Mekong delta tour and family stay

Food not friend...(sigh)(ugg)(boo)

Dean read about a tour we could take from Saigon to the Mekong Delta River. It sounded great, we would take a 2 day tour to see the Can tho floating market and a different area of Vietnam. We could either choose a hotel or a home stay where we would stay with a local family in their home for the night. Dean read that home stays could be a bit iffy as to the quality of the home and beds and such, but I said we should do it. So everything from now on, is MY fault.(Dean says , thankyou).

For the tour we hired a local guy who worked in our hotel. He told us about the tours and said he has taken people before and it is a better experience, for we would be on our own and not in a 30 person group tour. We were all over that.

We had breakfast at 7:30 am and headed off for the local bus station. The bus was great. With AC big seats, free water and a movie. Very nice. After a 3 1/2 hour bus ride, we arrived in a small town where we hired scooter taxis to take us the rest of the way to our home stay. It was a bit scary though much safer than riding in the city. We passed through small village after village till we arrived in front of the home which would be ours for the night. The family was all there waiting for us.

As we walked towards the house we realized right away that this was going to be challenging. It was a bamboo shack. It had a room up front, one in the middle with a bed in it and a bigger room in the back with a small table, a few plastic stack stools, a wooden low table which turns out was a bed and a small washing up room off to the side. It also had a small lean-to off the back for their rice wine distillery.

Shortly after introductions our guide, Vin, asked if I would like to go to the market with the mom to get groceries for dinner. That was a highlight for me. I got on the back of her scooter and off we went. When we arrived she took my hand and led me to the fish stand and asked in Vietnamese if we should buy some fish. After much giggling by the market vendors, her and I  managed to pick up fish, chicken, beef, octopus, cooked rice noodles and some vegi's. I think it was all for under $8.

notice the rice wine distillery in the back room.

visiting before dinner.

grandma and auntie came for a visit.

We arrived back at the house and immediatly we all got busy preparing the food to cook. Their daughter who was 13 grabbed Miranda by the hand and showed her how she could help. Vin grabbed the beef and started to fry it in the corner on the little propane one burner cooker. They didn't have a sink, counter or refrigerator so everything was done on the floor. Oh ya, I forgot to talk about the 5 puppies/ 3 dogs and the chickens that were running around the kitchen through the open doors as we prepared dinner.

The meal ended up being, stir fryed beef with garlic and onions, chicken with a yummy sauce, the noodles we bought pre-cooked from the market, fryed fish, fryed onions, pineapple,octupus, carrots, cucumber and tomatoes, rice and rice papers for making spring rolls.

The mom (Sumo), divided all the food into 2 and put it into serving dishes. She had small bowls and chop sticks for us. She then placed all the dishes onto the floor and asked us to sit down with the men on one side and the women on the other side (mennonite style LOL). We had to shoo the chickens and dogs and puppies away so they wouldn't snatch anything from the bowls. Though they did seem to resepct that they couldn't have any till we were done. Once we were all seated Sumo asked us to all say thanks to God for the food by crossing ourselves as catholics do(can't remember the name for that). Then she prepared a spring roll with the rice papers, fish, tomato, lettuce and noodles one by one for our family and placed a dish with fish sauce or homemade sweet thai chili sauce on the floor for us to dip them in. As Sumo made the rolls, her husband started pouring shots of rice wine for the men. Aparently, when they pour a jug of rice wine for a meal, they have to finish the whole jug. So they did.

We did our best to eat as much as we could. I finally had to stand up because my knees where killing me and my bum had fallen asleep. I sat on the wooden bed, Sumo and the girls also got up and the young ones took off to play. Dean and the men sat for quite a while until Vin, our guide told Dean that when he would get up the meal would be considered over. Dean quickly got up as he was also waiting to give his knees a break.

the front of the house and our bedroom.

The girls playing on our bed.

Their little fruit stand in front of the house

After the men got up, the women placed the bowls of leftover food into an old cupboard to keep till tomorrow. We hoped that the food would not go bad in the +30 or more heat till the next day......they could not afford to throw anything out.

After dinner, Miranda told me she had to go to the bathroom. I asked Vin if he knew where it was. He pointed to a small shack out back. I started to go with Miranda, but she said she would be fine. A short while later, she returned and asked if I would come with her. I went with her to the shack. Inside was a big ceramic jug in the corner filled with liquid and a bowl. That was all. I looked at Miranda. Miranda looked at me. \We went back to the house and I questioned if this was the bathroom. Vin said yes, it was. I looked at him with a confused look. He spoke Vietnamese to the owners and they told their daughter to take us next door to use their bathroom. I thought O.K. good maybe that will be easier to figure out. We walked through the mud next door. she pointed to their shack. We went in and inside was a room with 2 plastic 30 gallon garbage cans with lid, filled with water and also a scooping pail inside them. I was confused. I really could not figure out what to do. I asked with sign language to the daughter. How was this supposed to work? She giggled and again I asked her to show me. She kind of gestured to the room and again giggling she said something and walked back to her house. We followed. When we got back, I said to Vin. O.K. Vin, you need to just tell me, what are we supposed to do. Pee in the bucket, or what?? He said no, just there and he pointed into the room. Oh, on the floor....Suddenly Miranda didn't have to go as much. Yes, she could pee on the floor, but that was it, she would hold it till tomorrow sometime and she did, We all did. So we needed to pee on the floor in the corner and the bowl was for dipping into the water jug to wash the pee towards the small hole in the wall near the back of the shack. Why didn't he just say.


After all that excitement. We decided to go for a walk around the village. Secretly I was trying to find a place to go in the bush for Miranda along the way(didn't find it). We went to a catholic church. The kids introduced us to the father who runs the chuch in this area. He had been there since 1975, right after the war. There is a large congregation of 2500 people. We decided after talking to him that Dean and Vin would go to the market and pick up some treats for the 100 kids that come on a regular basis. Vin bought a case of milk for them.

As we walked, Dean and I talked about our situation with the home stay and wondered what the night would look like. There were 11 people in the home with us all and not many places to sleep. When we returned, we found they had figured that Dean and I would sleep in the front room, Miranda would sleep with the 2 girls in the middle room, Colton and Vin would sleep in the kitchen on the table/bed and the parents and little son would sleep on the floor in the kitchen. Phew, this was tough. The beds are wood with a small pillow on them topped with whicker mats with mosquito nets over them. That is it. I wondered how I would ever sleep on a wooden bed. Would I sleep? Wow.....


I will continue this story about what we did after I hear about what you would do in this situation.  I need 5 comments from you......