Vietnam - the Mekong Delta - part 2 (by kerouac2)

[Deleted]

Some more photos taken mostly from my excursion boat. Later, there will be photos taken from terra firma.

I know that I was perhaps too interested in all of the family boats going by, but I just couldn't help myself. Each family fascinated me in a different way.

Some of the houses floated and others were vulnerable to any flood. However, when you look at the simplicity of the building materials, it seemed at though there was no problem to losing one's dwelling as long as the important possessions were saved.

Part of the tour included a visit to a former Viet Cong base. It appeared emminently clear that the United States had no chance of winning the war. I saw horrible little holes where Viet Cong troops would stay for a week or more with water up to their neck, with a few branches over their head, ready to shoot or throw a grenade.

Imagine American city boy troops from New York or Chicago patrolling such areas and knowing absolutely nothing of swamp life.

Nearly all of the Vietnamese were born after the war, and they held less ill will to the United States than to France. The United States was considered to be an unfortunate outside participant in a civil war, whereas the French were former colonizers who had profoundly transformed Vietnamese society irreversibly.

Even though the French structure of a lot of Vietnam remains, it appears that they would have wanted to more closely resemble China.

No matter, life goes on, and bygones are bygones.

Some of you have certainly noticed the importance of television antennas on most of these houses.

[hwinpp]

Good pics there. Mine are much more standard.
Did a 1 day, 9USD, tour last September. And got to see too little of of too much...

[Deleted]

Outstanding photos K2.I can understand your fascination with the families. The shot of the lone woman is haunting. Where you in a similar boat?
I imagine some of our Louisiana bayou boys feeling at home in that environ versus the terror you mention of NYers etc.
Thank you.

[bixaorellana]

So many questions! This is fascinating. The Vietnamese could hardly have shrugged off all the years of war and hardship, but it's amazing how the whole culture of the river seems to have remained unchanged.

That's an intriguing insight about how the French and the Americans are perceived. Paul Theroux comments in one of his books about how permanent & useful French construction in Vietnam is, whereas everything the US left was meant for provisional military use.

Were you perceived as a Frenchman or as an American? If you don't mind my asking, did you play the part of one or another in order to elicit more candid answers and comments from the Vietnamese you met?

(perhaps not the place for it, but .......... if you answer and I don't respond, it's because I'm moving today & am not sure when I'll get my computer service back. thanks.)

[Deleted]

I have always gone to Vietnam with my French passport. On my first trip there with a friend, we took several French language tours, because his English was not great. Often the French language tour groups are a mixture of French, Belgians, Italians and Spanish.

On later trips, I found it better to take the French tours simply because the groups were much smaller and less like a herd. The tour guides are always amazed that the French call nuoc mam nuoc mam, because the general term used in the other languages is always just fish sauce.

[Deleted]

Here are some photos back in town, and then on dry land.

Uncle Ho remains a heroic giant everywhere in the country.

The excursion boats were somewhat like the one on the right. All of them had roof coverings on them due to the unpredictable showers and the concept that tourists might melt in the rain.

I took this photo of a passing snack shop from a bridge.

At least when I was there, the Mekong Delta was not the sort of place where investors would put major factories. I imagine that this might be because of flood risks, but there were perhaps other economic factors of which I was not aware.

Besides the nuoc mam factories (I visited one, but I don't have any photos of it), another major activity was making sticks of incense.

Some people spent all of their time splitting small boards into smaller and smaller pieces until they achieved slivers of incense quality.

You probably noticed that only women were doing these jobs. Apparently the boys (these boys are Muslims) were free to do important things like buy sno-cones.

There were a few interesting market offerings.

But one of the main attractions was the snake market. There was clearly no lack of snakes in the delta.

Snake wine was one of the major items on sale. Our guide asked if anybody wanted to try it. There was embarassed silence in our group. I said, "I'll try it," and I was seconded by my friend Ali. This caused the two young Danes to say they would try it, too, but they glared at me as though I was forcing it down their throats. Macho issues!

More snakes coming up, much worse than what you see here.

Where does one sleep on such a trip to the Mekong Delta? Well, this was one of the hotels.

[Deleted]

Don't try to bring the snake wine to the United States.

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Everyone has heard of the worm at the bottom of the bottle, but what customs officials in Miami found kicked that up a few notches.

United States Customs and Border Protection officers conducting a routine inspection on Wednesday seized a cobra and other poisonous snakes in a bottle believed to be "snake wine."

Customs officials said the snakes, mixed in a glass container containing some form of alcohol, were inside an express mail package from Thailand.

Jose Castellano, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the agency discovered the bizarre beverage during the course of what otherwise would have been an ordinary search.

As strange as the tale might seem, Castellano said it was just another day at the office.

"We're not just at airports checking passports," said Castellano, whose officers also confiscated cocaine hidden in a diaper the same day they found the snake wine. "We check mail, boats and planes to make sure that anything that can be harmful or illegal does not enter the United States," he said.

"Based on a risk management system, we decide what packages we look at, depending on where they are from, and a lot of different characteristics that would cause us to look into something," Castellano said.

The investigation into the unusual cocktail is being handled by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Importing cobras into the United States is illegal because they are an endangered species.

"It is wildlife that was not declared," said Eddie McKissick, a spokesman. "The issue is that this species of snake is protected by the convention on international trade in endangered species. It applies to live and dead animals."

"We see this all the time," he added. "Not just the cobras, sometimes it's turtles and even dried sea horses."

Customs officials said the practice of producing an alcoholic beverage that includes a whole venomous snake in the bottle originated in Vietnam and is popular in Southeast Asia.

Officials said the entire snake is submerged in the alcohol, often with insects or other animals such as turtles.

The snakes, preferably venomous, are not usually preserved for their meat, but to have the snake poison dissolved in the liquor, which is then used for medicinal purposes, officials said.

Federal officials said the package was shipped from Thailand to an address in the southeastern United States. Authorities declined to reveal where or to whom the package was destined.

"We're still gathering facts and haven't determined a course of action," McKissick said.

The package, like all international mail, was inspected when it reached the regional Customs inspection site in the area for which it is destined. Once inspected, mail is turned over to the U.S. Postal system.

McKissick said importation of endangered species into the United States requires a permit and proper procedures have to be followed.

"If you have a demand for a wildlife species, someone has to go out and kill that species, so the regulations apply," he said. "These species require an export permit that they did not have."

[bixaorellana]

I assume the lighting on the outside of the hotel is meant to be attractive and not to prompt the words "hot sheet", as it does with me.

How was the wine?

[JohnWW]

Wow great pics. No snake wine for me, thanx!