It's only in the very early morning when the pace of Ho Chi Minh City's busy streets slow down, and it's in the cool darkness before dawn when I arrive at the bus station for the drive to the Mekong Delta.
The normally busy streets are almost empty of traffic except for the street sweepers and carts ferrying produce and live animals to the wholesale markets.
Even at this early hour it is still possible to get a quick ca-phe sua da (iced sweetened coffee) or a banh mi ga (chicken baguette sandwich) from a wandering street stall before the bus leaves. It's a perfect breakfast to snack on as I board the bus with foreigners from half a dozen countries.
As the bus weaves through the growing crowds of motorbikes and cars that crowd Ho Chi Minh City's streets, I watch the city fade away and the countryside begin. Cyclos and trucks go past piled high with Tet foods and flowers, as the Vietnamese New Year is fast approaching.
Few travelers to Vietnam are not left in awe of the shades of green to be seen in the country's rural areas. So many variations exist that many even say they have seen totally new colors; all of them originate from different stages of rice cultivation, from the mint green seedlings to the lushly dark stalks to the golden brown of the harvested rice. As the sun rises over the paddy fields and rural villages in the Mekong, I watch these colors change yet again.
As the road plunges deeper into the dark green countryside, we enter one of the wateriest places on the entire planet: the Mekong Delta. While highways of asphalt and concrete dictate life in most countries of the world, it is much more useful for the inhabitants of the delta to know how to paddle a canoe or operate an outboard motor to get around; in fact, whole communities here hardly ever set foot on land.
For most foreigners, it is an alien world full of rickety monkey bridges and tiny, wobbly canoes; but for locals, it's all in a days work, and I catch glimpses of many boats paddled and oared underneath the dense foliage.
We arrive in Cai Be a few hours later, one of the largest floating markets in the Mekong Delta. I board a tiny boat and the friendly driver, a kind woman in her 30's, pushes us away from land and we bump and bounce off all the other boats around us drinking in the smells of cooking food, freshly chopped mint and fruit, and brewing coffee.
We float like this for almost an hour, calling out hellos to the people who call this topsy turvy world home. Women with young children row boats piled high with boiled rice and steaming bowls of soup; old men paddle past fishing for tiny bait fish, and whole families take turns bathing in the river and hanging out the washing to dry in the sun.
It's a uniquely Vietnamese experience, and is a fantastic opportunity to practice Vietnamese, share some smiles, or just wave at the passing children.
After this magical experience, we proceed to Can Tho, the agricultural capital of the delta, the crossroads of this region where all the rice, fruit, and other produce passes through on its way for export or to the large market that is Ho Chi Minh City.
Its evening now, and we unload our things at our hotel in central Can Tho. The evening sun sinks towards the sea, the coffee brown river that surrounds the small city, turning gold in the twilight. In the evening, I wander the streets with some newfound friends from the bus, sampling the delicious and cheap food offered from local restaurants, and sipping thick Vietnamese coffee while listening to Vietnamese music.
The next day will leave just as early, and drive to Chau Doc, which like Can Tho, is a town totally adapted and used to life on the water. By the time we leave the sun has risen over the river over the river, which is crammed with boats and rice barges pushing goods to and fro and inhabitants of the river canals making their way to school, or to jobs in the larger towns.
The drive itself is as interesting as the day before: rice fields fringed with palm trees, fruit orchards, colorful Cao Dai temples, and every so often the bus passes over a cement bridge that offers a glimpse of the arrow straight canals that crisscross the Mekong Delta. Built by Indian traders over 2,000 years ago, these manmade canals make much of the agriculture grown in the delta transportable to overseas markets; without them, life, and trade, would simply grind to a halt.
Chau Doc itself is a quieter town that Can Tho, and is less affected by the flash and glitz of Ho Chi Minh City's fashionable young people. Still, it's a major hub of trade along the Mekong, from the countries of Thailand and Cambodia, and large boats ply these waters bringing more manufactured goods than fruit and rice to the people. We arrive in mid afternoon, time to walk the streets in the fading daylight as students yell friendly hello's from their squeaky bicycles and vendors offer huge smiles with their wares.
From here, my journey begins to mirror that of the locals, and I leave the roads to travel the waterways. After boarding my speedboat along the Chau Doc waterfront, the boat speeds alongside huge rice barges and floating houses towards the open river: the Mekong.
We pass large collections of boats tied up along the banks of packed earth, where tiny villages cluster. It's the Mekong Delta's version of the high street or the main street, where all business activities take place: huge lumbering water buffalo are tied up, often with babies in tow; gas stations here are floating barges where large drums are filled; and even coffin vendors offer their products along the riverfront, with boat traffic cruising nonchalantly by.
As we buzz through the coffee brown waters, children run along, waving as us, eager to exchange a smile and a hand wave. With the large amount of river traffic, and lush jungle foliage, and watery lifestyle, the whole Mekong is reminiscent of the Amazon river in Brazil, the Everglades in Florida, and the waterways of Kerala, in southern India.
Several hours later we reach the border with Cambodia; there are a few checkpoints to navigate there and formalities that must be completed. All passengers and our baggage must be emptied and reloaded several times before we finally get the entry stamp into Cambodia.
From here, I change boats but not the scenery: the speedboat continues to follow the packed earth banks toward the next major city on the Mekong: Phnom Penh, where more scenes of daily life can be glimpsed as we glide on by. The drumming of the engines lulls me to sleep as the afternoon approaches; after 4 hours of moving I arrive in the capital city of Phnom Penh, as the setting sun sinks toward the waters, turning them into gold.
Phnom Penh, like Ho Chi Minh City, is also rapidly regaining its status as a major business center of Indochina. Sitting at the confluence of two rivers with 4 branches,
I spend the next day visiting the Wat Phnom, which gives the city it's name; and the Royal Palace, modeled on the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand.
From Phnom Penh, my river adventure continues with a 5 hour boat trip to Siem Reap, the town closest to the temples of Angkor. The boat follows the familiar sights of muddy river banks populated with rural villages and friendly locals.
The Siem Reap river is one of the world's most unique: it actually flows two directions, downstream in the dry season; and actually reverses in the wet season when the Mekong Delta is flooded, forcing water to fill up the Tonle Sap like a huge bathtub. When it is full, it empties, assuring a steady flow of water for Mekong Delta farmers.
This riverside scenery disappears once we enter the Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia; because we cruise through this inland sea with not much to look at except the large fishing boats. This continues for an hour or more and it's a perfect time to take a nap on top of the speedboat.
Just before we arrive in Siem Reap, the speedboat passes through the famous flooded forest, where inhabitants have built houses on stilts to survive the high ebb and flow of the Tonle Sap lake, which can expand 20 times larger in the rainy season.
When I finally disembark on the slippery bank of the Tonle Sap, my fantastic watery journey, through miles and miles of waterways and canals; and dozens of smiles from the friendly people who call the Mekong river home, is over. But just ahead, over the horizon, awaits my next discovery: the fantastic temples of Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the World.
The normally busy streets are almost empty of traffic except for the street sweepers and carts ferrying produce and live animals to the wholesale markets.
Even at this early hour it is still possible to get a quick ca-phe sua da (iced sweetened coffee) or a banh mi ga (chicken baguette sandwich) from a wandering street stall before the bus leaves. It's a perfect breakfast to snack on as I board the bus with foreigners from half a dozen countries.
As the bus weaves through the growing crowds of motorbikes and cars that crowd Ho Chi Minh City's streets, I watch the city fade away and the countryside begin. Cyclos and trucks go past piled high with Tet foods and flowers, as the Vietnamese New Year is fast approaching.
Few travelers to Vietnam are not left in awe of the shades of green to be seen in the country's rural areas. So many variations exist that many even say they have seen totally new colors; all of them originate from different stages of rice cultivation, from the mint green seedlings to the lushly dark stalks to the golden brown of the harvested rice. As the sun rises over the paddy fields and rural villages in the Mekong, I watch these colors change yet again.
As the road plunges deeper into the dark green countryside, we enter one of the wateriest places on the entire planet: the Mekong Delta. While highways of asphalt and concrete dictate life in most countries of the world, it is much more useful for the inhabitants of the delta to know how to paddle a canoe or operate an outboard motor to get around; in fact, whole communities here hardly ever set foot on land.
For most foreigners, it is an alien world full of rickety monkey bridges and tiny, wobbly canoes; but for locals, it's all in a days work, and I catch glimpses of many boats paddled and oared underneath the dense foliage.
We arrive in Cai Be a few hours later, one of the largest floating markets in the Mekong Delta. I board a tiny boat and the friendly driver, a kind woman in her 30's, pushes us away from land and we bump and bounce off all the other boats around us drinking in the smells of cooking food, freshly chopped mint and fruit, and brewing coffee.
We float like this for almost an hour, calling out hellos to the people who call this topsy turvy world home. Women with young children row boats piled high with boiled rice and steaming bowls of soup; old men paddle past fishing for tiny bait fish, and whole families take turns bathing in the river and hanging out the washing to dry in the sun.
It's a uniquely Vietnamese experience, and is a fantastic opportunity to practice Vietnamese, share some smiles, or just wave at the passing children.
After this magical experience, we proceed to Can Tho, the agricultural capital of the delta, the crossroads of this region where all the rice, fruit, and other produce passes through on its way for export or to the large market that is Ho Chi Minh City.
Its evening now, and we unload our things at our hotel in central Can Tho. The evening sun sinks towards the sea, the coffee brown river that surrounds the small city, turning gold in the twilight. In the evening, I wander the streets with some newfound friends from the bus, sampling the delicious and cheap food offered from local restaurants, and sipping thick Vietnamese coffee while listening to Vietnamese music.
The next day will leave just as early, and drive to Chau Doc, which like Can Tho, is a town totally adapted and used to life on the water. By the time we leave the sun has risen over the river over the river, which is crammed with boats and rice barges pushing goods to and fro and inhabitants of the river canals making their way to school, or to jobs in the larger towns.
The drive itself is as interesting as the day before: rice fields fringed with palm trees, fruit orchards, colorful Cao Dai temples, and every so often the bus passes over a cement bridge that offers a glimpse of the arrow straight canals that crisscross the Mekong Delta. Built by Indian traders over 2,000 years ago, these manmade canals make much of the agriculture grown in the delta transportable to overseas markets; without them, life, and trade, would simply grind to a halt.
Chau Doc itself is a quieter town that Can Tho, and is less affected by the flash and glitz of Ho Chi Minh City's fashionable young people. Still, it's a major hub of trade along the Mekong, from the countries of Thailand and Cambodia, and large boats ply these waters bringing more manufactured goods than fruit and rice to the people. We arrive in mid afternoon, time to walk the streets in the fading daylight as students yell friendly hello's from their squeaky bicycles and vendors offer huge smiles with their wares.
From here, my journey begins to mirror that of the locals, and I leave the roads to travel the waterways. After boarding my speedboat along the Chau Doc waterfront, the boat speeds alongside huge rice barges and floating houses towards the open river: the Mekong.
We pass large collections of boats tied up along the banks of packed earth, where tiny villages cluster. It's the Mekong Delta's version of the high street or the main street, where all business activities take place: huge lumbering water buffalo are tied up, often with babies in tow; gas stations here are floating barges where large drums are filled; and even coffin vendors offer their products along the riverfront, with boat traffic cruising nonchalantly by.
As we buzz through the coffee brown waters, children run along, waving as us, eager to exchange a smile and a hand wave. With the large amount of river traffic, and lush jungle foliage, and watery lifestyle, the whole Mekong is reminiscent of the Amazon river in Brazil, the Everglades in Florida, and the waterways of Kerala, in southern India.
Several hours later we reach the border with Cambodia; there are a few checkpoints to navigate there and formalities that must be completed. All passengers and our baggage must be emptied and reloaded several times before we finally get the entry stamp into Cambodia.
From here, I change boats but not the scenery: the speedboat continues to follow the packed earth banks toward the next major city on the Mekong: Phnom Penh, where more scenes of daily life can be glimpsed as we glide on by. The drumming of the engines lulls me to sleep as the afternoon approaches; after 4 hours of moving I arrive in the capital city of Phnom Penh, as the setting sun sinks toward the waters, turning them into gold.
Phnom Penh, like Ho Chi Minh City, is also rapidly regaining its status as a major business center of Indochina. Sitting at the confluence of two rivers with 4 branches,
I spend the next day visiting the Wat Phnom, which gives the city it's name; and the Royal Palace, modeled on the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand.
From Phnom Penh, my river adventure continues with a 5 hour boat trip to Siem Reap, the town closest to the temples of Angkor. The boat follows the familiar sights of muddy river banks populated with rural villages and friendly locals.
The Siem Reap river is one of the world's most unique: it actually flows two directions, downstream in the dry season; and actually reverses in the wet season when the Mekong Delta is flooded, forcing water to fill up the Tonle Sap like a huge bathtub. When it is full, it empties, assuring a steady flow of water for Mekong Delta farmers.
This riverside scenery disappears once we enter the Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia; because we cruise through this inland sea with not much to look at except the large fishing boats. This continues for an hour or more and it's a perfect time to take a nap on top of the speedboat.
Just before we arrive in Siem Reap, the speedboat passes through the famous flooded forest, where inhabitants have built houses on stilts to survive the high ebb and flow of the Tonle Sap lake, which can expand 20 times larger in the rainy season.
When I finally disembark on the slippery bank of the Tonle Sap, my fantastic watery journey, through miles and miles of waterways and canals; and dozens of smiles from the friendly people who call the Mekong river home, is over. But just ahead, over the horizon, awaits my next discovery: the fantastic temples of Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the World.
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