One week-end in the Mekong Delta
For our last weekend in Vietnam, we went to the Mekong Delta. I remember having lots of images of South East Asia and especially Vietnam with people living above the rivers and lakes, on the sea. The numerous and large rivers of the area have been the cradle of many civilizations, providing food with fish, serving as transportation ways for the products of the lands, and offering a wet, warm, and fertile environment. In Singapore, we found out that in the process of modernization, the government had forced the closing of the wet market in the middle of the city. So, we wanted to go there and see how it was.
Arrival at Can Tho and the hostel
We flew from Da Nang to Can Tho, and got the hostel to arrange a taxi. We decided to stay in a place by one of the numerous branches of the Mekong Delta, in Hometravel Mekong Cần Thơ. The place is made of bungalows, either by the river or not, outside the city, by a small track. It seems like there are a lot of these small tracks in the area, about large enough for one car, and made of cement. All along these tracks, there are houses, or houses being built. You can feel the density of the population a little bit like in Java. There are no high buildings, but there are small houses in the middle of nature everywhere, with fruit trees full of fruits, especially enormous jackfruits.
The bungalows were made of wood with roofs made of leaves, and they were efficient to deal with the heavy rain, even if not perfect. There is a large bed, with an immense mosquito net to cover all of it, the only place in which we had it during the trip. There was one small light in the bungalow, that was enough to just find you things, and there was a small window, with shutters for the night.
During the whole weekend, there was rain, and the humidity was very high. For example, my hat that got wet quickly when we arrived never dried before we made it to Ho Chi Minh, even trying to let it dry outside the bungalow, on a small terrace.
The hostel also had a common area where you can have a simple breakfast in the morning, and most people take their dinner at night. We found a nice soup shop on our first day there, at a small place by the main road, and there are a few small shops around.
Tour on the Mekong River
On Saturday, we decided to go for a tour on the Mekong River, organized by the hotel. We took the boat directly from the hostel, with our guide Anh, and went through the small canal to a larger one, towards Can Tho. Our first target was the water market. We made it to several boats, with a high stick above them. On the sticks were fixed every item the boat was selling. These boats move from the inland areas, from the farms, and bring the product to the city.
We had our breakfast in the market, a nice pho. The restaurant was on a small boat, with some material to keep the soup warm, and passed the plates to us on our boat. When finished, we passed the plates back and were ready to go for our next stop.
We went to a noodle factory and saw the whole process of making rice noodles. Here’s what we saw of the process.
After that, we left and went to a dragonfruit farm, and… we never made the link, but dragonfruits come from America, and are cactus fruits! We enjoyed some good dragon fruits.
And our last stop before lunch, we went to a cacao plantation. The introduction of cacao in Vietnam is relatively recent, but the climate does seem perfect for it. We saw the whole process, from cleaning the coca beans to collecting the hot chocolate that will finally dry, and were able to taste the different sub-products.
Finally, we went to eat around Can Tho market. Anh bought fruits passing, which was a good thing as we may not have tried all by ourselves. She bought lychees, jackfruit, and more of which I’m sure of the name. We went on and stopped at a stall to eat banh xeo, a type of Vietnamese crepe that you eat with herbs and meat.
And, then, we took our boat back. Overall, this tour changed a bit my way of thinking about the use of the waterways. The floating market still exists but was smaller and less busy than I expected. For a long time, water was the fastest way to move heavy loads around, when available. But nowadays, roads have become more efficient, and so people in the Mekong Delta are slowly switching to roads to move things.
Epilogue
At night, when we came back, we were all struggling to get our food on Grab. Which was a good thing as it pushed us to talk, and we had a nice evening chatting with the other guests and playing games.
To leave the hostel, we had the same issue, we couldn’t get a grab to get to the bus station. So, the host managed to book a bus ticket, and we needed to walk to the main road to get a van that would bring us to the station. That’s the only way, and if Grab works all right all around, we were a bit too far from the town. The counsel of the hosts was to order something cheap and to ask the delivery driver to bring you to town on his bike… Which we wouldn’t do with all the bags.
