Mekong Delta

Visiting the Mekong Delta is an essential Vietnamese experience given the unique way of life led by the people who make their living off the river. It also reconnected us with the great river having viewed it in China (Jing Hong, Yunnan) and then in Laos (Luang Prabang, Vientiane). This is being written this on a speedboat on the same river enroute to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. But this blog entry is about our journey through the Mekong River in Vietnam, rounding off our 12-day old sojourn through that country.

The Mekong Delta experience is not one for spectacular scenery but one for absorption of the local life. Floating markets, village factories that make coconut candy, quiet waterfront homes  etc. The mighty river measures 5km across in some parts in this region and looks quite different from its more humble (but still mighty) girth up north in China and Laos.

For those interested in particulars, we took one of the standard cookie cutter tours organized from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). They have the 1-day, 2-day and 3-day variants depending on your schedule. We were on a tight schedule and needed to push onward to Cambodia rather than retrace our steps back to Saigon. And guess what, that is also a standard itinerary with a 2-day and 3-day version. The 2-day version we opted for involves an early-morning departure (darn!) from Saigon and then several boat and bus transfers along the way all the way to Phnom Penh. A 3-hour bus journey through some highways got us to the riverside town of Can Be. A wooden boat took us through floating markets, the afore-mentioned factories making rice paper and coconut candy and then through narrow waterways past the houses of the locals who were going through their daily business. We had a brief stop for lunch on one of the riverside villages and a long stretch on the river before finally getting off at the large sized town of Vinh Long.

Back on a bus at Vinh Long for a long and dull 4-hour stretch to Chau Doc which is the large town near the Cambodia border. The monotony (and the hot afternoon sun!) was only broken by a brief stop at a commercial crocodile farm with hundreds of crocodiles of all ages being farmed for food and skin. A very different kind of place from the one in Chennai. 

The overnight stay on the tour is on a so-called "floating hotel" in Chau Doc, but more on that later.