Friday, 7 April 2017
At Sea — East Sea … the Vietnamese name for the South China Sea
Stats @ Ship’s Time 7:15p (ICT) … UTC 12:15p (7 April)
Temp: 82.2F (27.9C)
Position: 10.29.15N / 106.56.99E
Only he who has traveled the road knows where the holes are deep.
~ Chinese Proverb ~
We had a 5:00a wake up call this morning to get ready, have breakfast, and meet our group from yesterday for today’s tour, which took us to the Mekong Delta.
The delta is known in Vietnamese by the colorful name of Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu Long — which translates as Nine Dragon River Delta. This is the area where the river empties into the South China Sea East Sea … as the Vietnamese prefer to call it. It is thought that the region has been inhabited since prehistoric times. How much of the 15,000 sq mile (39,000 sq km) area is flooded depends on the season. Let’s just say quite a bit is flooded. Over 1,000 animal species were documented here in the period between 1997-2007, making this a biological treasure trove.
Setting off from the port at 7:00a, our destination was Mỹ Tho. Founded in the 1680s by Chinese refugees fleeing China, the city’s proximity to Saigon makes it the perfect gateway for a day trip to explore a small portion of the delta. En route, the scenery was more interesting than yesterday, with quite a few flooded and dry rice paddies visible … all of which had above-ground tombs. Anh explained that as a culture that practices ancestor worship, people prefer to bury their dead family members on their own land — even consulting seers to make sure the graves adhere to the principles of feng shui.
We made one stop on the way — at the Mekong Rest Stop for beverages and to use the restrooms. There was shopping, of course. But for Mui and I — after he got his coffee — the attraction was the beautifully landscaped gardens.
Once we reached Mỹ Tho, we left our bus for one of the traditional wooden boats that ply the Mekong River. With benches and chairs added to the interior — but not secured — it was a comfortable ride. I sat on a bench in the rear of the boat, which gave me a wide open canvas to photograph. The river was busy with boat traffic — tourist boats, fishing vessels, barges carrying sand dredged from the river bottom … one, having been overloaded, was sinking even as another barge was trying to siphon off the sand to try and save it from foundering further. There were catfish farms along the way that added interest to the cityscape that served as the background, as well as traditional fish traps made of nets and bamboo sticks along the shores of several of the islands.
Eventually the boat entered the Tan Thach Canal. Talk about deja vu … only in the sense of the scenes we’ve seen in movies depicting the Vietnam [American] War. The water was the color of café au lait, and on either side of the canal was dense vegetation, which eventually formed a canopy overhead as we went deeper into the waterway.
Reaching our destination, we disembarked at a family-operated coconut candy making operation. Here, not only did we learn how the candy is made — and tasted samples — we also saw 2-3 year old crocodiles in a pen … raised to eventually become handbags, shoes, and belts; and we also had lemon honey tea … made by putting a little honey and a few drops of a tangerine-like lemon in the cup before filling it with jasmine tea. Quite tasty and refreshing.
We left this stop on foot, walking through an orchard of fruit trees. At the end of our walk was our next mode of transportation — horse carts. Convoying, our three carts took us to our next stop. Here we were treated to platters of fresh fruits … pineapple, watermelon, papaya, jackfruit, and rose apple. As an amateur family band and singers entertained us, we were served jasmine tea to go with our fruit.
Next up was a sampan ride on the Mekong. The small boats — four passengers each — were tricky to get into. Being very tippy, one had to be careful to step into the middle of the boat and sit down in the center of the bench. The boat was then propelled by a poler — in the manner of a Venetian gondola or an African mokoro. Seeing the river and foliage from this lower-to-the-water perspective was different from the boat trip in the larger canal earlier. Mui and I really enjoyed it.
Some of the sampans are motorized; ours is not.
At the mouth of the canal, we ran into a traffic jam. The tourist boats — like the one that brought us here — were offloading their passengers onto sampans and vying to get into the channel we had just vacated. Disembarking our sampan onto a floating pier, we re-boarded our boat for the ride back across the river to Mỹ Tho.
On the bus once again, we made our way to the Mekong Rest Stop for lunch. Anh had told us about a traditional Mekong dish that he called a pancake — the batter made of rice flour and turmeric, and served with a topping of bean sprouts, shrimp, and pork. So I ordered that. Mui ordered sautéed beef again, but this time with rice. And we split deep fried vegetable spring rolls wrapped in a special rice paper made by drizzling batter into hot oil and stirring it around to create a mesh. Mui had two more iced coffees — he sure loves this Vietnamese style coffee — and I washed my food down with Saigon beer … better than Tiger beer IMHO … and it was ice cold. Our bill: VND430,000 + a VND50,000 tip for a USD equivalent of ~ $20.
We returned to the ship at 3:10p, just 10 minutes past our self-imposed deadline. Anh was apologetic about the delay, but the fault really lay with the shoppers in our group. Insignia dropped her mooring lines at 4:00p and started moving sideways into the Saigon River. Then, with the boat traffic stopped in both directions, we made a 180° turn to face downriver. It was interesting to see, and I bet Mui has some good footage for his time lapse movie. Unfortunately, the maneuver put the veranda in the sun. It was too hot to stand out there, so I went down to deck 5, moving between starboard and port and vice versa, seeking shade as Insignia snaked its way down the Saigon River. Two hours later, we were still in the river, but it was too dark to see anything, so we went up to the Terrace Café to join friends for dinner.
I wouldn’t mind coming back to Vietnam again, but I would plan on seeing the smaller towns and villages and the countryside this time.
Tomorrow is a day at sea! Yay.
© 2015-2017 — All rights reserved by Erin Erkun.
So many places, so little time. How will you ever decide priorities when it comes time to revisit some of these wonderful places? Loved reading about Vietnam especially. It is a place I would like to see someday, but might be far enough down on the list that I may never get there.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting area. As above, I will probaly never get there.
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