{"id":1319,"date":"2012-11-28T04:00:28","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T04:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1319"},"modified":"2025-11-23T07:14:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T07:14:31","slug":"mekong-delta-cruising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2012\/11\/28\/mekong-delta-cruising\/","title":{"rendered":"Mekong Delta Cruising"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike other countries of the world, in Vietnam the minority of vehicles, after scooters, motor bikes, taxis and buses, are cars.\u00a0 And it seems the majority of those cars are large four-wheel drive vehicles.\u00a0 On Monday morning, all we wanted was a minibus to take us to the Mekong Delta, the Nine Dragon River Delta.\u00a0 We were standing in the foyer at Rick and Lans’ office at 7:30am and at 8am we started to get worried, but just as the fumes were starting to suffocate, the bus finally turned up.\u00a0 There were no other passengers on board and we headed out of Saigon without picking up anyone else.\u00a0 After fifty minutes, we finally started to see acres of green fields, mainly rice fields, which was quite a relief after all the concrete.\u00a0 It was a bucking-bronco of a ride.\u00a0 Every stretch of road that crosses a river, and there were many of them, has an enormous seam as you drive on to a bridge and again as you come down.\u00a0 Being the size of speed bumps and with the speed of the bus, we sometimes literally took off; thank goodness the seats were well padded. All over the world, I always enjoy looking out of the windows as we travel, to see what\u2019s different and what\u2019s going on out there.\u00a0 We were surprised to see hammocks hanging in every roadside caf\u00e9, of which there were many.\u00a0 In fact we think we saw more hammocks here than we ever did in Mexico.\u00a0 After about three hours we crossed some massive bridges reminiscent of the Dartford Bridge in England and far bigger than the Anzac Bridge in Sydney.\u00a0 The rivers underneath were always muddy and wide, with clumps of large leaved water hyacinth slowly floating down river.<\/p>\n

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Traditional Transport Around the Mekong Delta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At 11:30am, on arriving in Can Tho, we were met by our guide Tsuy and we boarded a small boat.\u00a0 The driver took us out in to the centre of the river and we floated amongst the fruit and vegetable traders.\u00a0 The floating market starts very early, every day (except New Year\u2019s Day), so by now most of the boats had left, though there were still plenty for us to see.\u00a0 There is a tall bamboo pole on the front of each boat and tied to the pole is a pineapple, or a cabbage, whatever fruit or vegetable that trader is selling.\u00a0 Some even have a veritable fruit salad tied to the pole if they are selling more than one type. These traders are the wholesalers who bring their produce from their farms by boat and they then stay at the market for three days to sell their produce to local shops before heading back to their farms.<\/p>\n

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Fruit and Veggie Traders<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Mekong Delta Traders<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our boat then left Can Tho and motored south down the Bassac River to take us to our cruise boat.\u00a0 When we boarded the empty mini-bus in Saigon and the small boat in Can Tho, we wondered if and when more people would be joining us.\u00a0 But, as we climbed aboard the Mekong Melody, our small cruise boat, we were told that we were the only guests!\u00a0 We were given room no.101 and the only other room, no.102, remained empty.\u00a0 So we were grandly outnumbered on board by the crew of five. Mr Captain steered our boat through the busy waterways of the Mekong Delta.\u00a0 Mr Cook managed to dish up the most delicious food.\u00a0 Mr Engineer was around and about and doing his thing.\u00a0 Tsuy acted as guide, waiter and interpreter.\u00a0 And then there was The Boy; he seemed to be general helper and also the reflexologist.\u00a0 On the first evening, before dinner, we were both treated to a foot bath and foot massage.\u00a0 What a treat.<\/p>\n

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On Board The Mekong Melody<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Typical Homes Along the Mekong Riverbank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prior to the foot massage and dinner, the two of us and Tsuy were put ashore with bicycles.\u00a0 We cycled about 10 kms through numerous rice fields and villages. Tsuy pointed out fruits and flowers and explained a few things along the way, while children constantly shouted hello and waved to us.\u00a0 Our first introduction to the Mekong countryside was rather lovely.<\/p>\n

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Rice Field Workers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Many Ladies Still Wear The Traditional Ao Dai, Even On Bikes….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Boy And Mr Engineer On Our Cruise Boat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only thing that wasn\u2019t so great about the countryside, was that after dark, the non bitey rice flies arrived and flew about the deck of the boat, constantly landing all over you.\u00a0 But Tsuy helped ‘collect’ some by hanging up wide strips of Sellotape and he ended up with loads of flies stuck to them by the end of the evening. We had already had a six-course lunch, but after a beautiful sunset we were served up an enormous five-course dinner.\u00a0 We felt like a couple of stuffed Strasbourg geese.\u00a0 \u00a0The moon was almost full that evening and everything around us was pitch black.\u00a0 There were only a few lights on the riverbanks and the only sound was the chugging of our boat’s motor, a few birds and sometimes some music being played on the shore.\u00a0 To cool off we had cold showers before slipping under the crisp white sheets for a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

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Sunset Over The Bassac River<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were woken at 6am by the anchor being raised and the motor starting up, but we lazed in our bed for another hour just watching the passing scenery through the window. Breakfast continued in the \u2018multiple courses\u2019 tradition with copious amounts of omelettes, sausages, cheeses, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, jam, banana pancakes, yoghurt, rambutans, finger bananas and ginger teas.\u00a0 Then, with very full bellies, we were ferried across the river to go for a walk through a village.<\/p>\n

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A Local Ferry…..Not Ours!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were no rice fields here, but a huge variety of fruit trees; pomelo, durian, jackfruit, longan, rambutan, breadfruit, starfruit, bananas and many others that we didn\u2019t recognise. We also had fun playing with the mimosa plants, which Tsuy called \u2018shy lady plant\u2019 because the leaves shrink back when they are touched.\u00a0 There were also very many colourful cockerels, some wandering about and others kept under woven basket domes.\u00a0 One was receiving a very thorough wash and preening from its owner and its feathers shone vibrantly in the sunlight. Every house had one, some had almost a dozen; this was obviously big business.\u00a0 Tsuy informed us that \u201ccockfighting is illegal, but there is big prize\u201d; not sure where the police are\u2026.?!<\/p>\n

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Cockerel Preening<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back on board the Mekong Melody, we cruised on down the small river which we had anchored in overnight, to join a second large river, First River or Ti\u1ec1n Giang.\u00a0 Turning left, we slowly cruised northwards to Sa Dec.\u00a0 The two of us lay on the sun beds, snoozing, dozing and trying to read, in between watching the activity of the passing boats.\u00a0 Lunch arrived in the form of another enormous banquet, again beautiful presented.\u00a0 The banana flower salad was my favourite today.\u00a0 The flower was chopped up finely and pieces of shredded chicken were laid on top, tiny peanuts were sprinkled all over and the whole lot was soaked in a sugary lime juice.\u00a0 It was refreshing and delicious.<\/p>\n

The scenery on the Mekong Cruise was not exactly exciting; it\u2019s more a ‘look at what life is like’ in this area of Vietnam.\u00a0 I found it rather sad seeing so much poverty in the shacks along the way.\u00a0 It made me feel embarrassed travelling in an air-conditioned room with bathroom and electricity, or sitting on beautiful chairs being fed gourmet food as we passed them by.\u00a0 I just have to be glad that I am the one on the boat and not the one eking out an existence on the river banks.\u00a0 Hopefully our tourism is at least giving some of them a better, more interesting life.\u00a0 Meanwhile Rodney continued to be amazed by the lack of \u2018road rules\u2019 on the waterways. The boats weave about, passing on whichever side seems easier.\u00a0 Just like the traffic on the roads, everyone seems to miss each other; at least we haven\u2019t seen any mishaps \u2026..yet!\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s the eyes that are painted on the front of most of the boats.\u00a0 They\u2019re supposed to scare away the river monsters, but perhaps they prevent river crashes too.<\/p>\n

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A Brick Factory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After 3pm we arrived near Sa Dec and were ferried across to a brick factory on the eastern shore.\u00a0 The brick kilns are enormous domes made of layers and layers of small bricks.\u00a0 With Tsuy, we shuffled through past workers pouring rice husks in to the fires to stoke the ovens and other workers were removing the piles of hot ash which are then sent to be used as fertilisers.\u00a0 One group of women were inside one of the kilns removing the gigantic layers of baked bricks.\u00a0 Two men were slowly mixing a huge mound of lumpy clay with a couple of shovels; that looked like an impossible job.\u00a0 And amongst it all there was a constant stream of men and women with wheelbarrows moving ash, rice husks, clay, prepared bricks and tiles, and also the baked finished product.\u00a0 Everything came in on boats and everything left again by boats.\u00a0 It was a fascinating hive of industry.\u00a0 We clambered back over the pile of broken bricks and tiles that formed a makeshift jetty to board our boat again.<\/p>\n

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Inside One Of The Brick Kilns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

From there we travelled up to Sa Dec and pulled up at some slippery steps.\u00a0 Some cash was handed to a passing policeman; not sure what that was about?\u00a0 We then visited the old house where a man called Huynh Thuy Le used to live.\u00a0 He was the eldest son in a rich Chinese family and in 1929, at the age of 27, he had an affair with a French girl, Marguerite Duras, who was only 15 years old.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very sad story as they weren\u2019t allowed to marry, because she wasn\u2019t Chinese, she wasn\u2019t rich and they had lived together for a year in sin.\u00a0 He finally married someone else and had five children.\u00a0 Marguerite sailed to France married a Frenchman and had one child.\u00a0 Apparently Huynh tried to contact her to tell her that he still loved her, but she refused ever to speak or see him, after she left Vietnam.\u00a0 She wrote a book \u2018The Lover\u2019 in 1984 and a movie of the story was made in 1992, I think I would like to get a copy.<\/p>\n

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The Old House Of Huynh Thuy Le in Sa Dec<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While in Sa Dec we also wandered along the embankment staring at all the fruit and vegetables laid out in baskets on the ground.\u00a0 At the far end of the market, the stalls changed to purveyors of fish and meat, plus one delightful tray of ready-prepared frogs and rats !!!<\/p>\n

The next stop was on the opposite side of the river where we visited a few garden nurseries.\u00a0 It was lovely to see so many exquisite flowers and quite amazing to see how they piled up the plants, with only newspapers wrapped around them, from floor to ceiling in the back of trucks to be delivered all over Vietnam. Our final stop for the day was at a Cao Dai temple, an interesting religion that seems to take aspects from various religions, including Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity and Islam.\u00a0 They believe in one God, but also Buddhas, sages and saints.\u00a0 Amongst many of the people they revere are Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Joan of Arc and Lenin\u2026..!!?. After viewing the overly decorated altar, we climbed up an extremely narrow concrete staircase to the top of one of the towers, probably about 40 metres up.\u00a0 From the balcony on the top, with the sun setting low, we could see over the river and a lot of the city below.<\/p>\n

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The Cao Dai Temple In Sa Dec<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Laura and Tsuy At The Top Of The Cao Dai Temple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We opted for another cold shower on board before another six-course dinner and then after a short time relaxing up on deck, watching the lights on the other boats swinging about, we climbed downstairs to our cabin for an early night.<\/p>\n

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Sunset Over Water Hyacinth On The Mekong<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We slept well and woke up to the noise of the anchor and engine again, this time before 6am.\u00a0 I pulled up the blind to see where we had moored overnight, as we had motored quite a way in the dark until well after dinner.\u00a0 We were right in the middle of a very wide section of the river, a bit more attractive than the previous night when we were moored next to a gravel factory.\u00a0 After breakfast, packing and goodbyes to the crew we boarded another small local boat, along with Tsuy.<\/p>\n

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How Many Motor Bikes Can You Squeeze On A Ferry……?!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We crossed the bay at Cai Be and passed another floating market, finally pulling up at a sweet factory. We were shown all the various stages of different sweets being made and the smells of banana, toffee, coconut, etc. were wonderful.\u00a0 Everything they did was so simple, with very little mechanisation.\u00a0 Near the front, three people were making some sticky peanut toffee.\u00a0 One spread and squashed the \u2018goo\u2019 into long wooden tracks about 2cm by 1 metre.\u00a0 As each strip solidified, he lifted them and laid them on a large slab where upon a girl chopped them into squares and tossed them on to a table.\u00a0 Another girl then wrapped each square in a tiny sheet of rice paper and then a sheet of cellophane.\u00a0 About thirty sweets were then placed in little cardboard boxes and wrapped again.\u00a0 They were so fast and yet managed to keep chatting away as we watched them.\u00a0 At the rear of the factory, black sand was put in to a large wok which was then heated over burning rice husks.\u00a0 When it was extremely hot they tossed in a bowl full of rice.\u00a0 As the rice got hot, the husks peeled away and the rice popped and jumped like popcorn.\u00a0 The whole lot was then tipped in to a fine sieve so that the black sand fell in to another wok.\u00a0 The rest was then passed through a huge sieve so that the husks fell to the floor and were swept back to keep the fire burning.\u00a0 The remaining popped rice was then mixed with a sticky caramel substance and squished down into a big wooden frame.\u00a0 It was then pressed down, cut into small blocks and packaged, ten pieces at a time, into cellophane bags.\u00a0 I have to say, they were delicious and I would have bought some, but it took at least an hour to remove the one I tried from my teeth.<\/p>\n

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Making Sticky Popped Rice Sweets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We sat down for a while to drink green tea with Tsuy and I loved the way the teapot was kept inside a coconut to keep it warm; a bit different from the knitted tea cosies we normally see!!\u00a0 We quickly browsed the inevitable gift shop at the front of the factory; it was our first chance to browse in a shop and we bought some little bamboo dragonflies which will balance on the tip of your finger.\u00a0 The boat then whisked us further up the river and down a narrow canal to an old dark wooden house. Mr Kiet\u2019s House was built in 1838 with 100 columns of precious wood supporting the structure.\u00a0 It is right in the middle of an orchard which has the most enormous variety of fruit trees, including sapodilla, longan, rambutans, durian and everything we had seen in the markets.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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The Cathedral In Sa Dec<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The boat finally dropped us and our suitcase at a local restaurant, back on the edge of the main river.\u00a0 The restaurant comprised of many small buildings and huts set among lovely landscaped gardens. The elephant ear fish was presented to us with all features intact, upright, propped between four tiny wooden posts\u2026..\u00a0 We\u2019ve never seen anything like it and we weren\u2019t sure how we were going to dismantle it.\u00a0 Fortunately, the waitress reappeared and proceeded to remove clumps of the flesh and skin with just a couple of chopsticks; leaving the head, tail, skeleton and other side of flesh and skin still upright; it was an impressive skill. She wrapped the meat and crispy skin with pineapple slivers and cucumber slices in rice paper and pointed to the correct dip on the table.\u00a0 She then peeled massive langoustines and pointed to the bowl of pepper and salt mixed with lime juice.\u00a0 In her absence, we thought we would strip the other side of the fish, but being less skilful, we lay it down to get at the flesh.\u00a0 We were reprimanded, we thought because as guests, we should have waited for her to do it.\u00a0 However we have since found out that in Vietnam, it is not good to turn over a fish on a plate because it is bad luck for the fishermen; it may cause their boats to rock and turn over.\u00a0 Having filled our bellies with all of the above, we then sighed as a plate covered in beef, capsicum, tomatoes and chips arrived, followed by a bowl of half peeled rambutans.\u00a0 We both decided that this really had been a veritable gourmet trip around the Mekong Delta and we\u2019ll never again turn a fish over when eating it.<\/p>\n

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Elephant Ear Fish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unlike other countries of the world, in Vietnam the minority of vehicles, after scooters, motor bikes, taxis and buses, are cars.\u00a0 And it seems the majority of those cars are large four-wheel drive vehicles.\u00a0 On Monday morning, all we wanted was a minibus to take us to the Mekong Delta, the Nine Dragon River Delta.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8202,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions\/8202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}