Back to life, back to reality

After spending a month in Vietnam, we’re finally back in Kunming with a camera full of pictures and our hearts filled with memories of a beautiful land and a beautiful people. Larger than Italy, the country spans from the mountainous north to its tropical south and we attempted to see what we could in between. Over the next few days I will try to fill this blog with my observations, experiences and pictures to give you an idea of what Vietnam is about – or at least what it now means to me.




Mekong Delta



In the southernmost region of Vietnam, the mighty Mekong River splinters into hundreds of veins that empty into the sea. The most populated region of Vietnam, people’s lives here depend on the waterways for just about everything. Locals gather water, bathe, wash clothes, extract fish and base transportation from the many canals of the Mekong that criss-cross the delta.

Referred to as the country’s rice basket, enough rice here is produced to sustain the nation, as well as contributing ample supplies of shrimp, fish and tropical fruits – many of which have no western names.

From Ho Chi Mihn City, we took a bus to Can Tho, the largest town in the Mekong Delta. Leaving the city, life seemed to take on a more relaxed quality as the most common sight along the road became open-air cafés filled with hammocks and locals swinging lazily while sipping on iced tea or coffee. The deeper we went, the more bridges we crossed revealing narrow canals in a shapeless grid of river life.

The next morning we rose before dawn and hopped in a small wooden skiff captained by a friendly local and for just 10 USD, he agreed to take us on a 5-hour private tour of the surrounding villages and floating market. As the sun rose, we neared the market with boats suddenly appearing on all sides, joining us in motion. The boats were filled with varying fruits, vegetables and because of the nearing New Year holiday – flowers! The boats maneuvered around us and the merchants with their conical hats, made barters among the sea of floating goods. We spent the rest of the morning weaving through dozens of small canals, witnessing the region’s inhabitants whose backyard is the peaceful river.

In order to fully appreciate the Mekong Delta and take advantage of the tropical weather, we decided that upon a motorbike with the breeze blowing in our faces was the only way to go. We rented a Honda 125 “Dream II” motorbike from our guesthouse and hit the open road. Anytime we stopped for gas, food, or simply to stretch our sore bums, we would quickly become the center of attention as children would flock and smiles and laughter were exchanged with everyone we encountered. Babies were sat on our laps and stories told that we never fully understood, but we always smiled and nodded along anyway. This lifestyle of cruising, stopping for iced tea from a hammock and ingesting the way of the Mekong Delta through all our senses became addicting and we hung onto that bike for a week as we roamed the region’s roads less traveled.

From the western edge of the delta, we loaded the motorbike and ourselves onto a hydrofoil ferry to Phu Quoc Island - a paradise in the Gulf of Thailand. Not yet exploited by resorts and mass tourism, the island is quiet and empty besides a handful of bungalows and fishing villages. We stayed in a beach side bungalow and baked in the sun, getting up only to swim in the calm ocean, eat fresh seafood meals and when the masseuse asked us to flip over. Local women wander the beaches, offering massages or pedicures for 3 USD per hour. If only we’d been able to predict the cold and rainy weather that would plague the rest of our trip, we would have stayed on Phu Quoc for weeks.

Back on the mainland, we skirted the Cambodian border – wishing we had time to dip in for a brief visit and perhaps a look at the famed Angkor Wat. There are numerous Khmer (Cambodian) communities throughout the Mekong Delta which are easy to spot with their immense and elaborate Theravada Buddhist temple complexes that differ greatly from the traditionally Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhism. The region has been disputed over with Cambodia and was subject to the brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime, which massacred entire Vietnamese villages in the late 1970s.

For our last night in the Mekong Delta, we did a home stay with a Vietnamese family just outside Can Tho. The head of the family, Hung, picked us up by boat at the Can Tho docks and took us to his house, a lovely colonial-style building on a small acreage in a traditional Mekong Delta village. Wandering the village’s narrow dirt road that paralleled the river, we passed many families preparing for Tet and were greeted with excited children chanting, “Hello!” and amused parents who smiled at our presence. For dinner, we were treated to a feast of rice, fish, fried tofu and roll-your-own spring rolls. Afterwards, Hung invited us into his family’s front room and told us numerous stories about his family and about Vietnamese life and culture in general. He talked about many differences between culture in the north of the country versus the south. He also talked about Vietnam’s recent and horrifying past that has been filled with non-stop war for almost a century with the Chinese, French, Khmer Rouge and Americans. His own family was split in two during the American war, like many Vietnamese families were, where some of his siblings went to fight for the Communist North and other siblings fought against them for the Republican South. With so much suffering, death and destruction in their past, it’s sometimes hard to understand how the Vietnamese can be such happy and genuinely friendly people – especially to Americans like myself. Hung explained that due to their devastating past, the Vietnamese as a people choose to look forward to the future rather than focusing on history and the people who wronged them. They don’t hold a grudge against Americans because during the war they saw all the images of people protesting in Washington and came to realize that it’s not the people of the United States they should hold accountable, but rather the government.

While the Mekong Delta was our first real plunge into Vietnam, by the end of our journey across the country, we’ve come to realize that it was our favorite region. The people are so laid back and friendly, it became contagious.