Biking the Mekong

Kids who came to say hello
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Ho Chi Minh City ended up being our least favorite spot in Vietnam.  We didn't dislike it but we didn't love it. There was a lot of traffic and it wasn't very pedestrian friendly.  However, we really loved Reunification Palace which used to be the home of the president.  The palace was equipped with a movie theater,  secret passageways, bomb shelters and a getaway helicopter!  A small room in the basement with a dozen chairs and a small TV screened a propaganda video about the war with America.  And accross the hall were photos of the war including amazing shots of the Palace being stormed by North Vietnamese troops that signaled the fall of Saigon and official end of the war.

Matt and Thang
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Continuing our war history lesson, we headed to the chilling War Remnants Museum.  Not years of high school American history classes nor even Howard Zinn himself could prepare one for the atrocities chronicled here.  Granted the exhibits were one-sided but one section did include pictures and stories of soldiers and journalists from a number of countries- giving more of a condemnation of war itself than the American invaders.  But it was the photos of the innocent victims that were most painful to see.  Dead, burned, scarred, raped, crying children and women of villages caught up in the battles.  And the war just keeps on giving; successive generations are still suffering from cancer and deformaties from the tons of Agent Orange dropped by US planes.  Here, all the movies, books and history classes became quite real for me.

Working in the rice field
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On a lighter not, we loved the tourist police, young men who help foreigners cross the street.

After fours days in the city we booked a biking tour of the Mekong Delta.  Our guide, Thang was a sweet, young Vietnamese man and our driver/bike repairman/water man was a surly old man who fought in the Cambodian civil war.  As soon as we had driven far enough outside the city, we hopped on our bikes and set off along the rice paddies.  The scenery was gorgeous, iconic.  Lush green rice fields with women in conical hats.  And the people were so friendly.  Anyone who saw us shouted hello.  The children greeted us with the enthusiasm usually reserved for puppies and Santa Claus.  It happened so frequently that I started saying hi to barking dogs and mooing cows, yet even the thousandth 'hello' still made us smile.  We stopped to see local coconut candy factories, floating markets, pottery kilns, rice factories and fruit orchards.  We even stopped at a wedding for shots of rice wine and a (sweaty) photo with the couple.  It was an excellent snapshot of local life in the Mekong.  All along the way, our driver followed us and provided us with cold water and fruit to re-energize.

The fruit in Vietnam is unbelievable. Matt is eating dragonfruit, it tastes a bit like a kiwi.
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On our third day Matt woke with a sore butt and I woke with a fever.  We decided to skip the biking.  Thang took us to the floating market and to see Mr. Tu, the snake man.  Mr. Tu is a small, happy man who loves snakes.  Upon arriving, he thrust one into my hands.  We sat with him as he told us about the war and the neighbors who were still suffering the effects of Agent Orange.  Then, our guide told him I was sick.  Mr Tu ran into his house & brought back medicine and snake whiskey.  I did a shot of the whiskey, then had medicine massaged into my head.  The massage left me with a red dot right between my eyes (This is the telltale sign that you have a fever & the dot didn't go away until 4 days later!) but the medicine and whiskey made me feel a lot better.  It was an interesting lesson in Vietnamese medicine.

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For dinner on our last evening our guide suggested we try the local specialty, a water-buffalo hotpot.  Sounds innocuous enough.  Not untill the eggs filled with half-developed duck embryos arrived did we realize what made this dish so 'special'.  Not sure if it was the blood that turned the broth a light crimson or the 'crunch' of the tiny bones and beak that I will remember most.  Anyway, current 'Fear Factor' tally; 1 turtle, 1 fried scorpian and a couple duck embryos.

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The last day of our trip we got onto a boat and headed to Cambodia.