Saturday, July 14

The day started this morning around 6:00am. The great news is that Logan slept the whole night. We were all able to get a whole night's sleep which made everyone feel better.

We packed up around 8:00 AM and got ready for our journey to the Mekong Delta. It took a little less than 2 hours to get there. We went with 2 of the other families in a big air-conditioned van which was pretty comfortable.

When we got there, we immediately went to our boat and headed off. The water was muddy and choppy. The picture is the view from out the front of our boat. It shows other boats that look exactly like the one we were in. It didn't take long to reach the island which was our destination. We were able to see how they collect honey from "friendly bees" and the many uses of coconut milk. We saw how they mix it with sugar and create candy. They served us delicious tea and some homemade whiskey in a small shot glass. We also had peanut candy and dried ginger. We left and followed a narrow pathway through a kind of jungle-like environment. There were little shops selling various items (like everywhere else in the Ho Chi Minh City area). Our next stop was a covered pavilion where they served us local fruit (pineapple, papaya, "jackfruit" and dragon fruit). There was a musical show which featured 1 male and 2 female vocalists and a quartet of musicians. Logan really seemed to like the music. After the show we were on way to our next stop.

They took us to some skinny, canoe-like boats. We piled into 2 of them. In each one, a Vietnamese driver sat in the front and one sat in the back. They paddled us through winding waterways thick with brush overhead. The waterway was very narrow and boats were passing each other in both directions very close together (kind of like the traffic in Ho Chi Minh City). Logan got very hot and started to get fussy so we took turns fanning him with those triangular hats you see all over Vietnam.

We arrived at our next destination and toured some of that island and then stopped for lunch. There were hammocks that the babies layed in. Logan fell fast asleep while our tour guide rocked him and sung to him while the rest of us had Elephant Ear Fish as the main course. They place the whole fish in a stand on your table and then servers remove the meat and make a spring roll for you. We also had pork spring rolls, fried sweet potatoes and fried pancake batter along with Mekong Delta rice which is supposed to be lighter than traditional rice. Dessert was watermelon.

By this time the kids (and their parents) were starting to get pretty hot and it was time to head back. We got back on the river boat and headed for the van. On the way back to the apartment, we did what can best be described as,

"Something We Never Imagined We'd be Doing"...

Changing a dirty diaper on a moving bus while traveling down Highway 1 outside Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. There are many parts to that previous sentence and each one is a different adventure. :-)

We had a good day. It's now 8:15 PM and Logan has been zonked out for about 2 hours already. I'm betting he's going to be up pretty early in the morning so it's time to wrap up this posting for today. We will put up a couple more picutres though because that's really what you want to see anyway!