Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Out on the River

I expected to be woken this morning by the clatter of breakfast being prepared in the kitchen adjacent to our bedroom ready for 7am. The house (Ut Binh) is very open, with walls they don't quite meet the ceiling. This makes it airy and spacious but means that sound travels. In fact, I was woken by the rooster crowing outside.


Breakfast was a simple, French-style affair of baguette, omelette and strawberry jam with coffee. The jasmine tea and exotic fruits the only indicator that we were not sitting on a verandah in the south of France.

Today was a relaxing day, taken at a far less hectic pace than yesterday. This was largely thanks to our guide, Tam, who was so peaceful and unhurried.

At 8am, under a perfectly blue sky, a boat met us to take us the short trip down the Co Chien River to Cai Be, where a floating market is held. The stall holders live on board - evident from the washing hanging outside - and sell wholesale to the local people. They advertise their wares by way of a bamboo pole displaying a sweet potato, taro root or similar, high above the boat. Traders buy from them and take the produce back to market by boat to resell to the local community.


An incongruous sight in Cai Be is the Catholic church sat proudly and pinkly on the riverside, watching over the predominantly Buddhist market traders - the prow of their boats painted red with watching eyes for luck.

The people of the Delta are industrious and resourceful, letting nothing go to waste. Local resources are not only used for food and building materials. Raw materials are processed and the byproducts are recycled in a manner that is unsurprising in a society that believes in the cycle of life. On the river we passed mountains of rice husks being transported on barges to the brick kilns to fire the ovens, producing ash, which is mixed with coconut shells and used as fertiliser for crops.

Today we visited another 'cottage industry' - a small workshop producing sweets and rice wine.


Fuelled by rice husks, a giant wok heats sand until it is molten and smokey, into which is tipped rice or tapioca noodles. We watched as the rice puffed almost instantly and was then cooled and dehusked through a sieve - the husks going back onto the fire.

The puffed rice and noodles are mixed with various flavours - chocolate, peanut, sesame, durian (!) - and packaged at lightning speed by a line of workers, all sat chatting and sealing the packets over a candle. The inner wrapping is made from gossamer thin edible rice paper, which is also produced on site by painstakingly steaming rice milk and drying the thin sheets under the sun.


A small still sits over a wood fire and gradually produces rice wine. The liquor is then steeped with bananas, jackfruit, pineapples or, in one disturbing jar, a number of dead snakes. In the final jar, ginseng and snakes' penises mingled with the intoxicating spirit to produce a drink rumoured to improve male virility. Needless to say, I did not partake of this particular tipple - and not on vegetarian principles.

Back on the motorboat, we met up with a older lady, standing on the back of a rowing boat, operating the oars in a scissor fashion. We transferred to this boat, which was our transport to lunch. We made our way languorously back up Co Chien river, alternately using a spare oar to ineffectually propel us more quick towards our destination.

Lunch was taken on the verandah of a little house, similarly decorated to last night's homestay in dark wood and mother-of-pearl. The food was a simple combination of rice, tofu and vegetables, much the same as yesterday's midday meal. Afterwards, we gorged ourselves on rambutan, fingers prying the stiff casing away from the sweet and slightly translucent flesh beneath. After lunch, we lay in hammocks, savouring the peace and quiet until our guide brought to our attention a collection of bone-shaker shopping bicycles.


We spent a brief spell on the bikes, cycling through the quiet roads of Vinh Long. Out here, many people have yet to swap pedal power for the motorised equivalent. Every now and then a motorbike, typically laden with rambutan, longan or other fruits, passed us by while giving a short sound on the horn. This gesture made perfect sense to alert us to their presence. However, scale it up to the volumes of traffic in HCMC and the result is a senseless cacophony.

We rode the bikes back to the jetty, transferred to boat, then minibus to make a bumpy journey to Chau Doc, close to the Cambodian border.

The journey was broken at a crocodile farm.


Hundreds of crocodiles of varying sizes were spread across several large pools. With very few exceptions, the reptiles lay stock still at the edge of the pool, like statues, some with mouths agape. A few swam sinuously through the green waters. They are impressive beasts indeed.

Heartbreakingly, the farm is intended to serve a restaurant, where customers can dine on the creatures they have seen next door in a range of styles. If your budget won't stretch to dining out, crocodile parts are sold frozen by the kilo. Hypocritically, I thought, the restaurant was adorned with a picture of a laughing Buddha. It was a dispiriting sight.

As day turned to dusk, we wended our way to Chau Doc, skirting along the river, watching the sun set over the rice paddy fields and the shacks made from corrugated iron built on poles out over the river.

Under cover of darkness, we arrived at our slightly less salubrious accommodation than the previous night's unexpected luxury. The room was clean and the bed comfortable, while the view of the river from the top floor was a pleasant bonus.


Rejecting the hotel's own offering (wisely, I suspect), we ventured out and soon came upon a simple chay restaurant by the market full of stainless steel tables and friendly faces.


The menu was full of mock meats, from vegetarian shrimp to beef, chicken and cod. Having heard of Buddhist restaurants' uncanny ability to create realistic meat simulacra, we ordered a couple of dishes to try. Beef in tamarind sauce (bò tái me) and codfish in ginger sauce (cá thu chiên mắm gừng) were both extremely flavoursome, but also bizarrely realistic (although it's been some years since I tasted the real version of either
). I would not choose such oddly authentic meat substitutes to eat every day, but once in a while makes a change. Sadly, there was no fake crocodile meat to encourage people not to eat the real thing.

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