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Early start. Picked up by Long, our tour guide for the day. Happy, chatty and funny. Almost absurdly so for this hour of the morning. He declares himself ‘Saigonese’ and answers every uncomfortable question we’ve been sitting on since we got here. Police corruption, government policies, propaganda – nothing is off limits.
We ooze through the city, caught in the traffic. Long says the traffic is like a river and pedestrians are pebbles – the river flows around the pebbles. It’s the most poetic description of a South East Asian traffic jam I’ve heard to date. We’re headed to Cai Be, on the Mekong Delta. Watching the scenery change slowly outside the window, I notice the sparkling skyscrapers of metal and glass have faded away. Now, the streets are lined by shophouses – stacked rectangles of concrete, four stories high and painted all manner of colours. Some are bright and clean, others look weather-beaten. Noodle shops, guesthouses, watch repair, motorcycle mechanics on the ground floor. Washing flaps from windows on the upper floors, some have pot plants sitting on the balcony. Others have satellite dishes mounted, facing the sky.
After a while, this thins out to small farm plots and turns into rolling plantations of rice, jackfruit and dragonfruit. A patchwork of greens and yellows. The grassy rice plants look odd planted in their marshes next to the neat rows of cactus-like dragonfruit plants. Crops grow easily here; the delta is top dressed regularly by the rising and falling Mekong Delta. Small graves are dotted amongst the fields, the resting place for the ancestors on their land. According to Long, this was so they could watch over the family, but also to guilt trip them into not selling the land. Over my dead body – literally! Vietnamese believe in everything, says Long. Every superstition, every religion – even animism. They’re spiritual, full-stop.
We’re meeting our boat in a canal near the Cai Be fresh market. Follow Long through the market, an overwhelming riot of colours, scents and noises. I have to stoop so I don’t lose an eye to a makeshift awning, but I am grateful for the shade. Sacks of dried fish, dried chillies, and rice. Mounds of fresh vegetables – potatoes, okra, capsicums, onions, corn, tomatoes, cabbage, fennel, water spinach, mushrooms and eggplants. Fruit so bright and fresh my mouth watered, stacked haphazardly – bananas, oranges, dragonfruit, passionfruit, pineapple, milk apple, mangoes, jackfruit, guava and watermelon. Durian so pungent my eyes watered. Fish panicked in shallow troughs, splashing water across my feet. Frogs in buckets, covered by nets to stop them escaping. Snails by the scoop, and chickens in whicker baskets awaiting their fate. Spices, dried and fresh, sold by the handful or bag. Chillies, garlic, mint, Thai basil, tumeric, cumin, peppercorns, salt, ginger, chives, coriander, parsley, Vietnamese mint, lemongrass and sage. Ladies haggled with sellers, crouching low over their wares. Clanging of pots, rustling of bags. The air smelled fresh, wet, earthy and spicy all at once.
We board our boat; the driver pulls it up close to a set of disintegrating concrete steps and we leap on. The boat is long and thin, with rows of wooden chairs. It would seat at least 30 people, however today there’s four of us. Long, myself, Husbando and boat driver. It seems obscene to use such a large boat for such a small party, but its terribly relaxing.
The Mekong is a grand beast. Even in the Delta, it is as wide as a football pitch is long – wider in some places. Homes perch along the bank, little shantys on stilts or sturdier concrete boxes. Some areas are so poor the river floods their homes on high tide. Others are set higher, on stilts well above the tide mark. People carve out a living on the muddy banks of the river, some as boat mechanics, others a fuel suppliers. Some are fisherman, others farm in the marshy soil. Water hyacinth chokes the bank in places, and attempts to overrun the river. Locals have penned it back with bamboo fences and nets, but still it marches. Great chunks break off and float around in the currents. We run it over with ease. Market boats, now quiet after the morning rush, bob together. Their owners sleep in hammocks strung across the deck, a foot or shock of hair visible as we pass.
We cruise up river, past other tourist boats much fuller than ours. Arrive at a small canal which disappears into the mangroves and out of sight. I alight with the grace of a new born giraffe into a sampan. It may as well be a surfboard. We tip and wobble alarmingly as Husbando settles in. The sun is extreme, and I can smell my hair frying. Long passes down two conical shaped hats, called nón lá. Instantly understand why everyone wears one here. Immediately, I am 10 degrees cooler with it on. Long waves goodbye, and the wiry gentleman on the back of the wood plank pushes off. Half rowing, half pushing us along with the long oar. We move away from the thoroughfare of the river, the canal shrinks to little more than two metres wide. It’s unbelievably quiet. The only noises are the gentle trickles of the long oar swishing through the water, and the occasional creak of the wooden sampan. The canal narrows further, and we beach on the bank to get out the way of the oncoming sampan. More tourists wearing nón lá are being paddled along by a short, thin woman. Further into the canal – by now we’ve taken so many turns I’m not quite sure which way we’re facing. We slip beneath low, hand made wooden bridges. In the distance, I can hear Vietnamese dance music blaring – Reunification Day celebrations must have started early here! I notice the number of plastic bags floating in the water, or caught in the mangroves. Humanity’s plastic problem hits me full in the face – the scourge of the plastic bag has made its way to the Mekong Delta, to somewhere seemingly so lush and fertile. Our oarsman must have grown tired of sampaning us along, as he starts an outboard motor and powers back out to the main Mekong river and the boat.
Cruising down river further, passing all manner of barges, boats and rafts. Even pass a large white river cruise ship. Stop at a local’s house-slash-restaurant for lunch. We choose to eat in the one of the small thatched roof huts dotted through the fruit grove. Uncle is happy to see us and brings us the coldest bottles of water he can find. Cicadas scream in the stifling heat, and every now and then we hear the buzz of a motorbike on a track through the trees. Order the set menu, a great feast of soup, braised chicken, fried elephant ear fish, broiled prawns, spring rolls, fruit and steamed rice. All grown or caught locally, and cooked fresh. A delight for the senses. The fish was light and clean, and eaten wrapped in rice paper with handfuls of fresh herbs that are piled on our table. Caught local, in the Mekong. Dipped in fish sauce with sesame oil. I could eat this for the rest of my life. Immediately consider moving to this delta. Life altering.
More cruising, this time back to Cai Be to the car. Stop at one of the floating market boats, to see the Fruit Lady. We tie up with her, and climb across to her boat. She’s half my height, with a broad smile and deft hands. She immediately starts chopping up fruit for us. Another boat rolls past, filled with more Mekong tourists all smiling and waving. We wave back, while one of their guides leaps aboard and buys two dozen fresh coconuts. Coconuts are opened and distributed as their boat pulls away and the Fruit Lady returns to chopping mango for us. She lays the smorgasbord of fruit out on a banana leaf. I recognise some, like mangosteen, pineapple, mango and banana. Long points the others out: pomelo, guava, milk apple, rose apple, longan and dragonfruit. The fruit is so fresh and juicy, I contemplate becoming a Fruit Lady on the floating market just so I can eat this forever. This is what fruit should taste like. Tart, sweet, sticky, aromatic, refreshing. The Fruit Lady hugs us before we leave, and wants a photo with us. Adopt me Fruit Lady, so I can eat all of the mangosteen!
Our time on the delta has come to an end. Another stop on the way back to Ho Chi Minh City, this time at Vinh Trang Chua, a temple near another Mekong Delta town: My Tho. Two huge white Buddha images, one the slim South East Asian style and one the fat, happy East Asian style, sit out the front. They contrast beautifully against a sparkling blue sky. Follow Long past the ten tour buses parked beside the road, and into the temple. Three monks are sitting at a table, in their saffron coloured robes, debating with each other intensely. There’s papers spread across the table, covered in scripts. They take no notice of us. The chatter dies away as we walk further into the temple building, past shrines, incense burners and enormous wooden drums. There’s a pond in the middle, with painstakingly curated bonsais around it and tiny porcelain bridges and towers. Through the inner door, and my eyes take a minute to adjust to the lack of light. It is dark, and much cooler in here than outside. The only sound is the occasional creaking of the floor boards. The floor boards are smooth and cold under my feet. Around the walls, there are shrines to Buddha and his followers, gold leafed and carved from dark teak. There are donations and offerings spread across the floor in front of each of them, so you must be careful where you tread. The centrepiece, a statue of the Jade Emperor, is bathed in dappled sunlight from the small skylights above. The light casts ghostly shapes on the incense smoke, and the whole scene is mystical. I stand in awe, soaking in the smell of the incense, jasmine flowers, the cool air and the darkness. Try to preserve this exact moment forever.
Try to nap on the way back to Ho Chi Minh City, but am awoken regularly by honking horns. Despite the traffic, we’re back in time for afternoon beers – still thinking about that food in the Mekong Delta.
Notes:
- The floating market at Cai Be happens super early, so you’ll need to be super early or stay near Cai Be overnight if you want to see the market in action.
- Book a tour! You’ll see so much more, and get so much more out of the day. There’s a huge variety of operators who can cater to your desires.
- A ride in a sampan is eerily quiet and very peaceful… just go steady when getting in.
Enjoying my Vietnam diaries? You can catch up with the others, and check out my Cambodian adventures.
