Why I fell in love with the Mekong: River cruising through Cambodia and Vietnam

A Vietnamese family on the Mekong delta.
Jane Phare cruises from Cambodia to Vietnam on a Viking riverboat, discovering there is much to see on the mighty Mekong.
“The Mekong?” a friend queried when I told her about my 16-day trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, half of which was on a riverboat. “Isn’t it muddy, and what is there to see?”
Turns out, lots. It’s a vast, fast-flowing river that never sleeps, teaming with life above and below, and clinging to its riverbanks. Beyond its shores is a glorious medley of wooden stilt houses, ramshackle shacks, petrol stations, rice factories and fish farms, elegant colonial French architecture – the remnants of a 90-year protectorate rule – and, rising from the green foliage, golden temples and the occasional giant reclining Buddha. It’s a river I fell in love with during a cruise on the luxurious Viking Saigon.
It’s the rainy season, or what the locals call “the floating season”, when we set sail from Kampong Cham in Cambodia. We can just make out the top tips of the famous Koh Paen bamboo bridge poking above the water. In the dry season this kilometre-long bridge, built strong enough to hold the weight of cars and trucks, provides access to Ko Paen island. In the rainy season, it disappears beneath the river, and the locals go by boat.
It’s then that the river’s wide, brown waters lap at the doors and porches of the river houses and fish farms that line its shores. It creeps up the canals and estuaries of the delta to flood rice fields, orchards, vegetable gardens and access to villages. Just about every family and trader has some sort of boat.
As we glide quietly down the river, those who call the Mekong home just go about their business: children wave from the rickety porches suspended over the water’s edge, locals wash or swim by the riverbank, or head out in sampans to fish or transport vegetables to market. There is no shortage of something, or someone, to see, and the river people don’t seem to mind us peering at them as we cruise past.
It’s a river of industry, a vast watery highway flowing through six countries that transports cars and passengers across on ferries, piles of rice on barges from factories along its shores, tonnes of fish in large wooden scows, and mountains of sand for construction and for the export market.
Perched atop the big working boats are young couples – he driving up front and she down the back in the living quarters, balancing barefoot on the edge while hanging out washing.
And everywhere there are eyes. It’s an age-old tradition on the river to paint large, bright eyes on the bow of the wooden scows to bring good luck and safety to the owners, ward off sea creatures and, on a busy river waterway, signal which way the boat is heading.
Beneath the Mekong’s waters are fish, plenty of them. The river is fast-flowing and healthy enough to produce millions of tonnes of fish for local use and export. The muddy colour is from silt washed off the banks during the rainy season.
We visit one floating family farm, one of thousands on the Mekong, in the Bassac canal when we cross into Vietnam where fish food, made of rice husks, salt fish and vegetable scraps, is cooked in a giant vat. It’s hot, noisy, smelly work but it earns them a good living.
The great balls of fish food are fed into a machine which spits them out as pellets that travel down a conveyer belt into the water. At first, there’s not much action below the platform. Then the water starts to move and boil, a wild thrashing of fish we cannot see. They will grow to between two and three kilograms before they are sent to market, or exported.
I’ve never been much of a fan of guided tours, preferring to poke around cities, back streets and museums on my own. But I’m a convert now. Travelling with local guides who have grown up in Cambodia and Vietnam, whose parents and grandparents lived through appalling atrocities and conflict, and who know the history, the way of life, traditions and local gossip of their communities, means you come away with more than just an iPhone full of photos.
Experts come aboard in the evenings to give guest lectures; we want to learn more about this place. As one dedicated “Vikie” – some on board had done multiple cruises with Viking in different parts of the world – said, “I always get off smarter than when I got on.”
Shore excursions usually happened twice a day, with a break at noon to return to the ship for a welcome cool-down and a three-course lunch.
We pile into tuktuks to visit Oknha Tay in Cambodia, where the community raises silk worms, dying the the fine threads from the cocoons and weaving them into lengths of gorgeous silk cloth on traditional looms.
We visit the twin holy mountains Phnom Pros and Phnom Sreyand in Cambodia’s Kampong Cham province, the Buddha garden with its golden statues and resident monkeys, and the village of Cheung Kok, sponsored by the French NGO Amica, which helped the once extremely poor community become self-sufficient. The school children sing for us, and hold our hands as we walk along dirt paths between traditional wooden houses built on stilts. Below, the family gather to cook and eat together in an open-air kitchen. Behind are the family’s cow and water buffalo.
Beneath the shade of a house next door, a mother rocks her baby suspended in a woven crib.
The shore excursions give us a taste of Cambodian and Vietnamese life – a village where the locals beat silver and bronze into statues, bowls, ornaments and jewellery, another where they pop rice and make sticky slabs of peanut-infused sweets. We go by air-conditioned coach, on foot, by sampan, on cyclos and tuktuks, pushed by pedal power or pulled by motorcycles.
We visit the Banteay Srey Temple with its series of vast, intricate carvings depicting everyday life, including women giving birth and men being eaten by crocodiles, and the wonderfully ornate Udon Monastary in Cambodia, featuring a massive reclining Buddha and lines of orange-robed monks lining up for lunch.
One of my favourite excursions was to the French colonial river port of Sa Dec in Vietnam, where we wandered through the narrow market streets, crammed with stallholders and goods for sale – exotic fruit like the rambutan and dragon fruit, flowers, fish, meat and livestock, both dead and alive. Here you can buy everything from skinned rats, snails, snakes and turtles to live ducklings, chickens, fish dried with salt, garlic and chili, crocodile and hunks of meat hanging on hooks.
Much like the Cambodians, the Vietnamese display friendly politeness to Western tourists inspecting their everyday life. They know we’re not going to buy a live duckling, dyed eel or crocodile meat, but they tolerate us anyway.
Nearby is the home of Huynh Thuy Le, the son of a wealthy Chinese trader, thought to be the character on which French author Marguerite Duras based her semi-autobiographical novel The Lover, later made into a steamy movie. Duras grew up in Sa Dec during the French colonial era and her book covers the story of a 15-year-old French girl who has an illicit affair with a handsome Chinese man.
But there’s no pressure to go on the excursions. They can be exhausting in the heat.
For a couple of nights, a renegade group of us defy the retire-to-bed habit after another three-course dinner and dance the night away while outside the thunder and lightning of a violent storm flashes and crashes. A Viking barman and the resident pianist/singer join in until we’re all just “dancin’ in the dark” to Springsteen.
The storm washes the sky clean and the dazzling skyscraper lights of Phnom Penh light up the river’s edge, the royal palace lit up in the distance like Disneyland.
None of us are ready to get off this river.
GETTING THERE
VIETNAM: Fly from Auckland to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City (both Vietnam) as well as Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia with one stopover with several airlines, including Air New Zealand, China Eastern, China Southern and Singapore Airlines.
DETAILS
vikingrivercruises.com.au.
Jane Phare travelled to Cambodia and Vietnam as a guest of Viking.