On our tour of the Mekong River Delta we had a chance to visit an orchard and sample some of the local fruits, one of which was the Longan, a close relative of the Lychee.

A basket full of just-picked longans in orchard by the Mekong.
We got to sample a few ripe fruits from the orchard.
Once the longans were peeled, I laughed, “Ha ha, it looks like a bowl of eyeballs.”  

Phuoc explained, “That’s why they’re called ‘longan’, dragon eyes; ‘long‘ means dragon and ‘an‘ means eyes.”
Come to think of it we did see some googly-eyed dragons at a royal tomb in Hue.
Back at home it’s pretty easy to find longans for sale in Chinatown.

More about the tropical fruits I discovered in Southeast Asia:

• Rose apple (or water apple or syzygium aqueum or…)

• Gac, something different from Vietnam…

• Durian and Jackfruit

• Kumquat: An Intensely Sour Orange Fruit

More about our December 2013 trip to Vietnam.