Vietnam North to South – Day 16: On the Mekong

My dad and I woke up at half past six to eat a quick breakfast and check out of our hotel before embarking on our last adventure in Vietnam. Leaving our luggage at the reception, we walked over to the travel agency where we had previously workshopped our ideas for a trip to the Mekong Delta. Our driver and tour guide were already there.

It is a well-known fact that tired people tend to find fault with many a thing they might otherwise have overlooked. Throughout our trip, we have been sleeping progressively less, getting more and more tired, and the above maxim fully describes our state of mind. The car, we found, was full of mosquitoes, which kept emerging even late in the afternoon. The tour guide, while perfectly amicable (one might almost say chatty), was difficult to understand sometimes, and became almost unintelligible when seated next to the engine of a cruise boat. What we did understand were rather banal pieces of information: that a pagoda was nice and old, that there were many coconuts on an island, and that the river is muddy. Perhaps the guide was used to leading tours for the blind.

Our destination was the city Mỹ Tho, which lies on Mỹ Tho River, a distributary of the Mekong. Instead of making visits to various tourist traps like the coconut candy factory and bee farm, we asked to see some local places of worship. Of course, we unwittingly fell into many a tourist trap later on, gradually realising that the main tourist destinations in the delta are essentially government-sponsored theme parks.

We began at the Vĩnh Tràng Temple, built (and rebuilt) in the nineteenth century. The main things to see at this temple are its historic core, which contains many beautifully carved wooden decorations, and its giant statues of Guanyin, Buddha Maitreya, and the lying Buddha. The complex also features a tall pagoda, which at the time of our visit was flanked by beautifully blooming bougainvilleas. My dad and I also requested a short stop by the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, which was closed but still worth a visit to see the pastel-coloured exterior.

We soon arrived at the harbour in Mỹ Tho, from which a flotilla of tourist boats departs every day to visit nearby attractions. Joining the stream of visitors, we rode the boat to Unicorn Island. There, we partook in most of the activities prepared for us: we sat down to eat some fruit while listening to Vietnamese folk music, took a stroll through an orchard, and had two ladies paddle us down a canal shaded by nipa palm trees. This was my first exposure to what local guides call the “water coconut” – the fruit of the nipa palm, which grows on stalks in barnacle-like clusters. I tried juice made of this nipa palm fruit at our next stop, which was a restaurant on Coconut Island. I can’t say the drink was bad, but the fruit itself is not very flavourful.

Having finished our itinerary for the islands quite early, our guide decided to dip into our itinerary for the second day. Once we arrived in the city of Cần Thơ, we visited the Munirensay Khmer Buddhist Temple. Completely unlike any temple we have seen on this trip, this place of worship – with its golden ornaments and dramatically rising roofs – is indeed very evocative of temples in Cambodia, and it seems to be inhabited by Khmer monks. We also made a stop by the Chinese Chùa Ông Temple, which did not strike us as unique but was carefully decorated.

In the evening, our guide and driver took us to a tourist restaurant, our travel agency having decided that there were no good options within easy reach of our hotel. As we walked along the pavement after our meal, we noticed many of the bricks were heavily damaged. Our guide told us that this was due to flooding by the Mekong River, whose violence the Vietnamese blame on dams built in Cambodia and financed by China.