From Cu Chi Tunnel, we took another 2 hours bus journey to My Tho city where we embarked on our expedition to Mekong Delta, which is a network of tributaries in southwest Vietnam, between Ho Chi Minh City and Cambodia.
The Mekong river itself starts in the Himalayas and passes through China, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia before reaching Vietnam, which partly explains why the waters are so murky.
First we hopped aboard a relaxing cruise along the river and basked in the light breeze as we witnessed the area’s scenic beauty. We were able to catch a glimpse of 4 beautiful islands; the Dragon, Unicorn, Phoenix and Tortoise Islands, along the way.
We stopped by one of the islands and visited a local village.
Here we had the chance to watch an authentic Southern Vietnamese folk music performance performed by the locals, while we indulged ourselves with fresh seasonal fruits.
We then walked to another part of the village where we were served with honey tea. Some of us did not feel very comfortable here because they were many bees flying around and some even landed on our cups.
From the village, we took another boat ride towards the coconut kingdom. The Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre is well known as Vietnam’s coconut capital, where local farmers have been subsisting on coconut groves for generations.
We made a stop at a local coconut sweets workshop where we learnt the whole process of making coconut sweets.
At the end of the workshop, we came to a stall selling all sorts of coconut related products.
One interesting fact told by our guide is that there is even a Coconut Religion here. It was founded in 1963 by Vietnamese scholar Nguyễn Thành Nam, also known as the Coconut Monk. The Coconut Religion advocates consuming only coconuts and drinking only coconut milk.
We then took another smaller boat along one of the many tributaries around and stopped by a restaurant by the river for our lunch.
Below were what we had for our lunch. It's mainly seafood and since Javier had seafood allergy, the restaurant had separately prepared some non-seafood dishes for him. Nice!
After lunch, we continued our expedition in Mekong Delta as we cruised through the calm water on a sampan, rowed by the locals.
Our Mekong Delta expedition ended with the sampan ride. We then went onto the bigger motor boat which ferried us back to My Tho city. On the boat, we were each given a fresh coconut to quench our thirst. This was when Javier started to fall in love with it.
By the time we reached the ferry terminal at My Tho city, it was almost 5pm. We immediately boarded the mini bus which brought us back to Ho Chi Minh city. The bus journey is about 2 hours and we all fell asleep along the way.
We reached Ho Chi Minh city at about 7:30pm and that marked the end of our day trip to Cu Chi Tunnel and Mekong Delta.
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