and bodies of water around and many were polluted, though not as obviously as the rivers closer to the city. We went to a cacao been farm/drying facility, which was relevant to the talks we heard the day before. The cacao beans were more colorful than I expected, and we sampled some of the non-dried beans inside the pod, which had a bitter taste. I was surprised to learn that this was the only facility of its kind in Vietnam so far, though I'm assuming many more will soon follow. The picture posted above is of several members of our group observing the cacao beans and tasting some of them. You can't tell from the picture, but it was also extremely hot. We ate at a really cool place for lunch, with the table areas jutting out onto the small lake/water area below. After lunch we rested in hammocks. Because of the heat and a little dehydration, Rayna and I felt sick after lunch, but I recovered after drinking like 7 waterbottles. I made sure to drink more water everyday for the rest of the trip! Back at the chocolate lab, our group tasted a liquid form of the cocoa beans. I can't really call it chocolate because it was sour and bitter, not sweet yet. We then explored the jungle-like area of the Delta, which got interesting when we were posing for pictures while there were red ants crawling around, but again I liked seeing a different, rural side of Vietnam. The farmers then gave us fresh fruit when we were finished with our exploring. We didn't know what some of the fruits were because they don't have an English translation, which I thought was interesting. Other foods that we tried over the weekend included sugar cane juice from a stand on the side of the road and some sort of flat coconut snack thing that was similar to the texture of a fruit roll-up. Afterwards we drove back and savored the air conditioning in the bus and the hotel. I planned on catching up on blogging (clearly, I'm very behind! haha), but was so tired that I immediately fell asleep! This turned out for the best because we had another busy day planned for the next day.
Sunday morning, we took a hydrofoil down the Saigon River for about an hour. Our destination was the Vung Tau Province, so again we left HCMC. The scenery around the river was beautiful and I took a lot of pictures. We took a break to hydrate and eat some of the chocolate produced by the place we visited the day before, a
nd prepared for our next stop. This was a giant statue of Jesus on the top of a small mountain near Vung Tau. There were stairs leading all the way up and we had to take many breaks because of the heat. It was worth it in the end, though, to see the impressive statue close up and to see the view of the town/city and beach/water below. All of the other pictures in this post are of the Christ statue, or the view from the top. After we made it back down to the bus, which was considerably easier than the climb up, we drank lots of water, enjoyed another Vietnamese lunch, and headed to the beach at Vung Tau. The beach was very fun and it was nice to relax. I was struck by the large amount of trash in the water. There were quite a few plastic bags, etc. floating around, but apparently this was the clean part of the year. I was told that during the rainy season the rain draws too much pollution down the mountains and hills for people to swim in the water. The rivers closer to the city are very obviously polluted, however, and we saw several people swimming in there. Water pollution, as well as air pollution, definitely seems to be a problem for Vietnam, especially in 
HCMC.We took the hydrofoil back to HCMC, but it was a longer trip this time. I think that some sort of coconut/plant material was stuck around the motor, but we eventually made it back! After, we all ate a late dinner at a cool restaurant where everyone ordered skewers of meat and vegetables and we barbecued them right on the table.
No comments:
Post a Comment