The Mekong delta is the cradle of the rice industry in
Vietnam. Every square acre is used
for the planting of rice. In many
ways this area of Vietnam shares many geographical similarities to my home
state of Wisconsin. We both are
the proverbial “breadbaskets” of our countries. The Mekong and Wisconsin also have extremely friendly people
who bend over backwards to make you feel more at home. After visiting Phu Quoc Island I made
my way to Ha Tien and Long Xuyen.
I arrived in Ha Tien a population of 93,000 but I swear it was more like
20,000, a sleepy town with not much going on. I also experienced my first and not my last bought of
diarrhea. Thankfully it was only
24 hours and with the help of some wonderful fruit from the region I was able
to get through it. When I felt
better I spent my days walking the back streets of this small town. I was greeted by smiling children and
old ladies. The mass urbanization
that is taking this country by storm is transforming these small towns. All 18-25 youth are leaving the places
like Ha Tien and seeking their fortune in Saigon. This leaves these towns with the very young, elderly and a
smattering of middle aged people.
Although my stomach was still tender I went looking for some
street food. The first thing that
I found was mì thịt nướng.
There are so many variations on what
a Bánh mì can contain. Sometimes the sandwich can be filled
with forcemeats of different varieties, with sardines in a bit of tomato sauce
or shredded dried fish, these types pale in comparison to this sandwich that I
found on the streets of Ha Tien. This
sandwich consists of seasoned pork placed on skewers then grilled and put
together with all of the usual condiments.
What makes this sandwich stand out and a winner is the omission
of mayonnaise. Instead of the
Vietnamese style mayonnaise they use a bit of Nước mắm, which perfectly cuts the fat of the pork, a great roadside
snack for 50 cents. These were so
good that I had to order another.
I
continued my walk around the small city discovering the many churches that dot
the landscape. The French and
later American missionaries must have done a real job on the Vietnamese because
many of these churches seem to be still going strong. Unlike places like China where religion is very much
prohibited the Vietnamese government seems to have taken an ambivalent stance
on places of worship and let them be.
On some streets of this small town, side-by-side stood a church and a
temple. I rounded a corner and saw
many people pulling up their motorbikes to a small roadside stall.
When I see people and food I always
have to check it out. The vendor
was selling a small steamed noodle in clay cups. These are a specialty of Hue, the imperial city in the
central region. It consists of
rice batter steamed in small cups and then topped with shredded dried shrimp,
broken egg yolk and some scallions.
They are a cheap snack but don’t have much
flavor.
The people watching and laughing at me perching on a tiny chair as I ate them was more enjoyable then the
food. Places like Ha Tien have no
real tourist draws so they are not constantly inundated by tour buses and
travelers, this means that you are even more of an oddity then usual.
Traveling
is about the unexpected, about not knowing what is around the next corner. With that said the next morning I went
to the bus station to see where I could go. I arrived around 10 in the morning and started to ask
around. After a couple of
unfriendly people shooing my away I asked a Vietnamese/Canadian couple if they
could help me. They asked around
and learned that there were only a couple of choices. I started pointing at places on my map and kept getting
rejected. It turned out there were
only two options that were leaving at 11am and I had better pick one because
there were not going to be any buses leaving until seven that evening. With my stomach still in a bad place I
jumped on the local bus to Long Xuyen population 240,000.
By choosing a local bus you get a
much cheaper ticket but also add 2 and a half more hours to your trip. This was the best choice I could have
made. Instead of some bus that
would have just driven through the countryside at lightning speed this bus moved as
slow as a banana slug stopping and picking up people, fish, metal and supplies. I unknowingly chose the bus that was
the lifeline to the smaller communities outside of Ha Tien. The bus ride took about five hours, but
I was not complaining.
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| Life along the roadside |
I was able
to see fields of rice being harvested, chickens being slaughtered and daily
life in the Mekong. So much
happens just on the edge of the road.
People use it to dry their rice and to spread their vegetables from their gardens. So much revolves around
these roads, to have taken the time to see it gave me even more insight into
this part of the country.
When I
arrived in Long Xuyen I found a tidy city with more wealth than I had expected,
cleaner streets and newer motorbikes. This was in contrast to the relatively poorer parts of the Mekong that I had visited.
I also encountered some great people and some excellent food. After throwing my bags down in my state
run hotel I went out in search of some sustenance. I always walk to the market to see what is fresh, plus the
food vendors around the market are usually cooking up something decent. I didn’t even get to market when
I was stopped by something that looked really good.
Bánh tằm consists of slippery medium
sized rice noodles served with pork meatballs, basil, mint, finally chopped
pork skin and bean sprouts. The
kicker is this. The dish is then
doused in a semi-sweet coconut milk.
This is dish that I had never seen before and was happily surprised to
find myself ordering another helping. It is a great balance between sweet and savory.
The serving sizes in Vietnam are nothing like the states where one order
would probably have been equivalent to three of these.
As I was enjoying my Bánh tằm a young man struck up a conversation with me. Most of the English speakers that I
have met have had quite limited English.
I expected to be asked, “what’s your name and how old are you? Or are
you married?” Qui did not ask any
of these questions; instead I started to have a real conversation about where I
had been and what I was doing in Long Xuyen. Qui is 23 and a student in Saigon at the sports
university studying basketball. As we were talking he
invited me to have some iced tea with his mother and sister. Qui's family sells medicinal Chinese medicines. As we were sitting in the front of his
families shop talking, may people stopped by explained their aliments and were
give small pouches of dried herbs or ground up bones to ingest. This family is not your normal family. After 1975 when the US forces finally
left, there was a period of reunification and turmoil. One of the most pressing
problems was the need to bring into line all of the other forces that had
previously been supported by the Americans. Qui’s father was part of a group that was tasked with
maintaining order during these times.
This was the watchdog group that had more superiority than the police or
army. They were the organization
that kept these organizations in line.
His father also gained status and rank when he fought in the little
reported war between Vietnam and Cambodia in 1978 when the Vietnamese ousted
Pol Pot and the Khmer rouge. His father’s
service has instilled in Qui a great devotion to the party line and a keen
sense of nationalism. Now that
Qui’s father has died he is thinking about joining the military to defend his
country from the Chinese who are continuing to ruffle feathers in the South
China Sea.
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| Banana with glutinous rice and sweet coconut milk |
Qui is part of the
changing face of modern Vietnam. A
generation that has had much more exposure to external forces and that is now
being pulled in two directions, the traditional Confucian and a more modern
life where you choose your life and life partner and don’t return to your
village to pick up the family business.
For the next day Qui became my guide and took me to some nice places
around the city and to a great duck restaurant.
Mì vịt tiềm is a duck leg that has been deep-fried
in oil and garlic and then placed on top of Chinese style egg noodles with a
bit of water spinach and a broth made with duck. This dish is straight out of China. It is considered expensive by
Vietnamese standards so it is only eaten for special occasions.
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| Duck frying with a lot of garlic. Yes |
This was a special occasion; I had
never met a Vietnamese student who wanted to discuss Marxism, Lenin and the
United States hegemony in the world.
Over duck what is better than some good conversation.
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| A special kind of coconut |
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| Long Xuyen |
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| Lotus flowers before they bloom eaten as a vegetable |
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| Baby Bamboo Shoots |
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| Baby Radishes in Vinegar |
The Mekong surprised me at every turn
and because it does not have the large number of tourist attractions it remains
a place where people go about their daily life’s unadulterated by the rumblings
of Korean tourist buses and the clicks of a camera.
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