The Mekong Delta
It’s been 18 years since our last trip to Vietnam. Back in 2007 we spent a brief 5 days in Hanoi, Ha Long Bay and Saigon and are now wondering how the hell we managed to do it. I guess those madcap days of getting in as much as we could in a few short hours are mainly behind us now. For this element of the trip we’ve got just shy of a month, partly due to cutting back on Taiwan and partly as we thought we should cool it down a little (ironically in one of the most humid places in the world) over Christmas and New Year.
A few hours of chaos to start with as a wonderful re-introduction and after a long day of travel via the city of Kaohsiung in the south of Taiwan. 120 minutes of queuing for immigration, shuffling, queue hopping and speculative queue switching in the frankly enormous mass of people who’d decided to turn up at exactly the same time. Livened up somewhat by nonsensical wild-fire hearsay. You need an electronic arrival card. No you don’t. Yes, you do. No, you need a printed one, No you don’t, you don’t need anything. No, but you need a visa though, No. Yes. Arrghh!! It’s much better when the noise is in foreign languages you don’t understand – but now we’re into big tourism territory and everyone’s speaking English and a lot less sure of themselves. We relaxed and refused to indulge in the masochism.
We had better things to worry about anyway. We’d pre-booked a taxi from the airport to take us to the little town of Ben Tre in the delta, partly so we could avoid Saigon as one of our less favourite cities. We were right at the point the extended leeway time had run out when we breathlessly caught up with the driver, after legging it round the baggage hall trying to find our gear (we were so long everyone’s luggage had been randomly dumped on the floor to make way for other incoming flights). Another two hours later we made it to our digs in the darkness, a tiny guesthouse with 5 rooms in the middle of a coconut grove. We had to cross a small river on a wee little bridge, but couldn’t get further as the entire garden was flooded. Our host fetched some plastic shoes for us to change into allowing us to wade through the calf-high waters to get to our room…..
The milky-tea waters of the Mekong
Mekong tributary near Coco Lodge
Abandoned river boat
“Don’t worry about it,” said the confusingly named manager Mr Thai (who’s Vietnamese), “it will be gone in two hours.” A number of small frogs and a rat escaping the water leaped onto the terrace and scuttled off. We had dinner, a beer and enjoyed the warmth of the welcome and the sultry evening. A French lady and her daughter were also staying – the first we’d heard from them were small shrieks as they discovered the mother of all millipedes in their bathroom and came out to plead for a less squeamish gentleman to come to their aid. Mr Thai very subtly rolled his eyes but assisted nonetheless, arming himself with a green plastic dustpan and a sure sense of fortitude.
The Coco Lodge was the best of everything we love about travel. Off the beaten track, a minimal number of guests, but all of a like-mind, run by locals who care a great deal and are more than willing to offer help and advice. The place was basic, but beautiful. Chalet style rooms around a stunning garden and little pond full of ugly Elephant Fish. Mr Thai encouraged us to use his range of free to use mountain bikes to explore the area. The flood of the previous night was nothing unusual it seems, but simply the effect of the tidal Mekong at that time of the month. The days are normal, but the waters rise at specific times in the evening, sometimes up to 2 meters. The river we’d encountered was now a mere stream, and the area, though a little muddy, was free for proper exploration.
Alas Helen was still ill and exhausted with her cold so could only manage a half-hour on the bikes, so again I was left to my own devices, using offline maps to find small pathways and roads to meander down. This part of the delta is a tiny island, around 10 kilometers long and less than 2km at its widest, and is home to a small number of tiny settlements along a main road. The best of the place however, is to be found by going down minor tracks, past small houses and huts, across mini bridges spanning rivulets leading out to tributaries of the mighty river. Here is the Vietnam of your dreams (well mine anyway) – hot, steamy and luscious, surrounded by towering and voracious vegetation, coconut palms and banana trees, with a hot, hot sun scorching you from above. Here dogs run out of yards to greet you or bark or occasionally nip your ankles. Now and again a moped comes your way, the rider more often than not waving, greeting you with a big smile. Same for people you see tending gardens or cooking outside. Back to the ‘where you from, what country?’ Back to the genuine sense of people being pleased to see you.
Biking in the Mekong Delta
Biking in the Mekong Delta
I hadn’t expected this. Vietnam is now so firmly on the main tourist trail that you assume the novelty of the foreign has long since disappeared, especially here in the south where the towns of the delta are easily accessed. However, it seems there are still pockets of the country where Western tourists are indeed a novelty and inspire hearty welcomes. I saw only Vietnamese faces the entire day. Best of all, a stop at a run down restaurant on the riverbank, set in small covered platforms on rotting concrete stilts and reached via very precarious wooden bridges. Tiny tables and tiny chairs, but a view of the Mekong proper, pretty wide at this point and plied by the odd few sand-barges and fishing boats along with masses of vibrant and ubiquitous clumps of water hyacinth, gently rotating as they floated downstream. I ordered a beer and some food. The beer arrived but not the food. So be it, I thought, a liquid lunch was welcome enough. I just sat and watched the waters for a couple of hours, wishing Helen could have seen the view with me.
I covered about 30km that day and boy did my backside know about it afterwards. Still, a wonderful first day back in the country. Helen felt a little better the next day and we managed a few more paths and lanes together, this time meeting folks off the ferry that takes motorbikes and mopeds from one bank to another. A small wooden affair that doubled as the ferryman’s house. Each trip took about 30 seconds, each was carefully piloted to push up stream for a few meters, then angled to hit the opposing bank head-on using the strong current – a manoeuvre no doubt perfected from thousands of crossings.
Mekong ferry near Coco Lodge
We moved on to the town of Tra Vinh, in the heart of the delta, a small place with little to do aside from visiting temples and seeing the street life. We found a market, long and drawn-out along the riverside and had fun with the vendors. Little pleasures, not really encountered since central Asia. Interesting wares on offer too. At several ‘stalls’ (everything’s on the road), open cages of large living frogs sat next to bowls of skinned, dead frogs. Once the latest frogs are sold, vendors skin more and lop the heads off, but the unfortunate little beasties continue to move their limbs and mimic breathing. The sight of skinless, headless frogs leaping up and down in pools of their own blood was quite a sight.
Riverside market, Tra Vinh
Tra Vinh
Riverside market, Tra Vinh
Workers making a giant foam dragon, Tra Vinh
Our hotel, a concrete bunker of a place that’s currently winning the ‘cheapest place we’ve stayed’ at a mere £7 a night (though we’ve a long way to go to beat the place we found in Laos in 2006 that cost $2, with an attached trough for a bath and a toad in the toilet), recommended we visit the Hang shrine. The Chua Hang is a Khmer temple and is famous for its resident storks that come to roost nearby at dusk. Alas, no storks today and the weather turned miserable and rainy, however the place was brought considerably to life by a fabulous group of statues representing the Chinese zodiac ridden by a host of divinities, and our first ‘disco buddha’ of this trip. Those who’ve been to South East Asia before will no doubt recognise the description – golden statues of seated buddhas with crossed legs and a brightly lit, coloured ‘halo’ effect behind the head (a circle of tiny light bulbs that flash on & off with rotation or pulsing effects). These are quite something, possibly an art form in their own right. Makes you want to get down and boogie.
Hang Temple, Tra Vinh
Hang Temple, Tra Vinh
Disco nirvana, Hang Temple, Tra Vinh
Also here were a workforce of saffron-robed monks. A new adjacent temple is being built, and from what we saw, it seems the residents are being put to work doing it themselves. A rather odd thing watching monks chuck sand through a sifter or lug wheelbarrows of cement around. Somehow very refined. Not a builder’s backside in sight.
Hang Temple, Tra Vinh
Back in town we struggled to find any restaurants or cafes that were actually serving food. When we did, our order prompted two staff members to jump on a moped and speed off, only to come back 20 minutes later with one of the staff carrying a tray with my meal on it. Once safely transported to our table, they rode off again to fetch Helen’s. Neither were what we’d actually ordered, but hey ho, it was fun nonetheless. There were those having more fun than us however. Across the street a party of 6 or 7 had found a large round table, some booze and a karaoke machine. Each was taking it in turns to howl out a Vietnamese pop-song loudly through the microphone, making noise that threatened to make your ears bleed. It would have been painful were it not so funny. No-one cares though – the only thing that seems to matter is enthusiasm. A decent singing voice is not apparently a prerequisite to participate. Can’t sing? Who gives a monkeys? Belt it out anyway….
Tra Vinh has another notable attraction – the Ao Ba Om, a large, square man-made lake full of water lilies. Or rather woman-made as legend suggests it was constructed by local females in a pond-digging contest meant to resolve a dispute about marriage customs. Certainly not much to do here, unless you’re into watching water plants in a pond. However, located next to it is the utterly bling-tastic temple of Ang, an unlooked for but very welcome distraction. Here, if it’s not coloured red, pretty much every square inch of the temple is daubed in bright yellow and gold paint. It’s surrounded by a lively moat, whose waters are broken every now and again by large splashes, caused by unseen and no doubt substantial creatures lurking in the depths. The moat has a bridge at one end that’s home to four large serpent statues, possibly hinting at what you’re in for if you choose to take a dip…
Ang Temple, Tra Vinh
Ang Temple, Tra Vinh
We left Tra Vinh feeling pleased with our choices. A most pleasant town, if a little odd in the restaurant department, definitely typically Vietnamese and again without any other tourists at all. Our next destination, Can Tho, however, was unlikely to keep us in that frame of mind as it’s a major draw. The floating market here is the biggest and most well known in the region and tends to attract an awful lot of early morning gawpers. You can’t see the market on your own so we reluctantly joined a tour (luckily with only 2 others, from Manchester) which promised a less touristy experience by being run from a tiny boat with a local pilot. To be fair, it was good – our guide was a giddy young girl who seemingly had an inability to stop talking, but she was interesting and fun, randomly giving us a variety of different fruits as we cruised downriver. The market itself is a strange affair. We’d expected it to be locals exchanging produce in small boats, but this was much more of an industrial enterprise. Large, flat-bottomed merchant boats predominated, selling wholesale goods in the main, to other large boats or buying and selling less voluminous quantities with a handful of little ones. It was also rather quiet, in relative terms. Apparently the size of the market is diminishing year by year as people die off or retire to dry land. The younger generation are seemingly disinterested in taking on their family’s business, as life on board the merchant boats is tough – extremely cramped conditions with little or no comfort and not a great deal of money to be made. The main traffic here, unfortunately, is the 20 or so tourist boats that ply the waters, up and down several times past an ever diminishing array of trading vessels…
Can Tho floating market
Can Tho floating market
Can Tho floating market
Can Tho floating market
Can Tho floating market
A highlight though, are the floating restaurants and cafes that are still thriving. Catering for both locals and tourists alike, boats moor up against others for coffee or noodle soup, the classic Vietnamese Pho, with delicious clear broth and chunks of boiled pork. We stopped for both, the latter being served by a small boatman cum chef who cooks up the soup there and then in his floating kitchen. Our boat-seat was converted into a mini table so we could place our rather large bowls on a plank in front of us and we tucked in – superb stuff. The boat we were moored up against decided to leave before us, however, and as he left the boatman managed to spray my side of the boat with his extended propeller, whether by accident or on purpose we’ll never know. A decision therefore had to be made. Continue eating my Pho with its new addition of water from the Mekong, or abandon it and lament? You won’t be surprised to hear what option was chosen….
Can Tho floating market
Can Tho floating market
What do you mean the soup tastes like river water?
Just a brief visit to the region, but one we felt we needed to make to balance out the predominantly northern focus we’ve got here. Up to Hanoi next and then some time in a few ethnic minority villages and the rice paddies of Pu Luong.
Waterways around Can Tho
Waterways around Can Tho
Waterways around Can Tho
Foodnote: A night in two local Vietnamese restaurants in Can Tho. We arrived at one and found it to be rammed with locals, mainly blokes, who were making an enormous racket. The owner found us a table right in the midst of it all. In order to be heard we shouted our orders to the waitress, then tried & failed to have a conversation in the cacophony. Whether there was a special occasion or event on, we never found out, but it looked like small groups just out having a good time. Each table had several cases of beer. The etiquette here (if one can call it that), is to crack open a tinny, down it quickly, scrunch it up and chuck it on the floor. Many tables had tens of cans piling up underneath. Every time someone moved there was a small metallic avalanche adding to the noise. It would have been a tremendous evening were it not for the very mediocre food. I ate it, but Helen resisted. That was the reason we also went to another local road-side restaurant – this time tucking into an amazing soup with small, whole squid, seemingly with a lot of their innards still inside. We were dubious but ate them anyway (and indeed survived the night). It was less crazy at this place, but the beer thing was being done here too, by couples. Male and female alike downing cans and lobbing them away with loud clangs. Most romantic…..
Ong Temple, Can Tho
Mekong village house, near Ben Tre
The mighty Mekong
Simon (12th December 2025)
Groups of people making an enormous racket, tables full of beer, no etiquette, crack it open, down it ,scrunch it and chuck it. You are from Leeds!, you should be leading the way. That sounds like some Friday/Saturday nights I’ve witnessed.
I’m glad you are enjoying Vietnam and the photos are wonderful.
Ha ha – this lot could have drunk us under the table single-handedly….
Another adventure not so sure about the food though. Hope you joined in the singing..I was in the presence of Vietnamese people in my local nail bar. Enjoy your Christmas in Vietnam. XXX
Singing here can’t be enjoyed so much as endured – its very loud and it’s always awful….