Dancing through the Delta

If you're planning on spending two to three months in the Mekong Delta, remember to set aside at least five minutes for the provincial capital of An Giang, Long Xuyen. Last time I went there we struggled to find a hotel which would accept foreigners and ended up staying in a brothel. This time around the situation isn't much better -- one place I checked, the Thai Binh 2, had a second floor karaoke bar that was going off at two in the afternoon. I braved the screeching din and peeked inside to see the place was packed with a bunch of middle-aged Vietnamese men, all with beer-goggles well fogged and women fawning all over them. And this was 2pm on a weekday!

We beat a hasty retreat out of Long Xuyen and headed to one of the Mekong Delta's largest towns, Can Tho. It's best known for a series of floating markets you can visit by boat from the capital, but more about that later.

When we arrived at the long-running and recommended-by-others Hien Guest House, the owner explained the price structure and showed me a room. It was reasonable, perhaps a little overpriced, but it would do. I went back downstairs to collect Holly and the bags and pay the motos. However before I could even get the bags up the stairs, the guesthouse owner enquired if we wanted to do a boat trip?

I made the mistake of expressing a passing interest and proceeded to get a 20-minute floorshow on why we should do a boat-trip with this guy. Consider this an annoucement to all guesthouse owners: please allow guests to get their bags to their room and wash the sweat off their bodies before trying to sell them anything.

As his spiel wound down, he hadn't mentioned price, so I asked, well, how much is it?

"It's in The Book," he said matter-of-factly.

Now I know full well what Book he was talking about, but as I didn't have a copy with me, I asked how much again.

"The same as in the book. $3 one hour for the boat -- take a look in The Book -- it's all in there."

Novel suggestion: perhaps we should avoid interaction with people and just do what The Book says. While I've no doubt The Book does a fine job covering Vietnam (and many other countries), I prefer to ask around myself. It's a good way to find things that are not in The Book,and a great way to avoid those who have chosen to Live And Die By The Book (LADBTBites).

Perhaps this was a subtle way of him telling me his place is listed in The Book, but subtlety was not one of his major assets.

The Book Authors I know have a name for what happens with they rave about a place or, even worse, list it in their new "Author's Choice" section: "The Book Kiss Of Death". Not only will the place be flooded by LADBTB acolytes, but the prices will jack up (often doubling), the once-friendly staff will throw in the towel in the face of over-demanding and often totally irrational LADBTBites, and undergo a transformation from warm to cynical.

Anyway I digress.

Why didn't the proprietor let us take our bags into the room before laying into us with his boat-trip spiel? Because he gets a great hit rate -- we relented and did a trip through him, and to be fair, it was excellent. So what if we found out upon our return, sunburnt and sleepy, that we could have got it for a dollar an hour less by the riverfront? That's part of the game and anyway we were really happy with our guide -- a Canthonian who'd been rowing people around for seven years and spoke good English.

The trip began with a 5.30am departure (Holly was not happy) and we spent the next seven hours on our own boat, alternately motoring and paddling through the floating markets and then through the back canals to Can Tho.

The first market was Cai Rang and the second Phung Dien. Cai Rang gets bigger boats and barges, many of which hoist samples of their produce up on poles poking into the sky -- everything from pumpkin and cassava to poultry and piping hot coffee is on offer. Just as we entered the market, a small sampan came scooting over with it's pilot calling out, "Coffee, coffee!" He then threw over a rope with a hook and tied us up -- we felt like we were being trapped pirate-style -- but the coffee was great and woke Holly up.

Phung Dien is a smaller market with loads of little sampans along with the occasional barge. We spent a good hour floating around in the midst of this market and it was excellent -- I just regret not getting a bowl of noodles from the noodle-lady that floated over.

Once we finished at the markets, our motor came on and we cruised off up the back canals to Can Tho. While this portion of the trip was a bit long at around three hours, the scenery was sleepy and interesting. We saw schoolkids cycling home for lunch, younger kids jumping off the monkey bridges spanning overhead, fruit hanging heavy over the river so close we could have grabbed it, lush ferns and jungle, rice being thrashed and harvested, barges tied up under the shade of gigantic trees -- a veritable kaleidoscope of every cliche you could come up with about Vietnam's Mekong Delta, yet there was nothing cliched about it. All that was missing was an icey chardonnay and a cheese board...

My main concern before doing the trip was that the markets would be cluttered with tourists. However by doing the trip from Can Tho we beat the Saigon tourists, who arrive en masse around 8ish, and shared the market with just one other set of backpackers, who were on a similar trip to us.

So don't make the mistake of doing it from Saigon and don't be lazy, spend the money and do it yourself.