Bikes and Boats Off the Beaten Track

Since returning from Vietnam, Louise and I have had several conversations pondering over the highlight of our trip.  Laying our finger on one day, place or activity is certainly no easy task, as our time in Vietnam was chock-a-block full of memorable moments from all ends of the travelling spectrum.  Suffice to say that if choosing a highlight is difficult, touring the Mekong River Delta for three days via pedal bikes set the tone for the rest of our trip and it definitely set the bar pretty high. Again, the Photos are linked at the bottom through the hyperlink "CLICK HERE".

We find booking onto a tour is always a gamble when travelling, as the quality of your trip depends quite heavily on your guide as well as the company you keep.  It is never fun to feel like you are being herded around like cattle  since the more you look like tourists, the more you will be treated as such.  We knew this going into Vietnam but decided to roll the dice anyways because the trip sounded exactly up our alley.  We told ourselves that no matter what situation we ended up in, we were going to make the best of it.  Luckily, we hardly had to lift a finger in making the tour incredible; all we had to do was bike 90 km. 

The first day of our tour proved to be the most relaxing of the three.  We met with our small group of 7 and tour guide, Viet - fitting, no? - in the morning and began travelling south to reach the gateway of the river delta.  Turns out our first stop was the hometown of our guide who, whether in his hometown or not, was a wealth of anecdotes and information throughout our trip.  Here, we boarded our own boat which afforded us close-up views of floating fishing villages and canal boat traffic as we headed to one of the many islands that are home to farmers and roosters alike. No sooner did we step foot on the island, that we were swiftly shown onto a farmer's front porch and had plates full of fresh pineapple, dragon fruit, rambutan and bananas directly from the neighbouring fruit orchards put before us.  One form of hospitality flowed right into another as we were guided to small river boats - similar in construction to gondolas and propelled with one long oar - and spent the better part of an hour meandering down a quiet, secluded river that was nested in a tropical forest.  Needless to say, we soaked in the 'off the beaten track' element that we had hoped to find.  The day ended with a leisurely bike ride down a maze of rural paths which led us to the boat that took us to our accommodations for the evening.  On the shore of an island, sleeping in a sturdy gazebo on stilts, was where we were dropped off for the evening;  not to see our boat again until the next morning.  Long hours of sleep were few and far between on this island, as we learned the hard way that the nearby roosters can be quite nocturnal.

The next day of our tour was dominated by biking the delta peninsulas, covering 60 km throughout the day.  This allowed us to soak up the scenery as we pleased, passing fruit orchards and field upon field of rice paddies.  I couldn't take my eyes off the rice fields.  The endless green cast under a clear blue sky made for breath-taking views everywhere you looked.  I was convinced Crayola had based the colour green off these rice fields.  Seeing as Tet - the Vietnamese celebration of Lunar New Year - was fast approaching, many of the small communities we biked past were visibly preparing for the festivities with yellow Mai flowers in their yards and at their entrances.  We also observed many families preparing national foods or special candies as they geared up for the holiday.  Our biking days involved frequent stops at hammock cafes, trying sugar cane juice freshly pressed on the spot, eating fried banana en route, witnessing artisanal crafts being weaved and put together, and saying "hello" approximately every 2 minutes as we biked by the homes and schools of rural Vietnamese children.  The biking paths were incredible in and of themselves.  Often only a metre wide, with frequent make-shift bridges arching over the the braided waterways, and wedged between combinations of colourfully chaotic looking rural homes and tropical forest.  

Farming in Vietnam is the foundational livelihood for most people who inhabit the River Delta region, and with that many farmers they have designed creative alternatives to city markets - the floating markets of the Mekong.  Farmers of everything from pineapple to rice load up small to medium sized boats with their goods and travel the long chains of waterways to reach one of the larger bays that host daily markets.  Since the journey is long, farmers tend to live on their boats on the water for 3-4 days at a time, or until they have sold their goods, and then return home to repeat it all over again.  These bays are inundated with boats and so strategy of where you are able to anchor is integral to successful sales.  The merchants fight for spots and poach customers by whirring around with a deft control of the rudder that could only be learned from a life on the water. We were afforded the opportunity to climb aboard of of the merchant boats and have some pineapple cut up for us to enjoy and get an aerial view of the waterworld before us.  

This leg of our trip was full of action and really set the tone for the rest of the journey.  If we had gone home after those three days we would have been satisfied but we still had a stretch of ground to cover and several things to knock off our to-do list.  Click Here for the photos. Onwards!