The Mekong Delta

“Hey Reba, want to rent some motorbikes and head down into the delta?”

“Motorbikes, huh.  How about we rent one motorbike and I’ll ride on the back.”

We had a very pleasant and motorbike-free last few days with the family.  After our epic journey, we had a day and a half in Hanoi and a day in Saigon to enjoy hot showers and sit in soft padded seats.  We did the normal things people do on vacation: ate good meals, went shopping, visited tourist attractions.  Lots of things that didn’t involve gunning a motorbike through a four foot gap between a truck coming one way, a bus going the other, and hoping that both vehicles saw you and wouldn’t run you off the road.  Our last day with the family, we all flew down to Saigon, where Mom, Dad, and Lillie would leave from the next day.  Dad and Lillie did a little last minute shopping while Rebecca, Mom and I visited the War museum that afternoon (Dad and Lillie already had before they met us in Hoi An).  We had a wonderful dinner at a Thai restaurant in the neighborhood, where Rebecca and I got overly sentimental about Musaman Curry and Papaya salads.  

Hanoi at night

After dinner, as had become our custom, the five of us all piled into a two-bed room in a hostel, glad to be together but a little sad that they had to leave for the airport at 4:00 the next morning.  I’m quite sure that if there is one thing Lillie misses about the trip, it’s sharing a double bed with her brother and sister-in-law (hey, we’re saving money here!)  That has to rank somewhere behind “eating Pho three meals a day” and ahead of “listening to Dad do push-ups at 5:30 every morning” on the scale of things Lillie misses about Vietnam (although, to my dismay, Dad does have way more muscles than me).  The next morning, I walked out with the family (down about, what was it, 10 flights of stairs?) to tell them goodbye on the Saigon streets before sunrise.  It was hard seeing them go.  Rebecca completely agreed, from her bed.  It was made a little easier, however, because we would see Mom and Dad in Cleveland a few days later for Ben and Tracy’s wedding.

Later that morning, Rebecca and I headed out to find a motorbike.  We had about three days before we flew out of Saigon, and we wanted to head south to do a very fast tour of the Mekong Delta before we left.  The delta is a very unique region of Vietnam where the Mekong splits into 9 different tributaries before spilling into the South China Sea.  The communities in the area rely completely on the plentiful waters surrounding them, and the resulting towns and villages are worlds apart from the ones we traveled through in the North.  Life revolves around agriculture production and the many canals and branches of the tributaries, and the region is lively and bustling with trade.  It may go without saying, but one of the bizarre parts of airline travel (and we hadn’t been on a plane until Vietnam), comes when you sit on a plane for two hours and end up somewhere as culturally and geographically different as the Delta is from the North.  In a bus, our preferred transportation in Thailand, you see the subtle changes and shifts as one region slowly morphs into another.  On the plane, you board in the mountains and unload in the backwaters of the Delta.

Rebecca and I, for once, had a rough plan of our tour through the Delta (this is almost necessary when you have time constraints).  We would take the first afternoon and go straight to Can Tho, the largest city, commercial hub, and home to the largest floating market in the region.  We would tour the floating market, and then slowly wind our way along back roads and ferries up to Ben Tre, where we could find a little hotel the second night, and where we would be a short ride from returning to Saigon for our flight out.  We heard wonderful things about touring the backroads in the Delta: many people take motorbike or bicycle trips in the area, and we were not disappointed.

We set out from Saigon in the early afternoon, aiming to make a bee-line for Can Tho along Highway 1.  We knew it would be a fast trip with few stops, but if we could do that on the first day, we could enjoy slow, leisurely rides the next two days.  After a surprisingly easy ride out of Saigon, we jumped on Highway 1 south.  We were soon confused however, as people kept waving at us once we got on the highway.

“Oh look, Rebecca, they are so happy to see us!  Look at all of the cars and trucks waving at us.”

“Yeah, they sure seem excited.”

We soon went through a toll area on the highway.  Unfazed, and used to seeing these, I steered the bike all the way to the right side, avoiding the booths and aiming for the highway ahead without stopping.  Motorbikes don’t ever pay tolls in Vietnam.  Surprisingly, as we made our way around the toll booths, a man in a blue jacket began frantically waving his arms at us, as he ran up behind us.  Confused, I stopped the bike and watched him approach in the mirror.

“What do you think he wants?”  I asked Rebecca.

“I don’t know, but he sure seems excited.”

“He’s not wearing a uniform.  I bet he’s just trying to con us out of a few dong.  Let’s get out of here.”

And when he was about ten feet away, I gunned the little bike ahead and onto the highway, with him waving his arms after me.  I drove fast, because we were a little nervous, and we still weren’t sure that we were technically allowed to drive motorbikes on the highways (you must have a Vietnamese license to drive a car) and I didn’t want to wait around for a tour of Vietnamese bureaucracy.

“He didn’t have a uniform or a badge or anything.  I think we’re okay.”  I said.

“Hey Michael, do you notice anything strange right now?”

“Well, everyone is waving at us, the road is great, and we’re going really fast.  I love it!”

“So you haven’t noticed that we haven’t seen another motorbike for the last half-hour?”

She was right again.  And her role as the only observant one in the relationship was further solidified. 

  

“Yeah, that’s probably not a coincidence is it.  We better get down.”

The ratio of motorbikes to other vehicles had stayed around 5-1 for most of the trip, so the lack of motorbikes was strange, indeed.  I gave the little bike all the gas she could take, and we went about 100 km/h for the next ten minutes before we reached an off-ramp.  On the bright side, we made some killer time for about 45 minutes while illegally gracing the freeway as the only motorbike.  On the other hand, it was pretty disappointing getting off of the lovely freeway and rejoining the dirty, hazy, chaotic world of motorbikes and trucks.

The second half of the trip was fantastic, as we found a side-road which ran along the river and left the confusion of the highway behind.  The road was great, if a little narrow, and we were grateful to leave behind most of the traffic.  Several times we would seemingly come to the end of the road, and a ferry would appear before us to shuttle us across to the other side.  For the most part, we put away the map that had been so abused in the north, and trusted the road signs, a compass, and word of mouth.  It was fantastic riding through all of the little towns, all of which straddled the river and its many tributaries.  The Delta revealed itself as a region we would love to explore with more time.  Signs of life were everywhere along the little highway: markets, farmers, children, and little villages marked time along the way, and we appreciated the charm and tranquility of the region, similar in that way, but so different geographically from the mountains up north.

We made it down to Can Tho in a little over 4 hours, in a smooth and stress-free trip.  Let’s just say it’s a lot easier to make time when you aren’t in a group of five.  Our only hiccup was taking the “bypass” around Vinh Long, which involved leaving the well-paved, well-lit road we were on for a dark, pothole-filled half-gravel backroad that sapped half of our speed for 45 minutes.  We made it to Can Tho in good time though, found a hotel room, and were intercepted on our way out to dinner by an impossibly friendly and utterly persuasive woman selling tours of the delta the next day.  She hooked us on a half-day trip, and we enjoyed a quick pizza and Tiger Beer before retiring for the night.

The next day Sen, our wonderful tour guide, showed up in the lobby of our little hotel at 5:45 a.m. to leave for the tour.  Now, I don’t know how many of you have been around Rebecca at 5:45 in the morning, but I was scared for Sen, scared for our boat-driver, and scared for anyone else we might happen across at the floating market.  I’ve long ago given up being scared for myself.  Luckily, we had no casualties, and had a wonderful tour of the Delta.

Along with Sen, our tour guide, and Ms. Thai, our lovely driver, we motored away from Can Tho’s main street and steered around the point, heading to the largest floating market in the south of Vietnam.  Sen was a fantastic guide, a student in University with a wonderful grasp of the English language who took pride and joy in showing us her country.  And Ms. Thai, in addition to driving the boat, proved herself a remarkably talented artist by making us a flower out of reeds and an entire bouquet out of a pineapple.  We had an absolute blast cruising through the canals, soaking in the sunshine, and getting a glimpse into the lives of people on the Delta. 

The most carefree dog in Vietnam

 

Our first stop was the floating market, where we found dozens of boats idling in the middle of the canal, buying, selling, and bartering their wares, most of which was food.  Most boats affixed a pole to the middle of the boat, and they would hang fruits or vegetables based on what they had to sell.  It was a great system, as you could sit back and scan the sky, looking for fruit hoisted 25 feet off of the water, and you would know where to get your pineapple fix.  We also found concessions: one woman floated around selling delicious iced coffee, and we even found a bowl of pork, herbs, and noodles that was cooked on a boat right in front of us (the rest of the family tired of noodles.  I would never, ever tire of noodles).  After coffee, noodles, and the purchase of a pineapple, we continued down the main canal and eventually veered off onto one of the smaller branches.

Honey, can you pick up some pineapples on your way home?

The Noodle Boat

The Supermarket

Check out the pole: this guy has it all

Traveling down the smaller canals, you really do feel like you are getting a look into people’s backdoors.  We saw women washing clothes, washing dishes, tending to gardens and assuming other household chores.  And we saw men, well, we saw men mostly sitting and watching the women work, or idly “working” on boats with each other.  The lesson, as always, it pays to be a man in Southeast Asia.  

Before long, we made our way to a noodle factory, where we would get a glimpse of glass noodles being made.  It was a fascinating process, and we watched from the beginning: two women in an oppressively hot kitchen tending to enormous kettles with the noodle mixture inside.  The mixture was then slathered across a hot griddle and allowed to solidify, at which point it was removed and set on racks out in the sun to dry.  The flat sheets were then taken inside and fed through a shredder and promptly wrapped in newspaper and shipped out.  We felt for the women manning the kettles, as that was the hottest part of the job, but mainly we felt for the poor guy who went back and forth between a boat in the canal and the kettle-fires, carrying huge sacks of husks to keep the fires going.  It gave us a new appreciation of all the noodles we had been eating.

This guy does not get paid enough.

After the factory, we had a relaxing cruise through the canals and back to the main street in Can Tho.  We wanted to stay and talk and hang out with Sen some more, but we had a long ride ahead of us to Ben Tre.  After some grateful thanks and goodbyes to Sen and Ms. Thai, we packed up the bike and head back out on the road.

That's a carved pineapple I'm holding

This lady splashed us as she went by

We immediately questioned our hasty departure when 10 minutes outside the city the rain began pouring down on us.  We pulled out our Vietnamese poncho: one manufactured to fit over a motorbike that fits over the entire bike, even having a clear window for the headlight.  Unfortunately, in addition to looking ridiculous (the poncho has a slit for the head of the passenger, thus, this thing went over the front of the bike, and me, and Rebecca, and our bags.  The only thing visible to passersby were the tires and two white faces popping out of the top) we also got really wet, and we pulled off into the first restaurant we could find.  Consequently, the restaurant was full of other motorbikers with crappy ponchos, and we all sat there and nursed our Pepsi and waited for the rain to stop.

The rest of the ride to Ben Tre was dry and wonderful, and renewed the backroad charm we had experienced the previous afternoon.  We drove past rice paddy after rice paddy, huge expanses of blinding green fields, interrupted only by the quaint little villages along the way.  Every time we stopped, we felt as we had up north, that we were quite a unique sight for the natives.  But never have we felt as foreign as we did on the large ferry that afternoon, about 25 kilometers south of Ben Tre.  We rode our bike up onto the boat, and for the 20 minutes or so it took to cross, all two dozen pairs of eyes on that boat were glued to Rebecca and me.  No one was remotely threatening, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little disconcerting, and a feeling we don’t get very often.  We kept glancing at each other, wondering if one of us had grown a third arm, second head, or become naked all of a sudden.  I kept smiling and nodding at everyone around us, but this seemed to draw even more bewildered looks, so eventually we just stood and watched the water, and tried to avoid the many eyes searching us.  Honestly, aside from being a little uncomfortable, we were a little proud to be so off the beaten track.

We had a pleasant night in Ben Tre, although we felt almost as out of place as we had on the ferry.  Ben Tre is an up and coming Delta destination, as a large bridge connecting it with the larger and more touristy My Tho was just completed.  We walked through the large market and along the river road, and peacefully enjoyed our penultimate night in Vietnam, and Southeast Asia.

The next day we made our way back to Saigon, arriving in the early afternoon.  It felt strange to be leaving the continent, but we were booked on the same unreasonably early flight the family had been on three days earlier, and we were only hours from takeoff.  To be honest, we were excited about moving on, excited about seeing friends and enjoying the celebration for Ben and Tracy, and excited about a long weekend in the States, a little taste of home.

But that night, on the crowded streets of Saigon, we toasted Vietnam.  We toasted the pride of the people, the beauty of the land, and the exuberance of the culture.  We toasted the sun-baked beaches and rolling hills, we toasted the mountains in the north, and we toasted the rivers in the south.  We felt thankful that despite the checkered history our countries share, we had been treated with nothing but respect and greeted with open arms everywhere we went.  We felt grateful that Chi Mai had opened her doors and shared her story with us.  We toasted the charming chaos of Hanoi, and the more polished modernism of Saigon.  We toasted that the motorbike gods had blessed us with an incredible journey through the heart of North Vietnam, and we toasted our family that made it so incredible.  It was time to say goodbye to Vietnam, a country we loved very much despite the short time we spent there.  And it was time to say goodbye to Southeast Asia.

New roads await…