Drifting Down the Mekong

Flying into Saigon provided a stunning aerial view of immense snaking waterways, twisting and turning through the city and surrounding countryside.

Growing up in a South Australian city that boasts only a narrow creek, I am always impressed by the presence of real rivers, and Saigon is generously endowed with these, situated as it is on the Mekong Delta. (Please note that I will continue to call it Saigon – it sounds much more romantic than HCMC, and the locals don’t seem to mind.)

On day two we boarded a bus to visit it eye-to-eye. Our guide lugubriously warned us that the bus trip would be long and slow, the floating markets were ‘not for tourists,’ so there would ‘not be any souvenirs for sale,’ and a number of other equally dismal messages that I couldn’t decipher over the crackling of the microphone. As a result, we felt mutinously cheerful that the day would be fun. Luckily for the reputation of the tour company, it was. Our guide got us to the river in less than the anticipated 4 hours (managing expectations, perhaps?) and our boat was waiting for us at the pier as we descended stiffly from the bus, thanks to the whiplash-inducing potholes in the road.

The Mekong River is considerably wider and faster than the Pasig at this point, and the water is the colour of turmeric. Our boat was powered with a clamorous 2-stroke engine that set our teeth on edge, and we perched precariously on folding wicker dining chairs on the highly polished deck. For US$1.00 I had purchased a traditional Vietnamese cone hat at a street stall – a very wise extravagance as it turned out – and off we went, to find the not-for-tourists floating markets. As we turned off the Mekong onto a slightly narrower tributary, the river started to resemble EDSA at rush hour.

Barges and boats cluttered the water and the riverbanks. Many sported eyes like those of the ‘wise-eyed boats on the Yangtze River.’ (Remember “The Story About Ping”?) The boatmen announced their wares by hanging them from poles on the deck. We looked about and saw mostly potatoes and pumpkins on display. Not for us to buy, though, but for the local shopkeepers to buy wholesale. Many of the traders were sprawling nonchalantly from hammocks strung across the decks, as we wove between the slumbering flotilla, making our way upstream to a handicraft market that was, unquestionably, designed for tourists.

Here, we were enticed to buy all sorts of artifacts crafted from polished coconut shells, while admiring the skills of local sweet makers. We then took a short walk along a riverside track, hemmed with rockeries of coconut husks and hillocks of rice. Through the village, we were dodging bicycles and motor bikes, chickens and children, morning glory vine winding itself exuberantly around fences and trees.An open-sided café produced a cool place to sit and sip local tea, sweetened with honey.

Later, suitably replenished, we wove our way between the ‘wise-eyed’ barges and headed back out on the Mekong. There the 2-stroke and the current hurtled us down the river to a creek which narrowed rapidly as it was squeezed between walls of invasive jungle. At this point we were unceremoniously unloaded, four at a time, into roughly made wooden gondolas, where we sat in single file, every one of us bedecked in a borrowed cone hat – for those of us that hadn’t sensibly invested earlier! Our gondolier stood calmly at the rear of boat, resting on two long paddles, until we were settled. He then steered us smoothly upstream to our lunch.

This was a simple repast on the shady verandah of an elegant, old wooden house. After our rice and chicken we could choose to board either an old, but sturdy black bike, or a string hammock. Given barely half an hour before we were due to head homewards, three of us cycled furiously up the road, standing on our pedals to push up and over several hump-backed bridges, until we reached a small village and a curious little white church. My companion, a very efficient girl guide, earned her cyclist’s badge by cleverly contriving to tie up my recalcitrant bike stand with a piece of yellow string she found on the verge, which thankfully saved my ankles from further bruising.

We made it back before our guide could miss us, to join a throng of nervous tourists admiring the length and weight of a 3-year old python caged at the gate. Only a handful of us was prepared to make his acquaintance, but I have a photo to prove I was one of them, as we draped him round my sagging shoulders like an 18th century milkmaid’s yoke, and attempted to keep his tongue out of my ear. He was surprisingly heavy; a long, length of rather soft muscle, as indeed who wouldn’t be after spending his life in a 5 foot cage?

The return trip was long, and seemed longer. Many dozed on the boat, many more snored on the bus, but we finally made it back to Saigon in time for a late, lazy dinner, tired and sunburnt and culturally satiated!