Mekong Delta Day Trip

What a day....To be honest, I have a little bit of a headache but that's probably from not drinking enough water on this sunny, warm and blue sky of a day here in HCMC!

I got picked up at the hotel by a mini van for my 1 day mekong delta trip. With no idea what to expect, it was about a 1 and a 1/2 hour bus ride to My Tho (pronounced "May Toe"), a bustling hub for the Mekong Delta. The Mekong River begins way up in the Himalayas which is so hard to believe. We then hopped on a little boat to visit a few of the islands inhabited by people in the delta including Phoenix, Turtle, and Unicorn island (yes, all animal names!). Each island specialized in something and we got to walk around and try such specialties such as coconut candy, honey and assorted tropical fruits such as jack fruit, rambutan, and dragon fruit (which I lovvve the look of!). I felt like I ate all morning then we had lunch which was included with the trip. hahaha! I got to ride around Phoenix island after lunch on a bike to explore which was pretty cool too. Then after a few more boat and bus transfers, made it back to HCMC around 4:30pm.

Apart from all of the great sights today, my one highlight today was being able to use my Chinese ('hakka' dialect which is very uncommon as a language itself!) to help an elderly man on our tour who did not speak English. He was frustrating our tour guide because he couldn't communicate with him whether he was doing a one day or two day tour and two day tours got on a different bus to mine. So yes! that made me even more motivated to learn the more common Chinese mandarin dialect.

With that said, here are a few things that I have noted while traveling through SE Asia so far 'looking' like an Asian myself:

- Tour guides, hostel staff, restaurant waiters etc. will always spark more conversation to ask further where my family is from

- There definitely is a different "feeling" when they address/serve me...in a good way! (most of the time!)

-I have even been asked by somebody if I worked at the hostel/hotel once too! haha

I will continue such observations as I travel on.....

I learned something from our great tour guide today. The Vietnamese call the 'Vietnam War', the "American War" and of course, we know that the American's call it the "Vietnam War"...interesting!

So I feel better to mention to everyone now in this blog that one week before I did my Halong Bay tour, an entire junk boat sunk out on the bay taking all the people in it down with the sinking boat. Tragic indeed and I was told this by another backpacker when I was booking my tour. But you just never know right....! such a sad loss of so much life. The government I guess kept everything on the "down low" but also did cancel all halong bay tours for a few days.

Cu chi tunnels trip tomorrow....then sleeping at the Dotys house which I can't wait..I think American Idol is on for us to watch tomorrow night too:) yayyyy!