OTRWJ Part 5 Opening
This trip has taken me to the most northern reaches of Vietnam on the Chinese border, and now -- nearly 1000 miles south -- to the Mekong Delta.
A quick stop in Can Tho to visit a Theravada Buddhist temple, far more ornate than the Mahayana temples of the north. This one is also a school where families may send their sons if they are struggling to have enough food. The boy can stay through his school year and, if he chooses, stay on to become a monk. You’ll notice the dormitory is quite basic.
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The most fascinating part of the temple was its clinic/pharmacy. Volunteers help to fill bags with various chopped herbs and plants used as traditional remedies. They keep inventory of everything on a white board. The medicine is then put in labeled bins in the dispensary where they are weighed and wrapped in newspaper to give to patients.
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The next morning I was out early to the floating market in Cai Rang. Once a market of 700, the effects of infrastructure improvements (roads, bridges, embankments), economic hardship, and environmental impact have taken their toll with only roughly 70 remaining.
Vendors live and work on their boats. As such, there are service people in boats … a barber comes periodically, I’m told. There were also “restaurants”… a noodle lady made famous by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey. This was breakfast …bun rieu…and it was terrific!
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Living conditions seem hard.
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The boats advertise what products they’re selling to passing “shoppers” by tying a sample to the top of a tall bamboo pole.
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Among the vendors and “wholesalers,” are “mobil markets.” These small boats pull along side the vendor boats and load up. They then go up the Mekong’s narrow tributaries stopping at homes along the way. Our guide said that people know what day and time their Mobil Market will arrive!
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Along the Mekong, you see fish farms. Some of the fish gets sold in the local fish market and some gets transported to be shipped out. The transported fish are kept alive in the hull of these wooden boats that have holes in them to let water flow through. Pretty ingenious solution when they don’t have a more modern way !
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The Mekong Delta is clogged with invasive water hyacinth. It forms dense mats that block vital waterways, hindering boat traffic and fishing. But it's also a resourceful material for daily life (bags, mats) and fertilizer. An added benefit: its roots naturally absorb pollutants from the increasingly dirty water it thrives in.
Sampans, the traditional flat-bottomed boat we associate with the delta, are still widely used. I thought it was maybe a “tourist experience,” until I spoke with a young woman in HCM City who’d grown up on the Mekong. She used a sampan daily, maneuvering through the narrow canals, to get to school.
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Upriver dams in Laos and Cambodia, drought, sand mining, plastic waste are all threatening this, the 12th longest river in the world, and the people who rely on it for their livelihood.
