Mekong

Setting out into morning traffic at 8 a.m., we were glad that it was a Saturday because we can’t imagine how much worse the chaos and congestion might have been on a weekday! If I lived in central Saigon, I would surely walk everywhere I went, as I’m certain the pedestrians (few as they are and as cluttered as the sidewalks may be) can move faster than the bus.

After about an hour and a half we arrived at our rest stop. We immediately recognized it as the exact same place we had stopped for coffee three years ago, and told the rest of the group to get ready for the hat salesman to show up.

Right on cue, three hat sellers descended on our group. The fellow we bought hats from three years ago was older. This may have been his daughter and two sons. Same hats exactly, and still $3 each.

We enjoyed a cup of the mocha coffee with our individual cup coffeemakers. These, however, were some sort of dull tin or galvanized metal rather than the shiny stainless steel we had near Dalat. There were fighting roosters on display, but unlike our last visit, no demonstration.

Driving a bit farther, and using a huge new suspension bridge, we crossed one of the “nine heads of the dragon.” The Mekong River, at its delta, fans out into nine major streams. Thus, the river is known as the “nine headed dragon” of Vietnam.

Eventually we reached a village and walked a nice concrete sidewalk (shared with the occasional motorbike). Along the way we saw houses with the tombs of the ancestors literally in the front yard. The dead are always close to the living in this culture, but some tombs were the patio adjacent to the house.

Because Tet is approaching next week, we also observed several families using this Saturday morning to scrub the tombs in their yards. Buckets, brushes, and garden hoses at hand, this task appeared to be taken on in much the same way we might wash the family car in the driveway.

The sidewalk came to an end at a break in the bamboo and coconut trees that revealed a creek or stream. Waiting for us were several “sampan” boats. We divided up, three or four to a boat, with our drivers standing at the back with a single oar, lashed to a post on the port side, pushing and steering in a well-practiced, smooth motion.

After a peaceful cruise, during which the thick vegetation on both sides of the stream made us almost unaware of the many homes along the banks, we arrived at a place where habitation was unmistakable, and our boatman dropped us off.

An extended family processed coconuts here. A woman demonstrated handily how the outer husk of the coconut can be removed using a stake fixed in the ground. With equal skill she split the inner shell with a large machete and drained the milk, then used a curved knife to separate the meat from the shell.

The meat was pitched into an electric grinder, and the ground coconut meat was scooped into mesh bags that were pressed to obtain still more liquid. It was a bit unclear just how the liquids were differentiated, but some would become coconut oil, some would be boiled down to make coconut molasses, and the rest would be cooked into a chewy coconut candy, which was quite good. Nothing was wasted -- even the husks were burned as fuel for the fires.

After getting a full demonstration and tasting of the various products, we were invited to board a larger motorized boat that easily accommodated our entire group. This boat continued down the small stream a very short distance before breaking out onto a wide river — the same dragon’s head we had crossed on the bridge by bus before.

The cruise on the Mekong was very pleasant, and a personable young deck hand served us coconuts with straws for sipping the milk.

After some time on the water, our boat pulled in at a dock that was swarming with similar boats, and we arrived at a large outdoor restaurant teaming with tourist groups of all sorts: Russians, Chinese, Indians, etc.

It was a nice place, and the food was some of the most unique we have experienced on this trip. An “elephant ear fish” was brought to our table, and a young girl prepared large fish spring rolls from it before our eyes.

Similarly, she shelled giant prawns for us, dished up stir-fried pork and vegetables into rice shells, and cut up and served to us pieces of a very unique ball of sticky rice. There were also a couple other dishes, primarily vegetables and seafood. It was all wonderful.

Back on the boat, we learned that one woman in our group had a birthday today, and she was surprised with a beautifully decorated (and delicious) cake we all shared, along with fruit and tea or coffee.

We docked on the other side of the river, where our bus awaited to haul us back through traffic once again into the heart of the city. Sights along the way included another Cao Dai temple (we did not stop), a couple buses with bunk beds instead of seats that were filled with reclining Vietnamese presumably on long trips home for the holiday, and a motorbike with a cage on the back containing two rather large pigs. There’s always plenty to see out the bus windows.

The evening was free. We were so stuffed from lunch that we had little desire for anything more than a snack for dinner  We had some bananas, and I bought a beer and some nuts and the convenience store down the street. We know how to party!

We also walked around the neighborhood a bit by night. Because Tet is drawing near, many streets and individual businesses are decked out with holiday lights. Nguyen Hue Street, just a block or two from our hotel, is a boulevard. The center strip has been closed as dozens of workers bring in flowers, lights and other decorations for the big celebration.

Finally, we exercised our “white privilege” as Westerners to walk into the Hyatt, the Continental, the Rex, and a couple other fancy hotels in this neighborhood and just look around. Even though, in our travel clothes, we don’t look like we belong, the doorkeepers smile and open for us as if we were dressed like some of the folks sipping their $14 cocktails in the piano bars.

It’s apparently another “auspicious day” for weddings, as every hotel had at least one, if not two or three, big receptions going on. (It seems convenient that so many “auspicious days” happen to fall on weekends.) So many gowns, party dresses, tuxes, and musicians actually getting paid!

Saigon is a lively place on a Saturday night, but we were back to the hotel early.