Mekong Delta
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
103
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
Can Tho, Vietnam
Friday, July 28, 2006
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We took a 2-day tour to the Mekong delta. I was a little "dissapointed", but I guess that I was expecting too much: the northern part of Vietnam was really stunning, and the weather is now more like of a tropical rainy season...
Anyway, it was a good tour. We had a boat ride around MyTho and the Turtle, Dragon, Phoenix, and Unicorn Islands. We visited a caramel/coconut factory, that we reached in small row boats in narrow water streams, floating between water coconut trees.
In the evening we reached Can Tho, 5th city in Vietnam: the Mekong delta is very densely populated, and most of the country's rice production comes from this region. We stayed in bungalows at one of the inhabitant's house, and had dinner in his house (homestay, as they describe it in the tour). Not quite the authentic experience, but interesting anyway. The food was delicious, as usual, with roll-it-yourself fish springrolls. In the morning we got to witness the preparation of a true banquet, to celebrate the grandfather's leaving his body.
On the second day we did some more boat cruising in the small canals, visiting a floating market, going under and then walking over a monkey bridge, and visiting a rice factory.
The monkey brigdes used to be found everywhere in the delta, as they allowed to access most of the houses there, by leaping over a canal. They are being all destroyed now, and replaced by concrete larger brigdes, in an effort to improve the delta infrastructures. We went over one of these monkey bridges: slippery, narrow, and moving as you walk on them...
Back to Saigon, it was worth going, but really nothing amazing. I guess it would be better to go around in a private boat, and to spend more time exploring the remote ends of the delta. Argh, and there were lots of mosquitoes too...
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One interesting thing though was to have a glimpse at how the people of the delta live on the water: some live on boats, other on houses built over the water. Therefore space is scarce, and we often saw people cooking or washing, crouching on the edge of their boat or house.
To get water, they usually drop a bucket in the brown water, and haul it up. For those not living on the water, they use big jars to store some water, so that they don't have to get into the river each time they need water. I guess they must be using rain water too, but I have not seen how they gather it.
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The floating market was composed of boats of all sizes, some selling and some buying, most seemingly doing both. It is a daily market, and is just like any other market, except that it takes place on water: that saves them from loading/unloading the fruits and vegetables.
While we were there, we got a true tropical storm, with wind gales and pouring water. That cut short our visit, but it was a good experience. When the rain stopped, teverybody went back to business (which could be, for the non-sellers on a boat, to lie in a hammock on the top deck).
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