mekong delta tour - on our way

Woke up early to go to the Sinh Tourist Place (map later). We should have expected a little problem with our reservations, as we already had a bit of misunderstanding even during our email exchange with the staff the last couple of days, during our preparations. Eventually, I was able to fix and pay our reservations and still have time to go back to Bich Duyen to have my breakfast before the 745am meeting time.

*Bich Duyen to Sinh Tourist is about 10 minutes walk through Pham Ngu Lao St then to De Tham St.

Our tour was just a day tour to Mekong Delta River (cost: USD12). Our tour guide was Tom (western version of his name because I don't know how to spell his name) -- as he says, if we can't pronounce his name, just call him "Tom, for Tom Cruise." This guy was the typical build for a Vietnamese, slim and relatively tall. He, as most Vietnamese I've met here so far, can't pronounce English words properly although they can be fluent at times.  He spoke of Saigon's district, the country's history; he sang, and he calls the tour group "My Family." It was really disconcerting to have him call us family but I guess the others in the group like it very much - nobody complained but us. Maybe that is just how I (or us) was built -- family, is just family (including the friends you are close with) and does not include those that you have just met thirty minutes ago.

Things I learned from Tom --

• The Mekong River passes through several countries starting from Tibet, to Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.
• It is about 1,800 kms long and still growing! And here, the tour guide started saying that "history changes" because, when asked two years ago the length of the river, it would have been 200 km less. But history can be changed as what happened to this river.
• It is now called the Nine Dragon River.
• To say thank you, we say "Kam-ang" with the accent at the second syllable.
• To say "i love you," we say Men Yu Anh (Girl loves Boy) or Anh Yu Men (Boy loves Girl)! :)
• To say "sorry" or "excuse me," we say "sin loi"

We learned other ways to say things but I think I've forgotten them already and these are the only ones that got stuck in my head.

On our way too, Anni noticed a guy wearing a Sinulog shirt! He must have just come from our own country to see this great festival!

There was also these two old Australian couple sitted behind us who couldn't stop talking. So on our three hour trip to the Mekong River, it seemed that they haven't stopped talking. Yet there was one conversation that got my attention. The guy asked our tour guide what were those things in the ricefield and Tom answered that those were the people's dead. The countryside do not have any cemetery so they bury their dead in the rice field. Now imagine where your rice is coming from! LOL. And the lady suggested cremation but Tom doesn't know what it is and so he had them explain it to him and have the word written on a piece of paper because as he said, it's a new word for him! Isn't that pretty amazing? :) That was Tom's word for the day.

a ricefield with their tombs