We enjoyed a quiet overnight at the dock in Phnom Penh, and many of us took advantage of the early morning alongside for sunrise walks along the waterfront or a photographic walk with photo instructor Michael Nolan. We then cast off at 8:00 a.m. and cruised down the Phnom Penh waterfront, following the Tonle Sap River to its confluence with the Mekong. We enjoyed the rest of a lazy morning cruising down the Mekong, while University of Phnom Penh professor and prolific author Jean Michel Filippi gave a master’s lecture on the relationship of art and politics over ten centuries of ancient Cambodian history.
We were now in the Mekong Delta, past the bottleneck of Phnom Penh that backs up the rainy season Mekong flow into the Tonle Sap Lake. The delta is affected as much by tides as it is by annual river flow, and we saw this in the lower riverbanks and more consistent irrigation. For a week we had been hearing how Vietnam would be surprisingly different from Cambodia, and now that we had crossed the border we were awed by the differences. The land was methodically cultivated, the river busy and alive with action, and there was activity everywhere. Rice paddies were vibrant green, boats of all sizes carried corn, rice, soybeans, and sediments of all sizes in all directions, and ferries puttered back and forth across the river.
The Mekong Delta is known as the “Nine-Headed Dragon” for its nine outflows, and the two main channels run parallel from Phnom Penh southeast. At 5:00 p.m. we turned from the main channel of the Mekong into the fascinating Tan Chao canal, a 17km straight channel cut in the 19th century to link the main river with its southern parallel, the Bassac. Everyone was out on deck watching and photographing both riverbanks, with fish farms, corn fields, rice granaries, boat yards, a few Catholic churches, and floating villages on either side. It was spectacular, and it was a shocking difference from the river culture in Cambodia, and we were full of questions. Our Vietnamese guides Tri and San came aboard when we docked in Chau Doc, and whet our appetites for tomorrow’s early morning answers and adventures in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam.
