We arrived in Cai Be at 10.30 and were greeted by Kinh (pronounced Gyn). A 70 year old Vietnamese man from the Mekong who’d obviously had a very hard life as he looked closer to 80. We waved goodbye to Cat our guide from Saigon as Kinh was to be in charge of us for the next two days. Our sampan crew, 2 teenage boys and one in his early twenties greeted us – the slightly elder of the three is the captain. The Song Xanh Sampan is absolutely beautiful. We boarded from the front on to a wooden deck that led directly into an open seating area. The windows were open with little calico curtains. It was furnished with comfy wicker chairs, a wicker sofa and table upon which was a fruit basket filled with fruits we’d become familiar with on our travels, like the small sweet bananas and Dragon fruit - large and reddish pink with soft green spikes, the inside is white with tiny black seeds and tastes a little like a kiwi fruit but so much sweeter and fresher.
Kinh showed David around the workings of the bathroom, which even has a walk in shower and hot water – then beyond that our bedroom, complete with mosquito net and finally the rear of the sampan where all 4 staff spend their days and nights except when they are joined by us for breakfast. It’s difficult to describe just how wonderful it is.
Two lemongrass scented cold towels and ice cold bottles of water were presented to us, then the ropes were lifted and we glided away from the bank. Kinh called us his ”Kiiiing and Queeeen” which he elongated in his soft but gravely tone and we were told that anything we wanted we should ask for. Every now and again he would pop up to tell us about something on the river bank - we were passing such fascinating things.
The Mekong Delta is absolutely enormous in size – it has 9 main branches and then smaller tributaries and islands throughout. It’s a totally diverse way of life. Fruits and vegetables abound because the delta has such fertile soil. We went to one village where a lady of 88 (crouching at the side of the road)
was mixing sand and mulch and putting it into pots with seedlings, just like you see in pots at our garden centres. The rivers of the delta are lined by so many different types of industry. Generally not on a particularly grand scale or with modern equipment but very productive all the same. We passed an area of open buildings. Here rice from the fields would arrive on boats. It would be sucked up from the deck of the boats via an auger (a long wide pipe with a corkscrew) where it went through a process that split the husks from the rice. The rice was then bagged and the bags loaded back onto a boat. The husks were loaded in a pile onto other boats.
We came to realise just how important rice husks are. They seem to power everything. Our first stop was to a sweet factory that was completely outside – no walls. They were making rice cakes, rice paper and toffees. To make the rice paper the husks fuelled a fire under a large boiling pan of water. Across the top was stretched a piece of rubber. Water was mixed with the flour that had been made from a small stone mill. Then with a large wooden ladle made from coconut the lady spread a small amount of the water and flour mixture onto the rubber and quickly spread it into a circular shape and was left for no more than 20 seconds. Then with a long wooden spatula she gently lifted one corner, slid the spatula underneath so that she could wind the soft and very thin pancake around it so as to remove it from the rubber and stop it cooking. She then unwound it and lay onto a bamboo tray in the sun for a day. The sun would leave bamboo markings in the rice paper which looks so attractive. The papers were then bagged ready for market. Then it was my go! I made just one but someone somewhere will be eating the one I made.
Next, the toffee, they boil sugar cane syrup in a huge wok over a fire fuelled by rice husks. Some flavoured with cocoa, some with a pananas leaf which gave it a greenish colour and some with peanut. When ready it was poured onto wooden slats and when cool was cut into small squares where upon two girls patiently and deftly would first wrap each piece in rice paper and then sellophane before packaging for market. It was absolutely delicious.
Finally, over to another huge wok like pan with yet another fire and you’ve guessed it, fuelled by rice husks. In the bottom of the pan was some black stuff. The young man threw in several handfuls of what looked like popcorn, except this was dried rice. He stirred it constantly with a huge wooden ladle. It immediately started popping but we couldn’t understand why it wasn’t going black. In no more than a couple of minutes the popping stopped and the contents were poured through a large flat sieve and all the black stuff fell out – it was fine sand and with just a spoonful of oil each time they use for popping the rice for a year! Next stop the cashier where we made our purchases – not under duress we may add.
Parts of the delta are wealthier but generally along the waters-edge people are fairly poor, some extremely so, yet people seem content and happy. The children are wonderful – smiling and laughing and playing so contentedly with not a toy in sight. Houses are very varied.
Some made of bricks and mortar but mostly made from bamboo leaves and poles, or corrugated iron, or a mixture of the two. Some would have four walls, others seemed upright, just, and not necessarily with all the walls. Everyone sleeps on the floor or in one of the more affluent house we went into, on grand teak wooden beds with just a mat, no mattress. Very hard whichever you’re on.
Another fascinating piece of industry was the brick works. Along a piece of the river were large kiln structures shaped like a dome, built of red brick with two chimneys. This particular one was making bricks and floor tiles which are made on a very archaic but ingenious machine. One man could make about 40 bricks a minute. These were then put ouside to dry for a day after which they would be loaded into the kiln, row upon row, right up to the top of the conical kiln and the last man would have to climb out through an escape hole at the top, about 15 metres up. Whilst we were there they were repairing one of the domes and women were precariously balanced against the outside of the brickwork all the way up to the top, waving and shouting at us, a merry band of workers and probably only earning about $2 a day. One of the girls her hands covered in wet mortar offered to shake Davids hand, David took her up on her offer which caused a huge amount of laughter especially when he aped to wipe his hand on Kinhs face. Inside at the bottom was a large furnace, obviously fuelled from a hopper of rice husks which would bake the bricks for 2-3 days. Absolutely fascinating.
Our first lunch was at Le Longanier Restaurant, just a few minutes walk from the rivers edge. It’s housed in an absolutely beautiful colonial house with a lush garden at the front. We were served by exquisite young waitresses. They were grace personified. Upon their tiny frames they wore the traditional silk trousers and long dress in cream and black decorated with pearl buttons and each wore a pearl necklace and earings. They were so enchanting.
The first evening we were taken to a house which had been that of the lover of Marguerite Dumas the famous French writer who wrote a book which was later a film ‘The Lover’. She met him at a railway station in Vietnam . They fell in love but he was Chinese and she French so they were not allowed to marry. She never visited this house. Our supper this evening was in the house at a table laid especially for us two by our sampan crew, where we were served a home cooked meal with a bottle of red Dalat wine. It was very lovely although slightly odd just us two.
We didn’t see another westerner for two days. Everywhere we went people would smile and wave and when on land they would say hello in English. Parents would urge their children to speak what little English they knew, they were immensely proud and desperate to interact with us.
If we walked down a street children ran alongside us until we had a whole string of them following behind. It was overwhelming and did strangely make you feel what it might be like if you were a real King and Queen. One woman came up to David and stroked the skin on his arm, comparing the colour with that of her own arm, I’m not sure we weren’t at some point offered some whitening cream!
Late one afternoon we cycled through a small town, on very uncomfortable bicycles I might add - David was getting quite anxious about his manhood as his saddle repeatedly slipped into a vertical plane! We then transferred to the sampan tender (a mini sampan) and the youngest member of the crew stood at the back and rowed us down a very narrow river offshoot with long oars. It was dusk so Kinh smothered us in mosquito repellent. Here it seemed the whole village followed us down the riverbank and the local children were jumping into the water with such excitement. I was taking photo after photo as it seemed they were quite honoured if you chose to take theirs.
Mothers and fathers were holding their babies up so that I could see them more clearly for a picture.This was an experience we shall never forget. We even got invited to a wedding but had to decline the offer as we had pressing business elsewhere! ( A family home for supper, much the same as the night before very delicious and with our crew in attendance) You could never describe the Mekong Delta as tranquil as chugging boats of all shapes and sizes are never far away, but as we sailed down the riverways watching a very foreign world go by, we did feel totally relaxed albeit rather embarrassed at times by the grandness of our sampan compared to everything else around us. On our last evening we sat on the front deck of our beautiful boat for hours just watching the unfamiliar but fascinating world go buy under a bright starry sky. Eventually we felt we should retire.
Our boat chugged its way towards Rach Gia where we needed to disembark at 6am. The noise in the cabin was horrendous and the bed shuddered but somehow we managed to get three hours sleep and woke up when it stopped to moor at about 1am. After that, sleep was quite disjointed as we were roused each time as a loud boat went by – somehow it had been easier to sleep when the noise was consistent rather than intermittent.
We were due to awake at 5am and I think we would have anyway as there was a very loud speaker nearby. Apparently everyday throughout Vietnam 5-6am and 5-6pm this happens. The first bit I think was a woman orchestrating exercise moves, or at least that’s what it sounded like. After that I think it moves onto the news and then telling people how to live their lives.
It was so sad to leave our sampan and crew the next morning. We were surprised to see that at 6am the whole place was alive, children going to school and at one house a wedding party was arriving at the brides home. Friends and family come to say goodbye to the bride, as on her wedding day she leaves her mother and father and joins the family of the husband. They came bearing gifts and then sat to eat breakfast – this perhaps where the term ‘wedding breakfast’ really comes from. We were so disappointed we couldn’t stay a while longer to actually see the bride. Kinh came with us to the airport. We all shook hands to say goodbye and we were sure he had a tear in his eye. We watched him slowly walk away across the airport car park with his little bag, his head bowed and shoulders hunched ,knowing we would never see him again. He’d been a wonderful guide, learned,kind and gentle, a real character was Kinh.
Footnote by David: I happened across a paperback book whilst on the Sampan, it was called “After Sorrow” written by an American whose actual name is Lady Borton. She had worked for voluntary organisations during the American War in Vietnam; later she was one of the first Americans permitted to come back to Vietnam after the war and live in a village. It tells of the huge sacrifices made whilst fighting to free their country from the tyranny of the French and then the Americans. It has been a bitter struggle, the French were barbaric and cruel and used the guillotine to dispatch patriots of Vietnam, even within the last fifty years. Then the Americans, who dropped millions of tons of bombs and resorted to using agent orange to clear the forests. Agent orange has left a terrible legacy - many children have been born with dreadful deformities and the land that used to be lush and fertile is now barren and contaminated. The effects of Dioxin carry still from generation to generation. The Vietnamese government are still negotiating compensation from the USA. American service men must have been affected too.
Sitting on our Sampan drifting down the Mekong and having travelled North to South has given us an incredible insight into the make up of the Vietnamese people. They are gentle and kind, industrious and determined. I have asked on many occasions about the war and not once has any one berated the Americans, they are just hugely proud of the victory and relieved to have their country back. Ho Chi Min was an amazing man - Uncle as they call him inspired his people to sacrifice so much in the fight for freedom. After Sorrow is a wonderful insight into the struggle for freedom and I felt very lucky to have experienced the country first-hand and the warmth of the people.
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