cruising the mekong river

After three hours on the bus, we arrived at the "wharf" and had to walk about ten minutes to our boat that will take us around the river. Nothing to it, but what was interesting are the stuff they had lying around to dry in the hot sun -- leaves. I don't know what they are so I can't describe them in detail. Similar to the Filipino way of drying their rice, too. There were also the hat that they sell to tourists on their way to their boats.

Tom said that the Mekong Delta has nine rivers and the largest one is the Mekong Delta. At where we were, Cai Ve, the main thoroughfare is the river and they sell their stuff on their boats. Although we were already late for the morning's floating market, we were able to see several boats that sell different kinds of produce: watermelon, potatoes, onions, etc. Interesting too are the boats' design, some have faces, some don't.

The tour brought us to a bee farm and let us taste their hot honey tea, lotus seeds, coconut candy, and snake wine. There, we also got to know the Sinulog t-shirt guy and his wife, who is also a Filipina. At lunch, we were exchanging about the things we do and when it was his wife's turn, all she said was that she is into "marketing and culinary arts." At this, the guy laughed really hard and added to his wife's statement --

"She does her marketing at the market and her culinary arts at the kitchen!" LOL.

We were laughing like crazy that the people at the other table were turning their heads to us. we must have been the noisiest group at lunch! Thanks to them though, we had a pretty good handle on the dollar-peso-dong conversion and the areas where to shop best. They were great people to get to know to but unfortunately, ours was only a day tour and theirs, a three-day tour. Hopefully, we would be able to meet them again in our future travels.

After lunch, we were also treated to a performance from the local people of the island. The guitar instruments are really unique because although they look modern and familiar, they sound different -- instruments that are designed for their folk music. The artists have really good voices however, they must have been doing this day in and day out, 24/7 that it seems they're not enjoying what they're doing anymore. There was even an instance where the lady performer was pouting and when the music started, she gave us a practiced smile. Hopefully next time, she'll give her audience a more genuine smile and put more heart to her performance because if not, her beautiful voice becomes just a voice and nothing special.

When lunch was finally over, the group hopped off the boat and had to go back to the bus. Unfortunately, this was our stop and had to say goodbye to our tourmates and to our new friends, MJ and Dean. Maybe one day, we'll see them again! :)