Bright and early wake-up this morning. This was followed by a roughly two hour bus ride to the Mekong Delta, which is south of Ho Chi Minh City. Our first stop was at a small cacao processing plant. This area is definitely rural and seems to be quite poor also. The facility did not smell good at all, particularly the fermenting cacao fruit. After this we headed to a “model farm” in the Delta, which we learned about at the ACDI/VOCA presentation yesterday. Here we got to see and taste some of the products made from the cacao plant, including milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and the cacao fruit itself. I’m not sure if the chocolate was fresh but it was better than any Hershey’s I have ever had. Following the
farm visit, we headed to a boat ride in the Delta. We took a rather old wooden tourist boat around the Mekong river. The ride was narrated by a tour guide over the loudspeaker. The ride was very interesting and fun, but it did seem to be a sort of tourist trap with something for sale every ten feet. We returned to the hotel in late afternoon. Our group wanted to try a restaurant called Kichi Kichi which was recommended by the Plus 3 group from last year. A few students from UEF met us at the hotel to head to the restaurant. I went with Tuan separately from the rest of the group. We stopped at a bakery and picked out a cake for Alex’s birthday which was today. We then ate at Kichi Kichi, which I think is a Japanese restaurant but I’m not sure. Everyone got their own pot of broth and could pick things to put in it from a conveyor belt of various meats, fruits, and vegetables. I picked out an egg which was raw and cooked it in my pot. My egg had a brown shell. One of the girls in our group picked out an egg with a white shell to cook in her pot. Apparently the white egg shell indicates that instead of a raw egg, the shell contains a partially formed duckling. This is a delicacy in Vietnam, something that none of us realized. It was interesting to say the least. After we finished eating, the waiters brought out Alex’s cake and we all sang to him. He seemed very surprised. One of the UEF students had also gotten him a wooden model as a gift.
farm visit, we headed to a boat ride in the Delta. We took a rather old wooden tourist boat around the Mekong river. The ride was narrated by a tour guide over the loudspeaker. The ride was very interesting and fun, but it did seem to be a sort of tourist trap with something for sale every ten feet. We returned to the hotel in late afternoon. Our group wanted to try a restaurant called Kichi Kichi which was recommended by the Plus 3 group from last year. A few students from UEF met us at the hotel to head to the restaurant. I went with Tuan separately from the rest of the group. We stopped at a bakery and picked out a cake for Alex’s birthday which was today. We then ate at Kichi Kichi, which I think is a Japanese restaurant but I’m not sure. Everyone got their own pot of broth and could pick things to put in it from a conveyor belt of various meats, fruits, and vegetables. I picked out an egg which was raw and cooked it in my pot. My egg had a brown shell. One of the girls in our group picked out an egg with a white shell to cook in her pot. Apparently the white egg shell indicates that instead of a raw egg, the shell contains a partially formed duckling. This is a delicacy in Vietnam, something that none of us realized. It was interesting to say the least. After we finished eating, the waiters brought out Alex’s cake and we all sang to him. He seemed very surprised. One of the UEF students had also gotten him a wooden model as a gift.
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