After breakfast in Saigon, a grave drove us to the bus stop. The bus station looked more like a demolished hostel entrance. The manager there ( In a wheelchair and torso-free ) waved at us and gave us two plastic stools to wait. The bus then also came and took us to My Tho, two hours away. From the road to Homestay, 1.5 km away, we should be driven on motorbikes. To Reiner's chagrin, I am not yet ready to sit on such a thing. Especially not with all the luggage. That's why we ran the little bit. But the walk was very nice (except for the luggage). You feel like you're in the Garden of Eden! Bananas, coconuts, mango, jackfruit, chilli peppers, pomelo, … everything grows right on your doorstep. Also the cocoa fruit! Our host has nicely harvested one for us and gave me to try. It is elongated, yellow orange and has a hard lightly pupated shell, like pumpkin. Inside there are five strands of beans surrounded by soft sweet-sour lychee-like flesh. The beans are nutty and taste a bit bitter, unfortunately not yet like chocolate. But they are also freshly edible.
In order to get the cocoa smell and taste, the beans are further processed and fermented and dried.
In the evening we ate very well in our homestay and then listened to the crickets and other animals in hammocks directly on the water.
Silke