The Mekong Delta - Part II - and an evening surprise!

After Unicorn island it was time to head to Tortoise island! Also called Coconut island! It's not hard to see why it's also called Coconut island -it specialises in using coconut in everything from candy to furniture to buildings!

First off we got to see how local coconut candy is made!
We saw different steps of the process, like how war spears during peace time are used to seperate the coconut from the outer fibers of the nut. The fibers are used in articles like clothing, and as a growing medium. Once opened the flesh of the coconut is pressed to get a liquid, coconut milk, using this machine:

The coconut milk is heated and continuously stirred to cook it down to a thicker consistensy. Since there are now machines to help with the entire process it's a lot less heavy to do than when every step was done by manual labour.

Here we see the desired consistensy of the candy before it is cut into the desired shape:

The dough we see in the video has a coconut pandan flavour. We got to taste some, and it was DELICIOUS. The combination of flavours along with the gooey and still warm dough was truly unique and yummz.

Sarah liked it so much she went back many times to munch.

Our tour guide has travelled around Asia many times, and is keen on tourism being beneficial for the local people. We trusted him when he recommended we go for the local coconut candy as souvenirs to take back home! 

And here are some other coconut souvenirs!

After that, it was time for lunch.
And what a lunch!
We ate a whole deep fried Elephant Ear fish, a dish called Dragon's Egg, spring rolls and coconut salad.

After lunch we had some time to stroll along the island.
We got to feed some crocodiles and koi fish.

At the edge of the island there was a stairway to nowhere! Exciting times. 

It was nice and windy up there.

There was an adventure area where people could zip line, swing or bike in to a pond! It was fun to watch, and we're sure very fun activities to do as well -but the water looked a bit creepy.

There were also attractions like a ghost bike :P

It was a nice time to relax and digest all we've seen and eaten so far.

Our tour guide made little fishes from coconut leaves and we got one each! They were very cute.
We still have them here at home, but they're a bit dry now. It was a nice surprise and made us really happy to receive.

The fishes fit snuggly along Linus's hat.
Also, here we see how nicely the outfits of Linus and the contact's son match!

And now it was time to leave the island, and that concludes our tour along the Mekong delta!
If you ever get the opportunity to go we highly recommend it!! We got to see and try out so many things, it was truly a once in a lifetime trip.
 


Here's a picture of the boats used to take travellers from and to the four islands.

But our day didn't end there!
Earlier during the day we had been invited by our contact Dr. Quang Chú to eat dinner at his home.
So after we left the Mekong delta we made our way to District 2 of Hồ Chí Minh City.

Dr. Chú's house was on the country side and had lots of plants as well as animals like dogs and birds in it's garden.
There was even a seperate building entirely for his Mother-in-Law to live in!

The house was beautiful and so were the people living there.

Here's Dr. Chú preparing a fire to grill squid and fish on as beer snacks.

 There was a kitchen inside the house as well as outside, so everyone was busy preparing dishes for the dinner. We got to sneak and have a look around before being seated by the table.

We were given beer and got to grill some squid while the others were busy cooking.

Here we see spring rolls prepared by Mrs Chú. They were dipped in a sweet and spicy sauce to reach their full potential. They were delicious!

The main dish though was Hot Pot!
It had fresh crabs, vegetables, squid, guava and much more inside it. Eating it was like being on a treasure hunt. And then to have delicious side dishes with it, ahh it was too much!!

Here Linus got what many would consider the top prize: squid!
Many of Dr. Chú's patients are divers and as gifts from them he often recieves fresh sea food.

He was also generous enough to treat us to some of his home brewed wines, made with medicinal plants. So really, they were basically medicine.

It was a great way to end our eventful day.
The generousity by the entire family was really overwhelming and humbling -we're really really grateful to all of them!!
Once back in Sweden we'll keep their generous ways with us when introducing Sweden to travellers and remember their including ways..
We wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Needless to say, we were pooped after the dinner and started to sleep in the car ride back to our place already.

We hope you enjoyed reading and seeing pictures of our adventure at the Mekong delta.
We're already at our final internship week here in Saigon, oh how time flies!
Thank you again for reading our blog posts and we hope to see you next time.

Bye for now!

Brilliant greetings,
Linus and Sarah