This was one of the highlights for me. Even though it was still quite touristy it felt authentic and the food was absolutely wonderful and different from anything else we had tasted. We had a very funny local guide with us called Tam – this is a male name in Vietnam but her name reflected the Vietnamese preference for boys leaving the country with a male female ratio of 129 to 100 which is not great for future generations. The population is still growing but at some point, it will start to taper off due to smaller family sizes and the above ratio. Tam told endless jokes on the boat mostly about husbands and wives not getting along. After a wonderful lunch of grilled elephant ear fish, the boat broke down as the propeller hit the bottom of the canal as the tide was so low. We had to be towed to our final destination – a bit of excitement! Our homestay (Ut Thrinh) was based around a typical old Mekong house which had been sympathetically extended to include around 30 rooms with air-conditioning. There was both an indoor and outdoor shower which I couldn’t get to work so had to have a wash from the big pot of water outside. It was very refreshing nonetheless.
We were invited to help cook dinner in the very roomy kitchen and set to making deep fried spring rolls with taro all from scratch. They tasted like cream cheese. The rest of the dinner consisted of large grilled prawns, fish rolled in rice paper with fresh herbs, soup and as usual followed by fresh fruit in season – water melon, dragon fruit, mango and passion fruit. Rambutan and longan are also in season and you see longan in particular growing everywhere along the canals and rivers. We slept under mosquito nets which somehow felt very tropical and cozy. After all there were loads of mosquitos around. I don’t like putting on loads of bug spray as I keep thinking that if it melts plastic what is it doing to my skin? I did get bitten but the bites only itched for about a day and then not very much.
Anna's Travels 