The Mekong Delta tour begins with a three-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh city past rice paddies, most with the coffins on the fringes of people who once worked on the farm (as villagers are allowed to have their loved one buried on their land). Once we arrived at Ben Tre we were transferred to a boat from which watched people fishing and saw coconut factories as we headed downstream.
Our first stop was a brick factory. This factory turns out thousands of bricks a week beginning with cutting the bricks, various stages of drying, being stacked in a huge kiln and fired. Just to stack the kiln with the thousands of bricks takes a dozen men (24 hours a day) a few days. The firing process uses rice husks (a cheap commodity) and is manned 24 hours a day for the three weeks it takes to cook the bricks. The oven is cooled before the men can unstack the kiln so the bricks can be transported for building.
Our boat stopped at a Coconut Candy factory where they produced "the best coconut candies in the country" according to our guide. They were pretty good and so was the table of fruits for morning tea.
* The Mekong River begins its journey in the high plateau of Eastern Tibet, and after winding its way some 4000+ kms through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, it reaches Vietnam and divides into nine channels and hundreds of tributaries before emptying into the South China Sea.
Our first stop was a brick factory. This factory turns out thousands of bricks a week beginning with cutting the bricks, various stages of drying, being stacked in a huge kiln and fired. Just to stack the kiln with the thousands of bricks takes a dozen men (24 hours a day) a few days. The firing process uses rice husks (a cheap commodity) and is manned 24 hours a day for the three weeks it takes to cook the bricks. The oven is cooled before the men can unstack the kiln so the bricks can be transported for building.
Our boat stopped at a Coconut Candy factory where they produced "the best coconut candies in the country" according to our guide. They were pretty good and so was the table of fruits for morning tea.
Coconut Candies: wrapped by hand.
Coconut candy being made.
Rambutans, dragon fruit, papaya (paw-paw), bananas, pineapple
all served with chilli salt for dipping and hot tea.
Fried elephant ear fish which was scaled and torn into pieces for rice paper rolls.
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