Today we only had one tour and it was planned for the morning (before afternoon downpour time). We were fortunate and had no rain for the 3 hour trip. We headed to Gieng Island and were transported around the villages by Tuk Tuks to visit local families that work in a variety of industries.

First up we stopped at the oldest Catholic Church in Vietnam. As we head further up the Mekong into Cambodia, Buddhism will become the predominant religion.

Our second stop was at a home which has 1.5 hectares planted with Mango trees. The yield is over 15 tonnes of mangos per year. We removed our shoes and sat in the lounge room of the home and were treated to fresh mangos which were so so good.

Next stop was a local Sampan builder. This lovely gentleman is 69 years old and has been building these traditional boats for over 50 years. Unfortunately he hasn’t been able to sell any this lunar year so our visit will at least help with his family’s cost of living.

We then toured through an incense factory where we saw the process of manufacturing incense sticks for use in temples.

Once the sticks are coated with the incense mixture, they are dried prior to packaging and transportation.

We finished the tour around island having seen about 20km of villages and daily life of the locals. A really interesting and informative morning.

Then it was back to the boat for more swimming, food and a relaxing afternoon. One by one my travelling companions dropped out and headed back to the suites for an afternoon snooze while I went through photos from the morning.

Our afternoon and evening was filled with activities on the boat, including a spring roll cooking demonstration, mini golf on the top deck (which I successfully came last in twice), a Taste of Asia display and a movie night on the top deck (google The Mekong River with Sue Perkins for a raw and informative perspective of life along the Mekong) .

The first photo above is Bob being very vindictive about a photo I cropped him out of in last week’s blog so applying the same treatment to me 🙂 .

Tomorrow we have a full day on the boat.