Another early start today where we were tendered in a Sampan across to Thoi Binh Island where we sampled local produce from the community. The island has a network of canals dug from the Mekong to irrigate the fruit trees. First stop was to sample honey whisky and cooked rice paper with honey tea made from honey sourced from the property.

Next we sampled a variety of fruit, most of which we don’t see too often back home. The most interesting was Durian – the locals say it smells like hell, tastes like heaven…..and I can confirm the smell is bad. We were banned from bringing any back to the boat as the smell lingers for weeks.

Finally we visited a mushroom farm where we were served tempura mushrooms and visited the growing sheds.

Our trip back to the boat took us past floating fish farms in the Mekong Delta. The colour of the water is due to the silt in it. This is one of the reasons the areas around the river are so fertile. An interesting morning.

This afternoon we moved a few hours upstream and jumped in the Sampan to visit Vietnam’s ‘Venice’. The town of Cai Be has many houses directly onto the water and was quite amazing. There was a monsoonal downpour while we were out making for an interesting ride.

We headed to a local candy making business and saw the making of pop rice and pop noodles (my favourite). Then we sampled some of their rice wine. The snake wine was a favourite for everyone (except me). I had a taste of the banana wine but I think I’ll stick with the sav blanc on the boat going forward 🙂 .

It’s been a really interesting and fun first day on the Mekong. Tomorrow we do it all again.