Our trip to Cau Lay was one of my favourite stops in Vietnam.
We took a boat trip on one of the small braches of the Mekong river. It was us, the river, two kids jumping in the river and no traffic noise at all.
When we arrived in the village, we started cycling alongside canals and orchards. Then we arrived at the house of an old veteran.
He picks a flower I have to put behind my my ear. He also makes Kristof give me a flower. Which he has never done before in his life. We also have to put on traditional Vietnamese hats before we enter the sampan to go to his orchard.
The sampan ride is a bit wobbly, yet for me this is ultimate bliss: no people, no traffic … Only peace and quiet.
In the orchard we get to taste fruit: rambutan, apple, pineapple, jack fruit, pomelo, mango …. It’s all so delicious and so different from what you can buy in the shops around here.
I especially loved the rambutan and the pomelo. You can’t find the rambutan here and the pomelo (the size of my head!) was so much sweeter.
The lovely veteran tells us about his life and his orchard. And then he turns out to be a prakster. He gives us seeds of a certain plant that explode when you put them in water. He puts a package in my husbands trousers and pretends to pour water in his pocket 🙂
Our lunch spot
Do you want to discover more about Vietnam? Read what we did.
