Day 6

Today we were traveling to the Mekong Delta and unfortunately due to the long drive from the Victory Hotel we had to be ready by an hour earlier. This however changed no routine regarding my favorite egg maker from the breakfast buffet. She knew we were coming and prepared a platter of breakfast eggs instead of individually cooked eggs. This was awesome. And to top it off my debit card finally worked and I could once again become a millionaire in Vietnam.

Once the troops gathered we packed into our van for the longest trip of our entire trip estimating a total of two hours one way. The guys figured we would finally blog and take advantage of this time, I however was incapable of being productive and pushed it off until now.

For the duration of the trip my stomach began to fight back all the Vietnamese Food Culture I was taking on through the course of the week. Then on our own rest stop I decided trying fresh coconut milk, which down the road was a bad decision. It had a very mild taste and after I finished trying to gulp down the coconut Kien had the coconut cut in half so I could try the inner shell. This gelatin textured inside actually tasted nothing like coconut I imagined and was quite surprising.

We left that rest stop and traveled through our previous site visit of Phu My Hung. Crossing over the very large longest bridge in Vietnam we had arrived at the Vinacaca® coco drying facility. There we saw the coco plant in its most basic stage as a pod of many varying colors from red, orange, yellow and green. The tour guide showed us the stages in making chocolate out of the coco plant. The first stage was cracking the multicolored shell and revealing the slimy looking coco beans starting out initially white. They taste horrible at this point, very bitter and just overall nasty. After the coco beans are removed they are laid out in bulk on burlap rugs to dry then put in the back of the warehouse to ferment. Once the fermenting process finishes the beans retain a darker brown color still tasting bitter but actually resembling a chocolate esk taste. It’s crazy thinking that someone just thought to dry this coco bean and make chocolate out of it. When the tour of the of aroma filled warehouse ended they gave us an informative presentation and then we were on our way to lunch.

The lunch happened to be located on some random side road but held a hidden oasis of ponds, palm trees, fruits, hammocks and finally a restroom. From an engineering perspective all the man made ponds containing hundreds of coy and various aquaculture was remarkable. The lunch was the typical Vietnamese rice, chicken, and unknown meat referred to as ‘beef’ by the locals. That generally has no significance, as it could be rabbit, squirrel, dog, cat, wolf, bear, tiger, lions, or whatever you could imagine. After lunch we were on our way to the coco production plant where they determined ripe coco beans through hand inspection. They are able to identify good and bad beans based off of pictures provided.

Next they took us to their taste testing facility and gave a presentation in Vietnamese where Mr.Tin attempted to translate. This definitely felt like a lost in translation moment because for full Vietnamese paragraphs he mentioned 2 or 3 words. The process of taste tasting was brutal. My initial assumption of the chocolate taste was much sweeter and scrumptious. However I was proven entirely wrong as the 4-5 samples ranged from sour and bitter, bitter as hell or sour as hell. This in the long run was also a bad decision for my current stomach status.

Next we visited the coco farm. Driving back from the coco plant we took a random series of streets and pulled over alongside what appeared to be the tropics. We turned and saw a single path that lead deep into the tropical forests. Along this path, lined with palm trees and waterways, shallow rivers outlined it. The rivers were filled with various coconuts, plants and aquaculture. As we walked we finally saw the coco trees and the coco plant. The farmers live all along the path so they can harvest daily and easily. It was quite a spectacular environment having all kinds of animals and insects. There were tons of fire ants and a few students got bit. I fortunately only had to use the bathroom and I didn’t get eaten. This however was an adventure of it’s own.

Since I had been having stomach problems I was hoping there might possibly be running water and a toilet. That however was an unrealistic hope considering there was absolutely no running water. Instead my first location was a concrete floor enclosed by a wall, I then asked where the hole or toilet was and the locals laughed uncontrollably. I then followed Kien and the farmer to a concrete deck that lead into the middle of a pond with fish visibly swimming in. You can generally put together what I had to do next, and yes this was a first.

On our agenda after the tour of the coco farms we headed to the bus but made another bad decision in trying the local sugarcane juice. They take bamboo and crush it through a machine and drain the juices into a bag with ice and sell it for 25 cents ≈ 5000 dong. This tastes good but doesn’t go through the system easily. For the next two hours as my stomach swirled round and round as the bus traveled back home, well the Hotel. It was unanimous that all of us were ready for some American food and we thought what better place to eat than KFC.

As group we were so dedicated to this we immediately went there after we were dropped off. Rushing to the KFC we ordered the chicken popcorn and awaited our meal. Inhaling the Vietnamese style KFC with all the greases and juices oozing down our throats we were not ready for the continued stomach problems afterwards. When we waddled back to the hotel I think Matt and Mike both upchucked and I wish I had. With the duration of the day we all passed out in attempt to recover some energy before the guys went out with Tony to a Vietnamese Alternative-Rock Bar. The place we went to was at the base of a Hotel called Huong Long. There we listened to American Music song perfectly by a Vietnamese female vocalist. It was an amazing time and Andrew played drums during for about 5 songs. What a great night.