Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [89]
To the Vietnamese, the region is known as Cuu Long, “Nine Dragons”, a reference to the nine tributaries of the Mekong River which dovetail across plains fashioned by millennia of flood-borne alluvial sediment. By the time it reaches Vietnam, the Mekong has already covered more than four thousand kilometres from its source high on the Tibetan Plateau; en route it traverses southern China, skirts Burma (Myanmar), then hugs the Laos–Thailand border before cutting down through Cambodia and into Vietnam – a journey that ranks it as Asia’s third-longest river, after the Yangtse and Yellow rivers. Flooding has always blighted the delta; ever since Indian traders imported their advanced methods of irrigation more than eighteen centuries ago, networks of canals have been used to channel the excess water, but the rainy season still claims lives from time to time.
Surprisingly, agriculture gripped the delta only relatively recently. Under Cambodian sway until the close of the seventeenth century, the region was sparsely inhabited by the Khmer krom, or “downstream Khmers”, whose settlements were framed by swathes of marshland. The eighteenth century saw the Viet Nguyen lords steadily broaden their sphere of influence to encompass the delta, though by the 1860s France had taken over the reins of government. Sensing the huge profits to be gleaned from such fertile land, French colons spurred Vietnamese peasants to tame and till tracts of the boggy delta; the peasants, realizing their colonial governors would pay well for rice harvests, were quick to comply. Ironically, the same landscape that had served the French so well also provided valuable cover for the Viet Minh resistance fighters who sought to overthrow them; later it did the same for the Viet Cong, who had well-hidden cells here – inciting the Americans to strafe the area with bombs and defoliants.
A visit to the Mekong Delta is so memorable because of the region’s diversity. Everyday scenes include schoolgirls clad in white ao dai cycling along country lanes; children riding on the backs of water buffalo; rice workers stooping in a sea of emerald; market vendors grinning behind stacks of fruit; bright yellow incense sticks drying at the roadside; flocks of storks circling over a sanctuary at dusk; Khmer monks walking mindfully in the shadow of pastel pagodas; locals scampering over monkey bridges or rowing boats on the Delta’s maze of channels.
It’s difficult to overstate the influence of the river: the lifeblood of the rice and fruit crops grown here, it also teems with craft that range in size from delicate rowing boats to hulking sampans, and it forms a backdrop to everyday activities – some of the region’s biggest markets are waterborne. Inevitably the best way to experience riverine life is on a boat trip. Day trips can be organized in Ho Chi Minh City, My Tho, Vinh Long, Can Tho or Chau Doc, while some tour operators offer 2–3 day live-aboard trips (see "Getting around the delta"). Since most day tours follow a similar itinerary (a visit to a floating market and stops at cottage industries on the shore), you’ll probably want to choose just one. Though Can Tho is most popular for its good range of hotels and restaurants, you’re likely to see more tourists than locals in the nearby floating markets. A good alternative is Vinh Long, from where boats head out in many different directions through the canals of An Binh Island to the floating market at Cai Be.
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The Mekong