Trip to the Delta

It was Liberation Day when our friend Diep invited us to visit her relatives in the Mekong Delta for some kind of ancestor worshipping ceremony. Because Vietnamese are usually early birds there was no way to avoid getting up at 4:30 a.m. to hit the road at 5:30.

The hour of dawn is definitely the best hour of the day, though I rarely get to be awake that early. Streets are almost empty, it's cool outside, the air is fresh and the first sunrays coat the scenery with beautiful colors.



However, because of the public holiday, the highway was already crowded in the early morning. Once on the highway the girls put on masks to avoid the polluted air of thousands of exhausting pipes. I did not, and today, two days later I still can feel it in my throat.



When we reached the ferry crossing the Mekong from My Tho City, we had to wait almost another hour. Once we were on the ferry a really heavy tropical rain started, Rainy Season just begun some weeks ago. So in the end instead of the estimated two and a half hours it took us almost five hours till we arrived in Ben Tre Province some 90 km west of Ho Chi Minh City.

The country side roads had turned to mud so driving here was slippery fun. Anyway we were soaked after two hours of rain, and despite having lived in Vietnam for a long time, we did not bring any clothes to change during rainy season, so the next day I spend the whole day in bed with fever...



First we visited the grave of Diep's grandfather before we went to the relatives home, where we were offered a perfect lunch of sweet and sour fish soup and rice. The fish came from the relatives own fish farm. Then we lied down on one of the wooden beds to have a nap while most of the men spend the afternoon with heavy drinking.

The house was a typical country side house with a big living room with three big wooden beds, a hammock, a TV, and a big table inside. The main toilet was outside in the garden, though the word toilet does not really describe what you can see on the picture. Besides that, behind the house there where some goats, pigs and chicken as well as all kind of fruit such as jackfruit and sugarcane.



The afternoon Julia and I had a walk around the neighborhood and after the rain the air was humid and hot again, so I was thinking of the soldiers during the war who had to spent weeks in this hot and humid climate, without having a shower.

After sharing some beer and goat curry with the already drunk relatives and guests, we headed back to Saigon.

A really cool trip, though its hard to describe all my impressions. I hope the pictures can give you an idea.