Vietnam - the Mekong Delta

January 12, 2015

Definitely the most interesting border crossing I'd ever experienced. A van drops Alicia and me (and about a dozen European backpackers) off at the Cambodia border near the Gulf of Thailand. Some official looking person takes our passports. Then we walk across to the Vietnam side with our luggage, and after an anxious wait outside a smallish building, our passports are returned. Vietnam, here we come!

A startling change in scenery and culture assured us we were in a distinctly different country. The first locals we encountered at the border and bus stations were a lot feistier and more assertive than Cambodians. After five hours in a "local" bus filled with a cross section of Vietnamese locals, including a mute conductor (I'm not kidding!), through a landscape of shapely mountains and vast patches of luminescent green paddy fields, we arrived in Can Tho. This surprisingly modern city was our base to explore the Mekong Delta. Snazzy cars on proper asphalt roads, gleaming stores selling fine clothes, high rise buildings... and no tuk-tuks around to ferry us to our hotel from the bus terminal. It was a sleek, air-conditioned taxi that deposited us in style at our rather pleasant hotel. This was not the third world - or so they would have us believe! From our 7th floor room we could see a very built up city on the banks of a wide river, the Hau River, a branch of the Mekong.

Night Market

Strolling by the riverside in the evening we got a sense of Vietnam's high powered energy, a contrast to sedate Cambodia. A statue of Ho Chi Minh, the revered leader who unified the country, greeted us from a sculpted garden. Sauntering along the busy street, noisy with bikers, we browsed dinner menus, excited to see such a decent choice of restaurants. We checked out the creative displays of unusual fruit sold by street vendors, who added their exotic touches to the city. Further on, crowds were beginning to cluster around a very colorful night market. Having had a long day, the escalating bustle in this lively area was too much for us, so we ambled back toward the restaurant we'd decided on for dinner.

Entering Nam Bo Restaurant, the first thing I noticed was that it was filled with French tourists. There was a colonial ambience emphasized by traditional wooden furnishings and fine linen. Studying the vast menu was fascinating. It featured a range of exotic cuisine, including many snake dishes. We had fresh spring rolls for starters. They were artistically wrapped with long scallions jutting out at either end. The tasty stir fried veggies with tofu I had for mains was seasoned with lemongrass and chili. I didn't care much for a bland mushroom side dish that we also ordered. A light and refreshing Saigon beer was the perfect drink for this truly satisfying meal.

In the morning, after a breakfast feast - restraint being impossible due to an overwhelming buffet spread of every imaginable breakfast food on the planet - we went on a half day tour of the Mekong Delta. When I climbed into the small wooden boat, I had to work hard to hide my nervousness from the driver - a sweet man with a very tanned, wrinkled face. I looked at the huge Hau River (also known as the Bassac River). It had begun its journey as the Mekong River well over two thousand miles away in the Tibetan plateau and cut through a huge chunk of South East Asia before splitting from it and arriving at this point, a few miles from where it would empty. I felt absurdly vulnerable. In front of us there were bigger, newer boats that belonged to major tour companies. Oh, why hadn't we arranged to be on one of those boats? But our skillful driver, with his constant beam and attentiveness, put us at ease. He certainly knew what he was doing - did it everyday of his life for decades, probably on that exact same boat. He gave us traditional conical bamboo hats for protection from the fierce heat. Six kilometers down this great river, passing villages with dilapidated houses on stilts, we came to Cai Rang, a floating market.

Cai Rang Floating Market

Eager vendors on bobbing boats, laden with watermelons, pineapples, coconuts, and various other produce shouted out their offerings. It was all quite colorful and atmospheric. I'd heard of floating markets before, but to actually see it in action - everything happening on the water - was quite a unique experience. The river was so integral to how the locals lived here. It didn't look easy, and they looked anything but wealthy. Such hard work, daily, to subsist.

We sailed on, past another smaller floating market, and then into a quiet canal. We stopped at a village where we saw all the stages in noodle making. At Hoai's Rice Noodle Factory we went on a quick tour of the process from the soaking and husking of rice to making sheets which are dried and cut into strips. We bought some traditional snacks - tapioca cubes, and dried banana crepe like sheets from vendors near the dock. As we continued our boat ride through quieter and narrower canals, we munched on these very tasty snacks. Despite the intense heat I was relishing every moment in this different world - far away from noise and people and the city.

Lush vegetation flanked the canals. It was so peaceful with just birdsong and and the splash of oars breaking the silence. Every so often we saw a local, bamboo hat perched on their head, rowing their boat to some isolated destination. Our driver gave us each a carved pineapple on a stick, a tangible reminder that we were indeed thousands of miles away from home.

Three hours later, back on land in Can Tho, I stared back at the river. A beautiful modern cable-stayed steel and concrete bridge stretched across, and I thought, wow, how symbolic! The past and the present linked by that bridge.