Today, we are going to spend every single penny (dong) of our very wallets. Why spend all? The return rate back in Singapore Dollars isn't really good as no one wants an up and down economy currency. So first stop, Hello Kitty! Who knew Vietnam has its own tiny hello kitty store at the corner of the street near Ben Thanh Market? As usual, the girls spent some time browsing the many kitty products. And of course, left the store with many hello kitty products. How much money can these cute companies make?!


Moving on, we went to Lotteria for our lunch. Lotteria is basically a fast food restaurant that came from Japan, with shrimp burgers (my oh my) and other fast food goodness.


I ordered the shrimp burger, which was a what I think fish fillet stuffed with many shrimps inside. Just look at that! I had to sacrifice my iPhone with my oily fingers to take a picture of this flavourable consumable!


Afterwards, we headed to Benh Thanh Market just to buy what's left of our lists.

Today is a free day for us so tonight, Ms Wan our teacher in-charge, treated the class and our beloved caretakers (Mr. Bao and Miss. Ngan) to a night in the karaoke! We sang till our voices creaked and had a blast!

Today for our last tour and also part of our IS Module Lesson, we are going to the Amata Industrial Park. We stopped by an office which we then walked to the meeting room. As crammed as we were, a man in a suit came in and introduce us what the industrial park was all about. Basically, their plan for the park was not only for commercial purposes, however, they wanted to turn it into a city; with accommodations and malls. Then i thought to myself, what if one day I could build a city of my own too? It really inspired me somewhat and so I told myself:"Maybe I should add this to the things to do before i die: build a city" Maybe that's what I can try.


After the introduction, we went to another factory. Turns out they were caught off guard as they mistook the day of the tour, oh well on the bright side: less time breathing in fertiliser, pesticide and insecticide fumes.


For the last factory quite similar to the second, it was a testing laboratory for the chemicals and also a packing workshop. It was my first time looking the machines involved in the packaging of the chemicals. The machine's style of packaging was so hypnotizing, everyone was staring at it for minutes and minutes. (There was a "no pictures allowed" rule by the way, so below is from the second factory.)


Finally our tour ended and we had the day to ourselves. We went to the student market to try out the pho our teacher, Ms Wan, was talking about. It was surprisingly better than the other restaurants'!

Day 2 on the river, we headed downstream to look at a river market. It was a really unique experience for me as for some, instead of us going to the stalls, the stalls come to us. They will hook on to our boats (pretty scary for a moment) and then proceed to "advertise" what they had to sell.


The boats that came to us were mostly selling beverages and drinks; one even had a cute little kid as the promoter. The kid seemed grumpy though, as if he didn't like to wake up so early in the morning to work with mommy.


There were more stalls than yesterday as today we went to the marketplace very early in the morning. We could see the many fresh and colourful vegetables and fruits strewn all over their boats, smaller boats alongside it making a wholesale purchase. Once again, i found the experience really one of a kind!



As the afternoon came, we got back on land and headed to this tourist village. The village was really interesting, having its many attractions like the pig/dog/boat race, a small zoo and even a crocodile lake! Our first destination was this ancient house, quite similar to the one at Dalat but we had a tour inside. It was owned by the landlord and was filled with expensive materials like special woods for the columns and walls, and not forgetting the antique furniture. It was my first time looking at and listening to a phonograph/gramophone!


Awhile later, the guide took us outside to look at the old tools that were used in their daily lives like contraptions to catch fish and also large stone wheels that removes the husks of rice.


We continued our way to the pig and dog race, whereby we can place bets on which dog/pig would win. If it won, we would be able to bring the animal home! In the form of a piggy bank that is.


After the squealing and screaming of the girls after the race, we went to a crocodile farm where i was able to fish my first crocodile! I was given a rod and at the end of it was this long string which had a piece of meat tied to it. And what do we do to it? We lure the crocodiles! I managed to pull one up but due to its massive strength and weight, it was able to snap the meat off the string. Just you wait next time!


We headed to a boat race afterwards, rowed by our group's girls and then proceeded for lunch which consisted of frog, elephant fish (named that because it looks like the ear of an elephant), crocodile meat (tasted like tough chicken) and salads.


With a satisfying amount of new experiences gained today, we headed back onto the bus which was heading back to our hostel; signaling the end of our trip to Mekong.

With a wholesome meal of breakfast ham, sunny side up eggs and a loaf of baguette in the prettiest restaurant I've seen here, we headed to the Mekong River for our tour.


It was drizzling so before we got on the boat, we had to put on these large colourful plastic bags we salvaged from the garbage bins nearby (not really, they're just easy-tearable one ply plastic raincoats). We headed downstream whilst the tour guide introduced us the river and also the many things we could see on the river.


The river, as you can see below, is of this brownish colour because it carries the many sediments from the lands and soils. The river passes through a length of 6 countries: China's Yunnan province, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and finally Vietnam. It is also the world's 12th longest river.


As we go by a small river market, we can see boats selling some vegetables. How do they display what they were going to sell? By hanging what they want to sell on these bamboo poles on their boats. We will be going to a larger market tomorrow, so more pictures till then.


We stopped by a small "working area" as many things were being manufactured here. First stop was the rice paper. In this picture, you can see the lady spreading out a small thin mixture of the rice sauce onto a small thin plastic, which is pulled over an oven. The oven is fueled by recycling the rice husks (the brown things) as they are slowly inserted into a flame inside. Talk about being efficient! After sometime, the rice paper is then peeled off and left to dry and solidify.



Next stop was the sweets. They cooked the sweet liquid which contained coconut, possibly sugar and some other ingredients in a large wok, which is then dripped into moulds and then cut into desirable sizes. The newly made batch was mouthwatering and smelled so great, but I really disliked the times where it gets stuck in my teeth!


Finally, the pop-rice. Similar to popcorn, the rice pops into tiny balls of goodness! Rice is mixed into heated black sand and stirred. After a short moment, the rice suddenly pops into shape and is then filtered out from the sand into the next process: applying the flavours and also cutting them. Flavours ranged from chocolate, pandan, strawberry and even durian.


We got on our boats with our hands carrying bags of sweets to take back home. Our next stop was a house of traditional music. We reached and was served some tropical fruits from the area, dragon fruit, watermelon and rambutan. The music part was quite entertaining as there was also a play involved and one of the actors was quite humorous actually.


We had our lunch back on the main land and headed back to our hotels. For dinner, we went aboard a really noisy (loud karaoke frenzied Vietnamese) restaurant cruise ship where we ate the usual fish and soup. With full stomachs and slightly damaged ear drums, we headed back to rest for the next day.

Why did i combine a whole week on one post? The reason: there wasn't really much happening. So to save the environment and the whales(not really), I've decided to blog about the whole week in a single post!

This is the week where tours have almost come to an end, where academic matters come into view and where our timetables would be most likely filled with core module lessons and student exchange programmes: this is Dry Week Vietnam.

So what did we do on this glorious occasion? First off, we draw. For our core module, we had the second assignment which was quite similar to the first. Easy pass there. However i didn't have a picture of me doing my work so here's a picture of a cliff overlooking the small lake we have near our hostel.


One of those days, we had another trip to Parkson Shopping Mall to just go around to buy stuff to tick off from our waste-your-money-buying-useless-souvenirs-for-relatives-and-friends list (whew! that's a mouthful).


We stopped by at Highland Coffee to have a slice of this oven warmed chocolate brownie drizzled with hot chocolate sauce. Just take a look at that! Even a 3 megapixel picture can make you drool.


Andddd... here's a picture of an expired fungal infected slice of beef we found in the supermarket just to, hmm.. you know, neutralise the whole tasty yummy feeling. Credits to muhammad's eagle eye spottage of the expired food stuffs in the market.


For two of the days, we had student exchange programmes. Whereby bowls of water, bananas, tiny apples, rubber bands, tooth picks, bamboo sticks and just ice-breaking games are involved. The Vietnam students turned out to be quite friendly than what I expected and I became quite comfortable with them after a short while.

To conclude the week, it was pretty relaxed as we had a lot of times for ourselves. It allowed us to bond pretty well and also gain a form of independence as we were mostly left to do what we wanted.