Tet-tastic!

We started our Tet Holiday break by racing out of work early at 3:00 to get to the airport. We heard horror stories about the traffic and wanted to make sure we didn’t miss our flight. 

Some interesting fruit!

Lance found a little friend while we were waiting at the airport that was very interested in our card game!

 We were very anxious to get to Ho Chi Minh city to meet Emily and Ben who had been waiting for about half a day. After arriving at the airport and walking to get a taxi, we were off to the hotel which is only about 3 minutes away. However, our taxi driver was easily confused and took us to a similar named street……needless to say he was either confused or a crook. So, we arrived at the hotel an hour and a half later than we should have!! With all of the anticipation of meeting Ben and Emily it was rather annoying…….not to mention we hadn't eaten supper yet and it was nearing 10:00pm. Anywho, we arrived at the hotel and immediately see the two friendliest faces waiting for us. It was great to see folks from back home! Then the four of us headed out for a late night supper to catch-up! We knew we couldn’t be up too late because we had an early morning ahead of us, for we didn’t want to waste any time packing in fun adventures!

                We woke up at 7am because our tour guide was supposed to be at the hotel at 8am to take us on our tour of the Mekong Delta. We grabbed a little breakfast and introduced our 2 South Dakota friends to the famous Vietnamese iced, black coffee! We had about 3 hours in the van before our first destination and the caffeine kick helped us do some catch up talk in record time! Stories were swapped and we discussed the itinerary of our trip over the next 4 days in the Mekong.  Ben, for the first time, found out what was on the agenda (even though Emily sent him all the travel documents to inform him!).  He was coming to Vietnam to visit his brother and sister in law and that’s all that mattered to him!  It didn’t matter what we were doing!

                We arrived at the Ben Tre canals and took a lovely walk through some countryside that included pit stops at a coconut candy factory (which consisted of a few ladies in an assembly line in an open walled building!), getting the chance to hold an enormous python (which nobody did…the closest we came was Lacey touched it!), and we sat down to listen to some authentic Vietnamese singing with local instrumentalists, while enjoying a delicious spread of all the local Vietnamese fruits! We had mango, papaya, pineapple, jack fruit, dragon fruit and more. To top it off they gave us a tea that had honey and lemon (their lemons are small and green and orange on the inside, so more sweet)…..it was a treat to our taste buds!   

             

The trek continued until we stopped at the canals and hopped in little long tail boats and enjoyed beautiful scenery. After some boat hopping we made it to our lunch destination where we enjoyed some authentic Mekong food, including fish…..which basically looked the same as it had coming straight out of the river! We got back into a long tail boat to cross the Mekong where we got back in our van and headed for Can Tho.   After a delicious meal we went up to the rooftop of our hotel and played a game that we all loved….Pinochle!

The next day we got on a boat to go see the big, famous floating market….only to find it had already shut down for the Tet Holiday. Instead our fearless guide, Tee, found new plans! We got to take a tour of a rice paper and noodle factory (also under a wall less building with a handful of workers). The process was quite amazing.  We then found ourselves in the house of some locals and were instantly put to work! They were making a local favorite of rice mixed with bean curd and pork fat that is wrapped in banana leaves and then tied in reeds. We got to take turns with all of the different jobs. One included cutting the reeds in half; another was wrapping the reeds tightly around the filled banana leaves and making a braid at the end.  Emily found herself distracted most of the time because there was a well built German beefcake of a man that she couldn't keep her eyes off of!

 

   

  After our hard work, we were rewarded with a lovely lunch of ham, rice, vegetables and fruit. They also served us some Vietnamese coffee and we finally headed back to town. We stopped by a temple on the way back and got to see some locals dressed up and doing dances for the Tet celebrations. After our long day, we decided to treat ourselves to massages. Unfortunately, Emily’s first Vietnamese massage experience was more of a beating than a massage! Lacey had a good massage experience but it didn’t end well when her masseuse decided to help herself to a generous tip from her wallet!  That evening we grabbed a bite to eat and headed back up to the roof top of our hotel because we were told that there was going to be a big fireworks show in light of celebrating the Tet New Year!