crashes in our group with lots of bruises and some blood.  A tough start for the group.  but even with all that, the ride was fascinating. 

At about the half way mark, we stopped in a small town for fluid and salt replenishment, with water, puffed rice cakes (we later saw the “factory” where these were made), coconut crackers, mini bananas, and potato chips (for salt).  We all thought this was lunch.  Little did we  know that a huge meal still awaited us at the end of the ride.

From here, we took another ferry to an island  for more riding.  While we were waiting for the ferry, we met a guy carrying  two prized cocks  that were on their way to a cock fight, illegal but tolerated by the authorities.  He kept one in his shirt and held the other on his lap.  The birds were prized possessions but he allowed us to hold the one bird he had out.  You can imagine how badly the conversation spiraled downward with Rick very content to hold the bird ,etc.

After a last ferry ride and some muddy single track riding, we came to a small local restaurant on the Mekong River. 

It was now 3pm and we began a multicourse extravaganza starting with whole fried fish (we were hoping it was not caught in the Mekong River) that was stripped and put into rice paper pancakes.  Additional courses included shrimp, veggies and some form of meat all with a view of the waterway. 

 We rolled out of the restaurant onto a small boat for a tour of the river.

Many people work and even live on a floating city here in the Mekong delta. 

There was an incongruous Catholic church that loomed over the town as a backdrop for the stilted shacks along the river. 

We stopped at a local “factory” where we saw the production of the rice cakes, coconut candy, and snake wine. 

Snake wine is an alcoholic beverage produced by infusing whole snakes in rice wine or grain alcohol.  We (that is both Jeri and I) of course had to give it a try.  The snakes, preferably venomous ones, are not usually preserved for their meat but to have their "essence" and snake venom dissolved in the liquor. However, the snake venom is denatured by the ethanol; its proteins are unfolded and therefore inactive. In Vietnam, snake wine is widely believed by some individuals to improve health and virility.  This wine was steeped in King Cobra. 

Tasted like turpentine!

After drinking our fill (a thimbleful actually), we boarded our bus for the ride back to Saigon.

We were supposed to meet the rest of our group at 6, but we didn’t make it back until 6:50, and pretty ripe from our sweaty ride at that.  The other five members of our group did not seem thrilled with us at that moment, but we were very apologetic and were all showered and clothed by 7:20 for a bus ride to a restaurant for dinner as a group. Both Jeri and I and the Langsdorffs both deserve special recognition for speed.  We ran up to our rooms only to find that our keys no longer worked.  Phil and I ran down, got the keys reset, and then back up to our rooms, losing a precious 5 minutes.  We still managed to make it.

Dinner was another multicourse food fest, and even though we seemed like we just ate, we stuffed ourselves again.  I think that by the end of dinner, we were all back on good terms with the rest of the group.

Tomorrow we will see more of Saigon and then off to Hue.