Mekong Delta Blues

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After exploring more of Saigon I decided to go back to the Mekong Delta for another stay, this time to explore the eastern side of the Delta where the river meets the sea. The Delta is not a place with shiny pagodas or crystal clear water, instead it is a hard scrabble difficult environment. Think of the swamps of the Everglades but with rice paddies and you have some idea of the foliage and dampness of the environment. Couple this with some of the flattest landscape I have ever encountered, as if bulldozers had been the architects of the landscape. After a short bus ride of three hours I arrived in Ben Tre a small dingy town with not much going on. The real action of the Delta seems to be concentrated on the rivers and it's edges. So I took a boat ride. The boat tour took me around the river but also to some interesting places. 

The first was a small family run facility that produced coconut candy. I swear that there are a million and one ways to use a coconut. While others in Vietnam were starving during the war years families lived rather well in the Mekong because there is food right outside your doorstep. Trees with fruits, small patches of morning glory (a hollow vegetable that tastes similar to spinach when cooked), lotus roots, frogs, and fish. When I was walking around this area it made me think about where I come from in the Midwest and how hard the early pioneers must have had to work to prepare for six months of the year when you could not grow a thing. Lush, verdant are adjectives to describe the Mekong's landscape. I ate the taffy like coconut candy and enjoyed delicious bee pollen that was mixed with some tea and local honey. 

Our group was also served some really great fruit. The majority of dragon fruit, bananas, and many other fruits are grown in this region. So proximity means that you are getting incredibly ripe fruit.

In this blog I have not yet mentioned the incredible fruit that Vietnam has. From mangosteen to mangos, Vietnam has great fruit. I ate some pomelo which tastes like grapefruit but with with a cinnamon aftertaste and juicy dragon fruit from a tree from these peoples property. I also tasted pineapple and bananas the size of a babies finger. One of my rituals after dinner in Vietnam has been to eat some chilled fruit which is served all around the city. Since dessert is not a strong suit of most Asian countries fruit is the best way to end a meal. It not only cleanses the palate but also can help aid digestion.

After bee pollen and fruit we boarded a rickety long boat with no motor and took a short ride through a small tributary. This creek seemed like it had been carved out of the swamp by humans rather then by torrential rain storms, the edges just seemed so sharp. 

As we moved silently through the waterway we noticed small tadpoles and frogs that would stick their heads out of the holes in the mud. A sad and striking realization that I have made while in Vietnam is the lack of wildlife. Throughout my travels in Vietnam I have rarely seen wildlife. Many of these animals and birds have been hunted into extinction and because of peoples appetites for money and hunger they have not been able to resupply themselves. Sometimes eating those small birds on the side of the road just doesn’t feel as good when you are going through the Delta in silence.

Our long boat dropped us at the coconut monks temple. The coconut monk was from a wealthy family who had studied chemistry and physics in France. He is most famous for starting his own religion which mixed Buddhism and Christian doctrine and imagery. 

He was also very controversial because he believed the Vietnam could be reunified by peaceful means. With his acolytes he built a temple/theme park along the banks of Phoenix Island. Not much remains except this strange looking structure. This complex must be very busy in the dry season but on my visit it seemed desolate, like a forgotten theme park. Besides some hungry alligators there was not much to see.

The next day I headed for Vinh Long. Another small city about two hours by bus farther into the interior. Almost all of the cities in the Mekong are supported by agriculture in their surrounding areas. In the Southern United States “cotton is king” in the Mekong “rice is king.” After stashing my bags I rented a motorbike and headed out of the city. While driving my motorbike I saw a small dirt road and a very nice bridge. Turning down the small path was the best thing I have done on this trip into the Mekong. After crossing the bridge I saw a sign that was advertising fruit. After my experience the day before I was very open to more fruit. What I got instead was a real Mekong experience. I pulled up to a rectangular restaurant built on stilts over the Mekong. Instead of fruit I was offered the choice of a Banh Xeo or Banh Xeo (sizzling rice pancake). 

I stumbled upon a group of people getting very drunk at three in the afternoon with banana wine and being serenaded with old songs while a man played a guitar who's amp must have blown ten years ago. The manner in which the man was playing guitar was like a Delta bluesmen's. He was sliding up and down the neck of his guitar eliciting strange Jimi Hendrix like sounds, while a man and woman exchanged microphones and sang in haunting cadence. This was a scene out of tourist's dream. The river, the singing, the incredible Banh Xeo. The banh xeo was the best I have had in the whole country. What made this preparation special was not only its filling but the thinness of it. From the small discs in the central region, to Saigon's version which are about the size of a dinner plate these were more like dosa's from India. These were twice the size of the plate they were served on. Instead of the traditional filling of shrimp, pork and mung beans. The Banh Xeo had been stuffed full of tiny river clams. With the traditional vegetable plate of herbs and mustard greens this was really a study in refinement. With a cold Tiger beer and psychedelic mekong sounds it was a great way to while away the rest of the day. On my way back into Vin Long I drove past a gigantic park. 

After looking around a bit I realized that this was a monument in honor of the Tet offensive in 1968 which was one of the most decisive battles during the war of American aggression. Now this monument offered a public space for people to come and play in the shadow of a mural depicting the movement of Vietnamese troops into Hue and other cities.

A highlights of the trip came when I went to a very special restaurant. This restaurant a taxi ride away from the center of the city was a real treat. With cages of live animals and fish as you enter you know that this is a restaurant that really knows what it is doing. Our group first ordered a simple salad of morning glory, beef, and hard boiled eggs. 

The salad was served with a dressing of fish sauce, a simple but delicious starter. Another dish that was brought to the table were the seeds of the lotus plant that at first I thought were hominy kernels but turned out to be theses seeds. 

They tasted very bland but were very interesting. After about an hour of waiting the main attraction arrived. Fish cooked in a piece of bamboo. The fish had been simply stuffed with scallion and then placed inside the bamboo and cooked, the smoke and the steam giving the flesh a really smokey but clean flavor. 

You take a bit of fish and combine it with noodles, herbs and then dip it in a tamarind and fish sauce dipping sauce. This was worth the wait. The fish was cooked so well, neither dry nor fishy in taste. I think that it must have come from one of those tanks at the entrance. A great meal to end a great day.

The next day our group took a very short ferry ride to a small island. Our main destination was a small and depressing animal park with some rare and not so rare animals. I am all for zoo's because they expose the public to the great treasures that exist in the natural world but this place was a sad sight. 

Small cramped cages with not much in place of pleasurable amenities. So after looking at Asian black bears in matchbox sized cages and sad little birds I was ready for some lunch. The pickings looked really bleak since this was not the high season and the restaurants at the resort were not really up and running. With some hand gestures I was directed to a small house next to the park. Here is where I had some authentic Mekong country food. I did not see any food for sale, the owner directed me to a cage where a stringy looking chicken was running around in circles. After a lot of finger pointing I realized that she was suggesting eating the chicken. 

As a person who has raised and slaughtered chickens I was ok with eating the fresh chicken. This was a dish that would take about an hour and a half to prepare, so I retreated to a hammock to while away the time. These photos of her preparing the chicken remind me of how the Vietnamese do not leave much to waste. The blood is saved so that you can make blood cakes from it to add to the salad and soup. It has been quite a while since I have had fresh chicken taken from someones back yard. 

The chicken was not tender but rather stringy and tough. Even after a bath in hot water it was still chewy. However, maybe we have become to accustomed to the idea that chicken should be a soft mass with no flavor. This chicken had ten times the flavor of a commercial chicken. The skin was yellow and the flavorings of the chicken so simple letting the flavor stand by it's self. The salad you see here was made of shaved bamboo and a little fish sauce, it was all crunch but really displayed the ingenuity of using your surroundings for sustenance. The salad and the boiled chicken were served with a soup that was from the boiled chicken and thickened with a bit of rice. Nothing was wasted and the flavors were pure and simple. A real country meal surrounded by 20 different kinds of orchids.

Note: my computer was also stolen on this trip and I lost a lot of my pictures and important data. It was a major setback and I am still recovering from it. I just felt like I should explain the lack of posts.