Heading to the Mekong Delta

Cao Dai Temple

Sunday the 24th we leave Saigon for the Mekong Delta often referred to as the rice bowl of Vietnam, producing three crops of rice per year, the fertile Mekong Delta is also famous for its tropical fruits and flowers. We stopped at a Cao Dai temple. This hybrid religion took root in southern Vietnam during the 1920's after Ngo Van Chieu, a civil servant, was visited by Cao Dai or the Supreme Being. The Cao Dai later told Ngo in a seance that he was to be symbolized by a giant eye. Being a humanist religion, it quickly gained support of a large following of dispossessed peasants. Today there is thought to be about 2,000,000 adherents and 1,000 Cao Dai temples. There are temples in the United States in California and Texas.

Inside Cao Dai temple

We then enjoy a river boat ride to see what life is like is like on the river and its canals.  There is every imaginable water craft carrying anything you can imagine. Traditional transportation in the Delta is boat, with a vast network of canals and channels. Boating along these canals we see the floating markets. We make a stop for lunch at a river side restaurant where we have a special crispy fish served whole and eaten like a spring roll, Crispy fried elephant ear fish rolled into spring roll, large shrimp, vegetarian spring rolls, rice, bbq'd chicken, vegetable soup and fruit all for $8 US.

Crispy Fish

Couple working on their boat

Not sure what this boat is used for but we saw a lot of them

We stop at the Cai Be handicraft village which is a small village where we get to see how they make pop-rice. We see a demonstration of how rice paper is made as well as coconut and ginger candy. We see the them making snake wine as well as the bottles of snakes. It includes tasting the rather raw drink. We purchase some ginger candy which is quite spicy.

Susan tasting snake wine. Mmmm!

Making rice paper

We make a return boat trip and travel to our hotel for the evening to the Ninh Kieu 2 in the town of Can Tho.  A city of about a million and a large city for the delta. We get some rest and have dinner along the river about a 5 minute walk from the hotel which is a roof top restaurant  with blue lobster from the area as well as six other courses including duck with papaya and coconut ice cream.  We are back to Saigon tomorrow after visiting a morning floating market.