|ABOVE| J.Crew tank // Winter Kate kimono jacket // Hathamade wrap bracelet // Chloe & Isabel bracelet
As you can tell by the lack of images of what I wore, traveling through the southern most region of Vietnam, the Mekong Delta wasn’t the easiest place to stay fashionable. The heat was nearly unbearable and the humidity didn’t help. When we weren’t drenched with sweat, we were drenched with a rain that made the plastic ponchos we wore useless. I now understand what Forrest Gump remarked about Vietnam, “We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain… and big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath.”
Speaking of hydration, I drank more things that I’ve never consumed before in that day, including straight from a coconut that made me doubt all bottled coconut water, a tea that I couldn’t get enough of, and snake wine (rice wine infused with snakes…for real), which I couldn’t bear more than a sip of.
We toured through the local floating markets by sampan (boats) and watched locals sell goods right out of their house boats, which they also hung their laundry out to dry when it wasn’t raining. The boat took us to a local food market on land as well, where we learned how the locals make coconut candy, rice cakes, and of course, snake wine.
Later, we were dropped us off for a lunch of local foods, including some of the freshest produce in the country. Our tour then split off into small long tail boats, where local women paddled us through a tributary. It was the perfect serene way to explore before returning to the city life in Saigon for the rest of our trip.
