Misadventures in the Mekong Delta

Travel Story by Mike Tonkins

Mekong Delta, Vietnam

One night I got a text message when I was sitting in a bar. I thought it was going to be one of my nightly 'Good night MIKE I hope you have sweet dream' texts that my students take turns to send me. Turns out that 'Student Unknown 9' wanted me to meet her parents. After a heavy weekend in Saigon, the peace and tranquility of the Delta seemed like a great idea.

The next day I was walking towards the university gates where we'd agreed to meet. I suddenly realised that I had no idea who these students were - how old were they? What did they look like? How many of them were there? How good was their English? And I was in immediate danger of walking right past them. I strolled around peering over the crowd and trying to look like a guy who knows who he's meeting. Fortunatly they saw me first.

"Mie! MIE!!" No 'k'. Bad sign.

After a (by Vietnamese standards) swift and safe bus journey, we arrived at a small area of habitation in the Mekong Delta. Weathered Vietnamese sat in the dust at the side of the cracked tarmac road, drinking iced tea and doing nothing at all. Some people slept, a shoeless schoolgirl walked home. Old women squatted and picked the stems from tiny chili peppers. A couple of cows wandered around, the traffic thundered past and in the sweltering air there was a smell of fermenting coconut. All over the Delta there are huge
piles of coconut shells, begun long ago and added to by sucessive generations, so for decades the coconut flesh just rots in the sun.

I have a fundamental problem with spending time with 'a foreigner' because I don't speak any foreign. After half an hour of being silently shown my student's (there were two of them, sisters, 20 years old and bad at English) vast collection of (appalling) Thai and Vietnamese pop videos, they seemed to realise this. So they took me visiting. Visiting is a big thing to more traditional Vietnamese families - to honour a guest the polite Vietnamese
takes them to visit every family member around. After four or five periods of sitting awkwardly with birdlike grandmothers ("My grandmother want know how old are you" "Nineteen" "Muoi chin" "Ahh! Muoi chin muoi chin!!"), I felt that my 'authentic' experience was complete. I had armfuls of bamboo 'gifts' that cost 5000d each, and wanted to see some neon lights again. Unfortunatly, I'd only been there for 5 hours and was not leaving until the next day.

We went to the park. In the middle of the Mekong Delta, 45 minutes drive from the nearest large highway and in an area where the people still wade through their back gardens and go to bed when it gets dark, the Vietnamese government decided to build a park. But this is no mere taming of jungle! There is a giant pink breezeblock sculpture of a lotus as you enter the park. The lake with fish in is surrounded by a monorail. (Rotting coconuts and a MONORAIL, for God's sake!) And in an obscure corner is a cage made of light chain-link wire full of enormous alligators.

"I know! Lizards! Lots and lots of huge, hungry, man-eating lizards! We won't build a clinic or a school - we'll give them some alligators. They'll have to feed them too! And a pond . One doesn't see many fish in the Mekong Delta, and a pond would make a nice break. And then we'll put a monorail around the pond, so people can see the fish and alligators from above!"

I'm paraphrasing, but somone with authority said that.

I wonder who cleans out a 4 metre-square cage full of under-fed alligators? I wonder how long it took for the people to get bored of looking at creatures that do nothing but lie in the sun all day? I wonder if, when the mesh of the cage rusts through, anyone will repair it? And how long it will take, once that day comes, for a bored kid to poke too hard with a stick and suddenly find out the hard way that an old tennis court fence is not adequate protection from an enraged 35 stone reptile.

That evening we went to a fair. It was a fairly modest do - only 5 stands and a main stage - but was attended by a couple of hundered people. Within 30 seconds all the people there were tailing me around. They weren't self conscious about it or anything, they just came and watched everything I did. My students and I eventually sat down and tried to communicate via paper and pen, and pretended to understand each other whilst a hundered Vietnamese penned us in on all sides, leaning so close their ears were touching ours.

Obliged to wait until the highlight (a transexual singer), we scurried off and hid at a nearby cafe, waiting for the main show to start. When it did we went back and were immediatly given seats right in front of the stage. A 5-foot-9-inch Vietnamese 'woman' came out and started to sing in Vietnamese. Then another, then another. What on earth are ladyboys doing in the Delta?! The Vietnamese loved it - for them the performance was half-musical, half freak-show.

Somone thrust a bingo ticket into my hand; one of those spinning spheres full of small bright balls was wheeled onto stage.

"Hello you! Hello Mr Westener! You come help us?" Oh god. "Hello! You speak English?" smile, shake head, look away. They've lost interest. Crisis averted.

The next day, after a shocking night on a bamboo bed, I was allowed to sleep in until exactly dawn. Then we went to the market. Vietnamese markets are the centre of life for immediate communities and the surrounding area. The urban ones have order, internal addresses and maps, but in rural areas they are a hideous mish-mash of low, rusty, sharp corregated iron roofs and drainpipes, under which flies buzz, childeren run and the smell of warm meat and blood is everywhere. They sell the most suprising things. Amid the food and clothing stalls are stalls for children's toys. Action figures, little plastic cars, and keyboard guitars that only play one note.

Then there are music-technology stalls. These people love karaoke, and so in their homes they have (in addition to a TV and DVD player) a 30-knob levels board and a graphics equaliser. Kit that would do credit to any DJ - just so the family can listen to pop videos. Amid the rotting meat and imports from Taiwan, there are 5-foot speakers and mixing boards! They must save up for aeons to buy these things.

In the afternoon we went to visit more family in the Delta. It was fantastic, cruising along on a motorbike down dirt roads. On either side tiny rivers, almost hidden behind mangroves, slipped lazily by. Low boats sliding smoothly up and down on the placid brown water. Family tombs deep in the jungle; ornate and pastel-coloured, surrounded by the opressive dark green leaves and thick trunks. Irrigation to keep the groundwater at bay and mark terratory. Amazingly, once or twice we passed an enormous 4-storey house. Ornate, well kept, but clearly not lived in. Then a malorous den of rotting planks and a tarpaulin strung together with rope that served as a home for 10 people.

We caught the 3pm bus home. At 3.15 we turned around. At 3.30, we were back where we had started. At 3.45 we picked up ONE PASSANGER and TURNED AROUND AGAIN! She had 15 minutes to wait for the next bus, and we went back for her! We were eventually overtaken by the bus she SHOULD have been on.

So that was the end of it. The petrol fumes of Saigon never smelt so sweet; the lights never looked so bright. Although I'd never say I had a good time, it was valuable, authentic, and all the other stuff that's not fun but good for you. I don't mean to suggest the Delta is an awful place, but seriously, it is - if you want to have fun anyway.

Read more about the author of this story:
Mike Tonkins