HCMC to the Mekong Delta

Breakfast was just from the hotel.

Very good French bread (the French did occupy Vietnam for a while before the Americans showed up), unknown cold cuts, and fruit.

In the Mekong Delta, we visited a candy making shop.

Bits of coconut candy. Somewhat like toffee in texture. Tasty!

Puffed rice snacks.

Lunch!

Elephant Ear Fish (left) and prawns (right).

Snake meat! Apparently this dish is an entire snake's worth of meat.

Some kind of spring roll.

Meat stir-fried/sauteed with unknown greens.

Noodle soup.

Stuffed flowers. I think it's flowers of the zucchini plant, but I'm not 100% sure.

Yet another fish (this is in addition to the previous Elephant Ear Fish!!!).

Rambutan, mini-bananas, and pineapple for dessert.

Giant jackfruit.

More rambutan and some unknown green fruit. The unknown fruit is sort of lychee/longan-like in that you peel off the shell and the fruit has a sweet, white-colored flesh with a pit.

Snake liquor!

Me next to the jar of the snakey booze.

We went biking and stopped at a road-side fruit stand to buy some durian. For those of you unfamiliar with the so-called "King of Fruits," it has a *very* strong smell. So strong that the fruit is banned from hotels, the Singapore subway system, and has even caused a security alert on an Australian airplane flight. Many people do not like it. I didn't like it the first time I tried it many years ago, but it's grown on me since. Sue has liked it since she first tried it.

Cutting open the fruit.

Bon appetit!

That night, we stayed with a family that does home stays (basically they cook you dinner and you get to hang out at their place... although their place is pretty big and is equipped to handle a decent number of visiting tourists).

Their kitchen.

And again.

The mother blowing into a pipe to stoke the fire.

Fish grilling in the background. Not sure what's on the fire up front.

The daughters helping out in the kitchen (battering and frying stuffed zucchini flowers I think).

Some kind of grilled meat, french fries, and the stuffed flowers.

The previously seen grilled fish (top), morning glory (a kind of veggie, also known as kong xing cai\ or "empty heart vegetable" in Chinese), noodles (bottom), and the same stuffed flowers from before (bottom left).

Soup (top right), pineapple and rambutan (top left), and some kind of meat (don't remember).