It was a day of different transport, starting with a bus out of Saigon. Expecting to leave some of the roaring, honking bikes behind, we found that they are a ubiquitous feature of Vietnamese roads. The benefits are clear: cheaper, faster, smaller and easy to get a licence. But the tour guide tells us the real reason for many young men: "No motorbike, no girlfriend".
A short roadside stop en route provided the opportunity to relax in hammocks and sip on a fresh coconut. It was a far cry from an overpriced coffee at Gregg's in an M1 service station.
The Mekong Delta is the rice bowl of Vietnam. After economic reforms (Đổi Mới) were implemented in 1986, trade opened up and rice farming went from subsistence to export. Vietnam is now the second largest rice exporter behind Thailand.
Having arrived in My Tho, we transferred to a boat to cross the river to Unicorn island. The Mekong River is brown from silt having been churned up by the monsoon rain. Water hyacinth bobbed brightly on the brown surface. Enterprisingly, the local people dry the hyacinth root and turn it into sandals and other items. This resourceful permeates life in the Delta. On the banks of the river are houses whose roofs are thatched with the leaves of the coconut tree. We went on to visit other examples of local production.
Our first stop was a bee farm. The bees here are smaller than on the UK and get their nectar from the flowers of the longan tree. We tasted jasmine tea flavoured with a good dash of lime, honey, and bee pollen. Delectable.
We hopped aboard a sampan, paddled by two locals, one at each end of the boat. Riding low on the river, with the palms curling over the top of us to create a tunnel, it felt as though we were Viet Cong, silently gliding into battle.
We weren't back on the boat for long before we switched to a smaller water taxi to penetrate deep into the heart of Dragon Island up a narrow river. Along with the aforementioned Unicorn Island, Dragon joins Tortoise and Phoenix to make up four islands named after legendary creatures - some perhaps more mythical than others. Sadly, there was no Monkey Island where we could slake our thirst with grog.
On the way, we passed a local asleep in a hammock suspended in his boat. With iPod in one hand and mobile phone in the other, it was an incongruous sight amid the rural idyll.
Light mechanisation had also reached the coconut sweet 'factory' we visited. Seemingly operated by a total of five people, this was still industrious, manual work - chopping and wrapping the sweets by hand in edible rice paper.
Lunch was a light and simple meal at a restaurant in Ben Tre of steamed rice, vegetables and tofu. Sadly, a sudden and heavy downpour put paid to a short cycle ride of the island. However, the shower was over before the boat reached our next destination: an open-air demonstration of traditional music over a platter of locally grown fruit.
We sipped jasmine tea and picked at tiny bananas, pineapple, mango, dragon fruit and rambutan - the latter similar to a small lychee, but which was incorrectly introduced as longan by our guide. We tasted longan the following day, which is a much smaller brown fruit with no spines and a small amount of flesh that tastes of melon.
The amateur musicians played traditional songs on a modified flamenco guitar, a kind of lute and a single-stringed zither. The music, accompanied by singers, was slightly atonal to a western ear but enjoyable. The zither was amplified to create an eery, Pink Floyd effect and its player gave a rather unseasonal solo rendition of Jingle Bells.
Our bus travelled up river and crossed the bridge to Vinh Long, where we had organised a homestay. A boat met us and ferried us to the small jetty where we met our host - a somewhat stern older lady, who called K "madame".
Having expected a small, simple dwelling, we were surprised to be taken to a rather luxurious family-run B&B. After relaxing with a beer on the verandah (333, can, it's growing on me), listening to the put-put of the boats on the river, we were invited to help with dinner preparations along with a couple of other guests.
The kitchen is a large open-plan space - all bare bricks and wood, like the rest of the house - with two wood-fired stoves. At the instruction of our host, we chopped, sliced and grated the vegetables, then filled and rolled some spring rolls. K deep-fried these in a wok of oil over the burning logs. Everyone, our host included, warmed up considerably during this communal task.
The message hadn't quite got through about our vegetarianism, so I had expected a slightly awkward exchange, but our hosts were most understanding and conjured an exquisite vegetarian feast seemingly from nowhere.
In this respect, I am glad to be in a Buddhist country, whose people at least in principle aspire to alleviate the suffering of all beings, and many of whom observe a vegetarian diet twice a lunar month, even if they are tempted the rest of the time. I am apprehensive of the reception we will receive in the largely carnivorous Christendom of South America next year.
At dinner, the soup was a sweet-sour one like the canh chua we had attempted ourselves, only with morning glory providing the green crunch. K's spring rolls, filled with grated taro in a batter, were divine, as was the wood-smoked roasted tofu, scored so that the flavour penetrated more deeply. A simple noodle stir-fry, using our painstakingly sliced vegetables, and rice (of course) completed the meal. Afterwards, we had more pineapple and an amazing chewy fruit called jackfruit, which tastes of bananas and custard.
A nip of rice wine that had a strong anise flavour finished things off nicely and we fell happily to sleep under a mosquito net.
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