Today started off with a tour of a temple used for worshipping the god of the sea. This was catered toward tourists so it was more flashy than a typical temple but still gave us an insight on Vietnam culture. Some things that our guide Hai pointed out was the raised doorway to keep spirits out as well as some of the meanings of the different carvings overhead. The temple was not focused around religion but rather a belief of different gods. In order to show respect to the gods, people would bring oil and give it to a temple worker along with your name and wishes and then you would wait for the oil to burn off while you prayed.
After seeing the temple we drove through a wholesale market. The market had many different vendors that specialized in one type of product i.e. paper, plastic, chairs. In this market you could bargain for a price and then ask for up to 10,000 of a certain item and it would be delivered in a couple days. And if you do business with them often, you don’t have to pay immediately (Chinese way). There is no middle man so people prefer to shop at these markets rather than companies, and people are treated the same for buying 1 or 10,000 of an item. Shown below is the heart of the market.
Our main activity for the day was taking a river boat cruise through the Mekong river. It was about a 2 hour bus ride to the water and we started out on a large raft that carried our whole group along with the bikes that we would later use once we reached the island village.
While cruising through the river we saw wholesale boats that had advertisements on long sticks that would show what they sold e.g. fruits or veggies.
We were provided some miscellaneous fruits as a snack as we had a quick tour of the river before making our way into smaller 4 person rafts.
Using a combination of the small engine on the back of the boat and a large paddle, our boat drivers navigated us down a smaller river with views of the peaceful nature and small village homes along the waterfront. This was a very relaxing experience and everyone could appreciate the quiet rural experience contrasted from the busy sea of scooters and cars zooming around in the city.
After about half an hour on the small boats we reconvened on our larger boat and travelled to a small island in which we rode our bikes around and checked out many local villagers’ homes and how they make a living by creating a product.
Some of the items we saw being made were rice paddies, hammocks, and woven goods from dried hiyacynth.
We also visited a small bee farm that also grew mushrooms for medicinal purposes.
While still on the island we then walked over to another business that had all sorts of coconut products, attached to a shop that made and sold different candies.
Then we went to lunch on the island and enjoyed a variety of delicious seafood.
After lunch we took the boat back to the bus while enjoying fresh coconut water.
Then we took the bus back home before enjoying a delicious dinner at Di Mai
Vietnamese coffee was a staple food group for several of us during our time in Vietnam and so after dinner a small group of us walked to a coffee shop and bought some souvenirs to try and make our own once we get home. Then a couple of us who had service rode scooters/motorbikes using the Grab app (Uber for scooters) back to the hotel. After regrouping, a group of 5 of us went out to get massages. Most of us (or at least the men in our group) didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into and the place we went had Thai style massages which involved a lot more twisting, cracking, and extreme movements than I had expected from a massage. At one point the masseuse was underneath us holding our bodies above their knees in order to extend our spines in an arch and my masseuse must’ve been used to Vietnamese sized men because she could not withstand my weight for very long and I ended up crushing her at which point she started laughing and told me to get off. There were several points in the massage where some of us couldn’t hold back our laughter due to the awkward positions and we made sure to tip well for our American behavior as well as my mishap of flattening a small Vietnamese woman. Overall we were glad to have the experience of a getting a Thai massage, but personally in the future I would opt for a more relaxing variant.
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