It has been about 2 1/2 months since my mom and I took our transformative trip to Vietnam. This post is a bit belated to say the least, but the experiences- and flavors most importantly- are still fresh and bright in my memory.

I remember thinking that we truly didn’t want to leave Hoi An (which is where I left off in my last post). Both my mom and I felt as if we could spend an entire month in that stunning city, exploring, eating amazing food and drinking all the Vietnamese milk coffee. However, we had two more places to go and work to be done in one of them.

This second leg of our trip was definitely a bit more wild and hectic than the first. We went from staying a few nights deep in the untamed green jungle of the Mekong River Delta to the untamed urban jungle of Ho Chi Minh City. Both places were filled with beautiful kinds of chaos in completely different ways.

Where we were in the delta was overgrown with palms and plants, and the “bike trails” were just big enough for a single tire to wobble its way along. We had no plans or sense of time while staying there- we meandered and flowed with the wandering river village life.

However, as soon as we arrived in the big city, the pace completely changed. People, cars and motorbikes rushed around us and we found our own speed in with it all, hurrying to finish up class plans and prepare for a week of hard work. We spent our days teaching back-to-back workshops in classrooms at the South Saigon International School and the evenings trying to make the most of being in this vibrant and lively city.

Being a travel chameleon and an equally country-and-city kind of woman, I fell in love with both of these contrasting places. I had never been anywhere like the lush tropical environment of the Mekong Delta and at the same time, found the colors, smells, and fast-paced energy of Ho Chi Minh City quite intoxicating. Each experience was made even more full by the incredible food we tasted and devoured in each place. These were some of our favorites:

Mekong Delta