After a busy morning on the Mekong River we were headed for a late lunch.

The boats we rode in got smaller and smaller as the channels we went through got narrower and narrower. Near the end they were almost impassable, totally choked with weeds.We finally arrived at an orchard full of strange and exotic fruits. Our guide Phuoc knew all the names in Vietnamese and occasionally their English counterpart. The ‘star apple’ (below) is known in Vietnam by a name that translates as ‘milk breast’, and water chestnuts translate as ‘buffalo horns’.This amazing fruit tree had flower buds, flowers, fruit buds, unripe fruits and ripe fruits on the tree, all at the same time, and I later learnt it was called a ‘rose-apple’. Here are some blushing green rose apples and some ‘rose’-coloured ones in the orchard.
At the end of our wander through the orchard they brought out jackfruit, longan (translates as ‘dragon eyes’), rambutan and papaya for us to taste.Lunch was at a floating restaurant on the edge of the river. 
This was the tasty barbecued Elephant Ear fish they fed us.It looked tastier from this angle. Our guide Phuoc didn’t join us for the lunch even though the amount of food served was equal to two lunches.  I couldn’t even come close to finishing it all and so skipped any fillers like rice.

Phuoc was taken aback when he saw what we hadn’t eaten. “You eat pork but not rice?”

“I eat pork with noodles,” I explained.

Phuoc frowned, “Pork is for rice.”

“It’s good with noodles too. I add pork, basil and dipping sauce.”

Phuoc’s only comment to that was, “Strange.”

More on our December 2013 trip to Vietnam.