Good Morning Vietnam

Arriving at 5 am, I think we can get away with saying that! Uneventful flight. Vietjet is definitely a budget affair. Good job we’d purchased a couple of Ban Mi sandwiches at the airport because food on board was nowhere to be found – despite announcements to the contrary … and the complementary beverage cart went by at light speed … blink and it was gone! No matter … we actually managed to doze a little.

Our driver was waiting outside at column 10 – signage for Glen Smith in hand – and we entered what appears to be the utter chaos that is early morning Ho Chi Minh City. Literally thousands and thousands of scooters converging from every direction, weaving their way through intersections and across traffic with the grace and ease of ballet dancers … missing people and cars by nano seconds. The secret is to not stop, just maintain your journey at a consistent speed and you’ll be missed. Hesitate, and disaster strikes. It’s completely mesmerizing to watch.

Brief stop for a much needed coffee an hour or so into the 3 hour journey. The first question from the young shop staff was “How old are you?” So we turned the tables and asked them the same question. Giggles.

The flat, flat Mekong Delta grows just about everything … coconut, pineapple, papaya, breadfruit, oranges, kumquats, bananas, taro, yams and masses more.

Through the city of Can Tho and down a tiny, lane – more potholes than road we arrived at some bamboo gates. Our Home Stay for the next three nights. Owner Tuan has built this up from vacant land in 2016. There are 5 comfortable and spacious units for a maximum 10 people … a fabulous salt water filtered swimming pool (which he dug himself during Covid) … full kitchen and laundry facilities … solar panels … his own boat for tours … bikes you can borrow. He never stops. Up every morning at 4:30 right through to bed. His 21-year-old son Hui and 11-year-old daughter also help out. His wife and a couple of helpers do all the cooking and chores.

The amount and variety of meals is staggering. At least five different fruits at each meal (pineapple, mango, Jack fruit, papaya, watermelon) ….perfectly fried eggs, French bread and preserves for breakfast … lunch with plates piled high with noodles, vegetables and meat. And then there are the dinners!!! Each group that goes on the dawn market tour picks out the food for that night’s dinner. I lost count of the dishes because they just kept coming — curried chicken with potatoes in lemon grass and coconut sauce; slowly stewed beef and carrots; crisply fried fish and squid; huge steaming bowls of fragrant rice; plates of steamed or stirfried vegetables – bok choi, okra, chives and dozens we don’t know the name of; all finished off with banana pancakes drizzled in chocolate sauce. Each dinner also has at least one bonus ingredient to tantalize the palate!! Anything from snake, frog, rat, embryonic eggs, intestines. We tried them all (except the eggs). Didn’t particularly care for the intestines – it was like chewing elastic bands.

Tuan has an amazing command of languages – English, Russian, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese so he’ll greet all his guests. He makes amazing Mojitos and his specialty “Happy Water” … some potent concoction of fermented rice that is plied liberally at the end of dinner (actually not that bad) … and definitely something that is needed for the nightly Karaoke. Horror of horrors! The two German couples sang in German, the Brazilian couple, who had lived a couple of decades in Canada and the States but now reside in Portugal, sang The Girl from Ipanema … in Portuguese, of course … there was a song in Polish from one young couple … and after much protesting, we ‘sang’ The Eurythmics Sweet Dreams are made of this. Appropriate as we had by now been up for almost 40 hours!

Apologies for quality of scooter photos, they were taken from inside the car. In the dinner photo – those dishes you see are just for us … they are repeated for each couple along the table.