Cruising Vietnam’s Mekong Delta

My five-hour cargo-vessel voyage onwards to Tra Vinh Province showcased the vitality of river trade. There was a continuous slow armada of wooden vessels serving vibrant riverside markets, from canoes top-heavy with prickly red rambutans to barges large enough to hold containers. All of them had eyes painted on their bows to symbolise watchfulness against danger.

The ragged Tra Vinh peninsula juts into the sea like a dragon’s talon. I’d come to explore its ethnic-Khmer culture. Historically Cambodian Khmers populated the delta before being marginalised as Vietnam expanded its influence southwards in the 18th-century.

Around Tra Vinh, 142 Khmer pagodas host orders of orange-robed monks. At the 900-year-old Ang Pagoda, I recognised from my past Cambodian travels the sumptuousness of Khmer art: central wats with Technicolour murals chronicling Buddha’s life, multi-tiered roofs writhing with dragons, stairways of rearing seven-headed snakes.

Ca Day, a young women employed at Ang, told me that 300,000 Vietnamese-Khmer inhabit Tra Vinh Province. “My identity is split,” she said. “My parents are Khmer and I speak Khmer, but I consider myself Vietnamese because it’s all I’ve known.”

Pick of the pagodas is 350-year-old Hang Pagoda. Each evening, around 5pm, hundreds of storks launch skywards from the surrounding trees to create a swirling whiteout like an unlikely snow blizzard.

After my foray onto the tourist trail, I was back on my own, easing between the intertwined Bassac and Tien Giang rivers. In Sa Dec, a bustling market city with lingering French ambience, my guide Oanh told me of the delta’s steamiest romance. In her book, The Lover, former resident and novelist Marguerite Duras recalled her 1930s tryst with an older Chinese businessman, Huynh Thuy Le, when she was aged just 15. It scandalised Sa Dec.

We visited the French school, where Duras’s poverty-stricken widowed mother taught, and Le’s opulent ancestral mansion, which left an impression on the youthful Duras. Oanh readily divulged the scandal as we went: “They met en route to Saigon… Le’s father wouldn’t let them marry because Duras was too poor… She refused to see Le decades later in Paris because he’d shunned her…”

The delta’s conservatism has scarcely changed since Duras’ era. A movie of The Lover was filmed around here but, according to Oanh, most locals avoided it because it was “too sexy”. “Have you seen it?” I asked. “Yes.” She blushed crimson.

After a healthy dose of self austerity, frequenting budget hotels, buses and homestays, my final sojourn on the delta’s edge with Cambodia was the French colonial-style Victoria Hotel, 50km west in Chau Doc.

My room’s balcony offered a view to die for: a U-bend kink in the Mekong Bassac heading directly towards Cambodia. The sounds of calling mosques from Cham minority villages over the river mingled with the ceaseless slow-chugging riverboats, my ever-present delta tinnitus.

But the Victoria Hotel was quiet. Hotel employee, Mr Tuan, lamented how guests typically arrived late afternoon then hurried away early next morning on the daily speedboat to Phnom Penh. “It’s like we’re a transit lounge en route to Cambodia,” he said, “but there’s so much to see here.”

Further north, I rode a sampan through the cloying green river weed of Tra Su’s flooded cajuput forest. “The VC hid here during the war,” said my guide, Phuong, “so the Americans defoliated the forest.” It has made a remarkable recovery and now teems with egrets, painted storks, darters and purple swamphens.

The next morning I left the dragon. I boarded the speedboat for Phnom Penh, whizzing beyond the mighty juncture where the Mekong divides into the delta’s two great rivers. Nine Dragons became one.

Mekong Eyes arranges delta itineraries that include Cai Be to Can Tho cruises; starting from £162pp for a two-day/one-night all-inclusive trip.

Ang Giang Tourimex is de-facto tourist office for Long Xuyen. An English-speaking guide (Thai Saror; thaisarorn@gmail.com), homestay and floating market trip costs around £50.

Buffalo Tours works with Victoria Hotels, running a range of trips based around properties at Chau Doc, Can Tho and Nui Sam.

Nguyen Thi Thuy Oanh (honey0109@ yahoo.com.vn) is a local guide in Sa Dec.

Getting there
Vietnam Airlines operates the only direct flights from the UK to Vietnam, flying from Heathrow to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Returns on its new six-weekly Dreamliner 787-9s start from £525; flight time is 12 hours.

Where to stay
The elegant Hotel Continental Saigon (Saigon) is full of history; its frangipani courtyard is Saigon’s most beautiful breakfast spot. Excellent-value doubles from £69.

Mrs Mai’s Homestay (Tiger Island; book through Ang Giang Tourimex) is a welcoming household with polished-wood floors. Half-board costs £16.

Victoria Hotel (Chau Doc) sits imperiously on the Bassac River, with a pool terrace. Doubles from £91.


Main image: Vietnam’s Mekong Delta (Dreamstime)