THE DATE: April 23, 2012
THE TRIP
08:30-10:00 Around 8:15 AM, Divimom and I were already inside the office of Sinh Tourist for our My Tho – Ben Tre 1 day tour. I was quite excited for this tour because this is the Mekong Delta tour where you will ride a small rowing boat along a mangrove palm creek. After 1 1/2 hours, the bus stopped at a small restaurant/stopover and we walked until we reached a makeshift pier at the end. We boarded a motorized boat that took us to our first destination – a rice paper factory. Tour: 12.47 USD each.
10:00-15:00 I forgot to take note of the time when the tour ended so I’ll just rely on the details posted on the Sinh Tourist website. Anyway, from where we were dropped off by the boat, we have to walk to get to the rice paper factory.
After the rice paper factory, we have to walk to the restaurant where we will have our lunch. Lunch is free but drinks are not included. Good thing Divimom made sure that we brought our bottled water.
We have to board our boat again to reach our next destination – a beekeeping farm. We were served hot tea and sugar-coated peanuts. They also sell bee products and other souvenirs.
After a few minutes of rest, we have to walk to a road where a horse cart was waiting. It took us to our next stop – a fruit farm.
At the fruit farm, we were serenaded by locals.
After two songs, we were directed to a small mangrove palm creek. As anticipated, we cruised the creek on a rowing-boat. Since each boat can accommodate only 4 persons, there were at least 10 boats sailing. It was a calm, peaceful boat ride – until one of our tourist companions declared a race when we overtook their boat. The Korean girls cheered their boatman saying, “Oppa! Fighting!” complete with hand gestures and facial expression. So cute! Not to be out-cheered, I was tempted to cheer our boatwoman, “Ahjumma! Jakamanyo!” which is embarrassingly ironic because jakamanyo means ‘wait a minute.’ FAIL. I guess it’s time for… a Koreanovela marathon! You know, for education purposes =p
We were taken to our final stop – coconut candy factory.
We stayed here for a few minutes before we head back to our motorized boat that will take us to our bus and off to Saigon. There are souvenir shops in all the stops that we made. They sell, umm.. interesting.. items. I’m not sure if you can find these in the city.
15:00-17:00 Back to Saigon.
17:00 onwards We left our bags at the hotel and refreshed ourselves for our last night in Saigon. There was a nearby market, a few blocks after Pho Quynh, and decided to buy dinner there. Most stalls in the market were closed and all small affordable restaurants that we passed by offer only noodles so we kept on walking. Finally, we found a food stall along Bui Vien that has rice. We went to Ben Thanh’s night market for keychains and t-shirts. We didn’t buy a lot since I told Divimom that we’re going to buy presents in Bangkok. From our experience, shop owners/employees double the price of their products when they know that you are a foreigner that’s why it is recommended that you haggle. I think they also expect that buyers will haggle. They also tend to be a little aggressive when you show interest in their products so keep your cool.
THE EXPENSES For consistency’s sake, 1 USD is 20,800 VND and 1 USD is 43 PHP.
Snake/scorpion bottles? What is in those?
Hi Ben, it’s rice wine. And you can actually drink it. Unfortunately, the locals don’t offer free samples so I wouldn’t know what it tastes like. They say it has many health benefits.
hi again! ask ko sana regarding the mekong delta tour, yung sa boat since walang katig, nde ba kakatakot? i mean yung tubig ba gano kalalim? i really wanna try it, ang problema ang aking mother, takot sumakay sa bangka. iniisip ko baka masayang lang ang biyahe namin papunta dun tapos biglang mag back out. kc tulad nung sa wat arun sa BKK, twaid ilog lang yun ha, takot pa.
Hi Hanelette, there’s no outrigger (katig). It’s not scary though since the creek is very calm, no waves.
Unfortunately, nobody fell off the boat so I wouldn’t know how deep the water is. Maybe you can tell your mom to face her fears hehe 🙂