Cai Be and Sa Dec, Vietnam
We begin our day with a new contingent of travellers fresh from Saigon. Boarding our motorized sampans, we explore the river as far as Cai Be and its floating market. The lower Mekong Delta is crisscrossed with canals, big and small where the main activities are rice production and fisheries. Along the way we are introduced to a wide variety of river craft as well as deep sea fishing boats that make their way out to the South China Sea each night for tuna and other larger species. Going up the canals, we are reassured that there are no crocodiles in the Mekong, these having been eaten some centuries ago. There are, however, crocodile farms where the meat is harvested and the skin used for leather products, which one sees in the local souvenir stalls.
We make the mandatory stop at a craft demonstration centre where we are shown how rice paper, necessary to the production of many dishes, is made; the youngest of the group volunteers to test her skill in making a circular sheet of rice paper, pouring the mixture of rice flour, water and salt onto a heated cloth, then carefully peeling off the finished product. Her unexpected success is greeted with a round of applause. After a round of rice wine, or, for the more intrepid of us, rice whiskey in which a cobra has been infused, we watch puffed rice (not “shot from guns”) being turned into a delicious coconut-flavoured snack akin to Rice Krispies squares.
Entering the canal system at low tide, one can see the erosion that has been caused by the depletion of the mangrove forests (partly, one surmises, by Agent Orange—still present in the soil after forty years) and increasing boat traffic. This is a good time of year for the farmers and fishermen, just before the wet monsoon that will bring alluvial soil down the Upper Mekong. There is concern, of course, that, because of damming in China, the flow of the river has been somewhat diminished, so that rice crops as far as 30 miles from the sea are damaged by encroaching salt water.
The afternoon excursion takes us to the area of Sa Dec, where we visit the island of Binh Thanh, an area relatively unspoiled by the ubiquitous foreign tourist, population about 3,000. We go to the village temple/meeting hall where we have a presentation by two village elders, a man and a woman, volunteer caretakers at the temple. They are 76 and 70 respectively and have lived here most of their lives. This island was evidently a sanctuary of sorts for people fleeing the worst fighting in the lower Mekong in the 1950s and 60s. Our host admits to having put out his own left eye in order to avoid being conscripted into the South Vietnamese military. They cheerfully answer all our questions about life on the island, education, health care, etc.
We are taken finally to see the local cottage industry, mat making: the better quality grass mats are sent to market in larger towns in the Delta, while lower quality products are used locally. One mat can cost between $5 and $10, and lasts for three years.
Everywhere we go on the island, we are besieged by hordes of local children up the age of about seven or eight—it is Sunday, so there is no school today. The arrival of two boatloads of exotic foreigners is thus a great entertainment for them. For the travellers, they are a marvellous photo opportunity.
