vietnam day 4

i am having a little wee bit of problem trying to put a recollection of the trip at this point in time. it’s been 2 months since the trip! well, also because i accidentally threw the itinerary away. thankfully, the chronological pictures helps!

headed to mekong river on the 4th day. mekong river reminds me of chao praya river in thailand, but it’s a much calmer version with pretty blue boats all over. i didnt ask the guide, but i wonder why the boats are all in the same color.. such a pretty sight.

we took a boat to one of the islands and here’s some pictures of the pier and the boat trip.

the island pretty much reminds me of the times where i used to work in grandma’s plantation that bears more than over 20 kinds of fruits (durian included!). the stream alongside the fruit trees trigger the fond memories of me swimming in the stream at my grandma’s plantation. although it wasn’t allowed, but we were all plucking the fruits to eat as we walk across the island. saw how coconut candies were being handmade from scratch and also child labour! small kids (barely 4 years old) were made to stand in a row and sing songs in many different languages to entertain the tourist.. many from the tour group parted with their bills as they take pictures with the kids. 😛

the food in vietnam is so so. but most of the lunches and dinner provided were quite bad. didnt take much nice pictures of the food to feature here as they weren’t impressive. this is one of those trips where i constantly felt hungry and simply kept eating non stop on the bus, munching on snacks and fruits.

in the afternoon, we were headed back to ho chi minh city and visited what my uncles and me call, “tourist traps”. as of all tour groups, the tourist traps were the most annoying and irritating part. most of the times, we dutifully headed into the tourist traps to enjoy the aircon while waiting for everyone to be done. the weather was so hot, i didnt realized till now that i had a lot of grumpy looking pictures.

the last full day of the tour ended with a 2hr dinner on the cruise. we were so darn pissed as there was no proper arrangement of the seats and i had enough spit to fill a bucket should i start. the only nice thing about the cruise was the viewing deck where i promptly plonked myself down (away from everyone else and the hot dance performance) and ordered a beer to chill with nice soothing music from a life band and be entertained with magicians going round the tables to amuse people.

i didn’t buy anything on the trip, except for some coffee, tea to give away to the colleagues.. but the family bought loads of cashew nuts, ginko nuts, dried sugared coconut and kiwi which almost burst my bag. well, gor ripped the plastic “mainland” bag i brought to put the extra items that we bought. thank goodness i brought 3 along! we almost had an issue with overweight luggage since we were travelling on BUDGET airlines. talking about the budget airlines, it’s another issue that makes me feel my spit rising. urgh.

all in all, the trip was one interesting one (the sights), but the tour, the malaysian guide, the airlines, the service, the food versus the amount of money we paid was TERRIBLE. possibly the worst trip ever for me.