February 10, 2012

  • Vietnam Part 19: End of the line.

    DSC_5968-760-2

    DSC_5975-763-2

    The next stop on the tour consisted of a medley of fruits while traditional Vietnamese singers performed. You’ve got the recognizable pineapples and mangoes, and along with that is dragonfruit (available at asian grocery stores in houston- maybe a consistency similar to cantaloupe?, but somewhat bland), lychee, and papaya (I can’t get myself to like these).

    DSC_5997-765-2

    Then they brought out a snake to take pictures with. It was kind of a neat feeling to have a snake kind of just slowly wrap itself around you.

    DSC_6010-768-2

    The final leg of travel consisted of a boat manually powered by a person with one large rear oar.

    DSC_6013-769-2

    My dad asked our rower how many boats he rowed a day. He said not many. What was there to do if he wasn’t rowing? Fishing? No, there weren’t any fish to catch in that area. And so these people’s meager incomes relied solely on waiting for tour agencies to bring tourists out, which is a scary thought if tourism suddenly dropped or if they were injured on the job.

    DSC_6019-770-2

    The boats themselves looked fairly ancient.

    DSC_6029-774-2

    DSC_6033-777-2

    The last stop on the tour was seeing how they made keo dua, or coconut candy.

    DSC_6041-782-2

    It’s a fairly labor intensive task, with all the molding, cutting, and wrapping done manually. It’s good and chewy, but it sticks to your teeth and hardens fairly quickly in storage.

    DSC_6046-784-2

    End day eleven.

Comments (2)

  • Dragonfruit texture reminds me more of jicama… like an almost flavorless, watery version of daikon. lol

    I’ve tried to get myself to like papaya, but it just isn’t happening. My husband and his family love golden papayas, they have a bit more flavor.

  • @Femme003 -  Haha that’s a better description- it’s disappointingly flavorless for something so vivid in color. yeah, papaya is kinda… meh. And they serve it at room temperature which doesn’t help either.

Post a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *