Liz and Jim Patton

The Mekong River rises in Tibet, flows through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and then breaks up into multiple branches in Vietnam before it empties into the South China Sea. Flooding, endemic to the region, is kept under some control by a complex network of canals designed by Indian traders over 18 centuries ago.

The region is very fertile, and recently hugely successful in selling its products. Before Moi Doi, farmers worked for the government at a fixed wage. There were checkpoints every 100-200 km to detect transport (smuggling) and selling (profiteering) of produce. As a result, Vietnam was an importer of rice and the country was plagued with periodic famines. Since privatization of farms in the ‘80’s, Vietnam has become the second largest exporter of rice in the world, and also a significant exporter of coffee, paper, rubber and fruit. They take great pride in the fact that they have now sent farmers to Nigeria and Sierra Leone to teach them better techniques for growing rice.

When you drive through the area, you are always next to water, always crossing bridges, and often taking ferries. So for fun, you go by boat. We took a two-day “cruise” on a small one, along with four French who never quite acknowledged our presence. It was a real hoot – everything mini, but complete: tiny beds, tiny bathroom, a “shower” arrangement in the bathroom. And, like all cruises, great food!

The high point was visiting a floating market. For that, we launched off on a tiny skiff with about six seats and a tin roof.  The Cai Rant market is huge, there are hundreds of boats of all sizes buying and selling everything. It’s a wholesale market, so large numbers of items were changing hands. A buyer would chug up to a seller, pay for his produce, then the transfer would be a sequence of tosses – 50 watermelons or whatever – from one boat to the other.

Most had the produce stuffed below deck. A pole at the front of the boat was used to “advertise.” So, if it was onions for sale from that boat, there would be an onion hanging from the pole. In the first few minutes, I saw:

Then I tired of writing them down. It is clearly a long morning if you need to shop for everything, so there were lots of canoe-sized craft snaking through the larger boats selling tea and coffee and sodas to drink.

We stayed for about an hour so Jim and Maynard could photograph. Jim spent the time up on the tin roof of the boat, and I waited for a splash as we bumped our way through the crowd. Luckily, he held on and we got back to our little cruise ship intact.

We spent our last night in the Mekong in Chau Doc, on our own. Our guide Hung recommended that we try a restaurant across the street from the hotel to sample the local specialty, Lau, so off we went.

The restaurant was just a few tables on the sidewalk. There were no customers when we went there, unless you count the very skinny dogs and cats hanging around. The menu had a few English words on it, so we found the page for Lau, and each ordered some. The woman who took our order seemed surprised by it, but then the beers came and we relaxed, pleased at our ability to eat local. Finally, the woman set up four gas burners on the table, one in front of each of us, put a huge pot of noodles, vegetables and whatever on each and turned them on. The heat was intense and the cats began to circle.

It was terrible. Jim managed to get a few helpings of his Eel Lau down before he gave up. Ginny only tasted her Fish Lau briefly. Maynard said his Chicken Lau was not bad, but then gave up after a couple of bites, wondering if maybe he could get some toast. We finished our beers and paid. The cats came closer. Do they want our dinner, or maybe they were dinner?

We finally went back to the hotel, into the dining room, and ordered dinner.