One of the huge bonus features of sailing on a smaller sized ship, such as the Quest, is that we can sail right up the Saigon river and dock pretty much in the city proper.  We loved that when we were in Seville, and here in Saigon, it isn’t all that much different – although it is such a huge city that there is a shuttle to take you into the main central district.  Not that we’ll be using it though, because we have a tour to the Mekong….but first we have a lovely sail up the river, or as the Captain calls it – the Saigon Slalom!  Pretty accurate actually as the river twists and turns its way through the mangrove forests, past innumerous fishing boats and fish farms and finally into the massive overdevelopment that is Saigon. 

We arrive a little later because of the slalom, it takes 5 hours to sail up here from the sea – but this is an overnight port, so there isn’t any issue with timing. Of course, for us it doesn’t matter at all because we are going on the aforementioned tour.  Of course we know the drill by now.  Grab our bus stickers and head out to the gangway right as the ship is released, making us first on the bus.  Team Stevens!

The bus fills up and we are pleasantly surprised at the level of shall we say ability on this tour.  No waddlers or wheelchairs.  Gives us hope.  The guide is absolutely adorable although he never introduced himself!  Just started off on his tour guiding and never looked back.  Sweet.  The tour schedule has obviously been rearranged, most likely due to White Night, and our first stop will be the Mekong Rest Stop for lunch. It takes a whole 2 hours to get there anyway because traffic is so heavy from the holidays.  So many people have taken 4 days off and are now returning to their homes – it is slow going in our direction, but heading toward Saigon?  Oh lord – bumper to bumper and a virtual stand still.  This should be an interesting ride home!

Arriving at the Rest Stop, which is not the “traditional” type of gas station/restaurant rest stop you always see, it is more of a resort restaurant and souvenir shop all in one.  Huge open air eating areas with ponds and lotus plants everywhere, we think we’ve been here before, but who knows.  It’s included and we don’t care! We grab a table, eventually sharing with 2 couples traveling together, originally from the States who have lived in Oaxaca Mexico for the last 20 years!  Cool. The food is family style for 8, but we only have 6 at the table – so extras all around!  First course is Elephant Ear fish – which is actually piranha! – cooked in the traditional “crippy” fish way.  I was thinking we’d just dig in, but no, one of the waitresses arrives and expertly pulls the flesh off the fish to make fabulous spring rolls.  Let the smorgasbord begin!  Along with the spring rolls there are plates of pork ribs, fried pork rice, grilled shrimp, pork wrapped in rice noodles and fried – which is oh so very good! –  fish cakes on lemongrass and a hot pot soup. Really excellent meal.

Another hour on the bus, crossing different branches of the Mekong with the now ubiquitous fish farms (I mean really, it is where all the frozen fish we buy at home comes from, so we get why the farms are everywhere!), then to a little boat dock where we board our launch to take us down the Mekong.  We’re lucky enough to grab the front seats and are off down the river we go, enjoying the breeze (have I mentioned the heat???  Over 100 degrees today.  Joy!), past the factories making charcoal and other things out of coconut shells to the brick factory where our adorable local “guide” (gorgeous Vietnamese woman in traditional dress who has decided to wear our bus number sticker in her hair!) leads us through the factory, while our bus guide tells us about collecting the clay from the river, how it is formed into the brick, then dried and put into the enormous kiln fired with rice husks – which we get to tour as well. 

Back to the boat, we are treated with the local “beer” – actually coconut water, but it’s cute.  And very well done with a pretty little lotus flower on the side.  Another 20 minute ride takes us on a wide tributary of the Mekong with more fish farms and fishing nets tied up to tree trunks stuck in the middle of the river, eventually landing at the coconut factory.

Here of course we learn how to husk a coconut and scape the insides – which we’ve seen – but more importantly we get to try “Happy Water.”  Guide-boy (what else can I call him?) has been explaining Happy Water to us on the bus – it is water that has some sort of animal (think snake, rat, scorpion) or fruit in it, and buried for months to ferment.  He says Vietnamese drink Happy Water every day – they must be very happy Vietnamese!  The Happy Water here is of course snake wine – with a lovely Cobra inside that Guide-boy delights in showing off. He is adorable, no name or not!  Ed tried some – I took a little sip and well, it’s 100% alcohol, think grain, and not my style. 

But – this place is also the coconut candy place – and we get to try a bunch of samples which makes us buy way too much of it to take back to the ship.  Actually the objective is to divide it up and give it to the GR guys/gal who are so great and so overworked because of all this transition IT stuff it isn’t even funny!  After shopping, we all sit down to a wonderfully refreshing fruit buffet with – ready? – jackfruit!!!!  I’m in heaven and not above eating every piece of jackfruit on the plate once our tablemates are done with it. Nope, not a problem!   There is also some excellent mango and pineapple and pomelo with salt – and tea – eh – you know my thoughts about tea. But all in all, an excellent little stop.  And while we are snacking, we have a cultural song and dance show put on for us.  Just lovely.

Back in the boat we head off to our next stop, passing through gorgeous trees towering over the river on a narrow little branch of the Mekong. Guide-boy gets us all to do photos on the front of the boat as we glide through the peaceful waters (so sweet! Plus, he’s really a good photographer!), then we leave the boat to hop on what Guide-boy calls “tanks.” Very cute, but they are actually sort of like motorcycle Song Theaws. Two benches facing each other on a flat bed mounted to the back of the motorcycle.  The “tank” takes us to a bamboo mat maker shop, which was really interesting.  We watched a demonstration, learned how it was done, how long it took to make a mat, and how little it cost.  Crazy cheap for that amount of work. We actually bought 2 new sun hats made of bamboo that fold really nicely. Were they made here?  Eh, who knows, but at $2 USD each, they’re a bargain and much lighter than our rain hats.  We’re stylin’ now!

Back to the tanks, which take us to the Sampans where we float down the river a bit, marveling at how these men and women can propel the little canoes down the river without tipping us over (yeah, we have our own experience with that – needed a Sampan driver on that trip in HaLong) then it is back to the tanks which take us to the bus. 

Now the slog begins.   It is well after 3 pm and we have Azamazing evening tonight – buses leaving at 7pm.  Because of the traffic it is going to take us forever to get back – Guide-boy is thinking 2 plus hours.  Um.  Well.  Hey, nothing we can do now.  And it does take us way over 2 hours to get back through massive holiday traffic, arriving at the ship at 6:15.  This will work – we have 45 minutes for dinner and freshening up.  We can do this!  Good thing we were the first bus, that’s all I’ve got to say!

A quick room stop for the facilities (the only thing Guide-boy was a little lax in was facility stops) and we’re up in the buffet, fed and back down in the cabin with enough time for a quick shower.  Then back downstairs in time to be called for our bus ride to the Binh Quoi Village for our Vietnamese culture evening. 

All we can say is holy cow!  This is our first off-ship Azamazing Evening since the restart, and while we’ve loved all of the onboard events (they’ve been fantastic) this was spectacular.  We arrive at the village – which isn’t a real village at all but a recreated village in the middle of some section of the city (it took 30 minutes to get there) – but which has the look and feel of an old ancient village, especially at night.  There are lanterns and thatched roof structures and ponds with lotus flowers and just a lovely atmosphere.  We are guided through the entire village, back to a huge meadow area that is reserved specifically for us.  Walking down the path, passing different craft artisans who were making figurines out of sweet rice paste, a calligrapher writing out your name, origami makers and a portrait artist – all of which you could do for free.  We had the calligrapher do our name before we made our way into the meadow with tables for 600, all in white linen with chairs wrapped in white and red ribbons facing a monstrous stage. 

The show that ensued was definitely a “wow” as they described it in the daily Insider program.  Captain Jonas introduced the show – amidst an incredible fireworks display – one of which was a rocket that launched right near us and shot out directly at the stage (we have no idea how he didn’t even flinch at that!) – which contained about 6 different music, dancing and fashion show acts, all directed by a famous Vietnamese director, Tran Minh Cuong. During the show, we were treated to local snacks of smoked cheese, fried sticky rice and nuts and fruit as well as 2 drinks.  The finale was another famous artist called Duc Dau who sang and danced for us to the final accompaniment of more fireworks. 

First class all the way.  Just an excellent evening all around.  And then we were released to our buses to make our way back to the ship through now virtually empty streets (except for the ever present scooters), passing by the wonderfully lit 81 story building that is the tallest in Saigon and talking to one of the guides who hopped on the bus with us about traffic and scooters – showing him the scooter waterfall from Taipei.  He in turn showed us a picture of massive scooters on the road in a huge traffic jam – turns out that photo was from a little while ago from another guide who was on the Mekong tour on – thankfully – another bus!  They got stuck in all that traffic coming back and didn’t even make it to the show.  They didn’t get back to the ship until Azamazing evening was 75% done.  Huge bummer. 

Arriving at the ship, we were greeted with champagne and Amanda singing on the promenade deck.  Yeah.  Azamara is back in full force.  We shall see if it was just Japan making everything wonky….we’ve got almost another month on this ship to find out!

Back aboard, we headed to the Den, thinking we’d hang there for a while but it is packed.  Where were these people?  Why didn’t they come to Azamazing evening?  Rommel in GR tells us 160 passengers didn’t go. What?  Why?  Why wouldn’t you?  Honestly, people.  At any rate, we just grabbed a to-go drink and retired to the cabin to hang out and watch the lit up skyline of Saigon.  Pretty Azamazing day.