In the Mekong Delta

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April 17th 2007

Published: August 9th 2007

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SeeingTheWorld

Delta Flowers

Among the many beautiful things that grow in the Mekong Delta.

After traveling nearly 5 months, most of it alone, on April 14th I was finally graced with a serious dose of familiarity. Dad had arrived. After flying nearly 20 hours from San Francisco to Hong Kong, and then Hong Kong to Saigon, Dad had made it to Vietnam. After settling into our room, we briefly meandered around the city and called it an early night. There was a lot planned for the next few days.

Since I’ve already spent nearly a month getting to know Vietnam, traveling around with Dad should be a breeze. Over the course of 30 days I’ve gone from the very far north near the Chinese border, all the way to the very far south towards Malaysia. Checking out the best towns, coolest hotels, best sights, and tastiest places to eat. So after several weeks of researching and wandering the country, it’s time to have a little more fun. How often do you get to spend a month with your Dad traveling in a country where, 35 years ago, everyone his age desperately wanted to avoid? So…during Dad’s second day in Vietnam we visited to major attractions in the greater Saigon area. The Cao Dai Temple

Mekong Delta Canal

Apparently there's a ride like this at Disney World. Sorry, but you just can't beat the real thing.

is this elaborately and ornately decorated temple that is home to the small group of Cao Dai worshipers. The Cao Dai religion only exists in this region of Vietnam and nowhere else in the world. It’s a strange hybrid of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The worshipers wear brightly colored robes in conjunction with the respective religious influences in the Cao Dai faith. All quite strange. If anyone really wants to learn more, I suggest looking up “Cao Dai” on Wikipedia.com for a much better explanation of how their strange faith came about.

Later in the day we headed off to the Cu Chi Tunnels. A massive underground city with over 250km of tunnels connecting elaborate underground rooms and military bunkers. Nearly 30,000 Vietnamese lived in this underground city during the war, some for up to 7 years. 7 years underground, I can’t even imagine. I spent less than 2 minutes in the tunnels before nearly freaking out and demanding that I be returned to the surface. Nothing but respect for the Vietnamese who lived there, it’s really unbelievable. Many parts of the tunnel system have numerous levels, with rooms and passageways sometimes as deep as 10 meters below the

Family of Frogs

A little family outing for these Vietnamese frogs. Can you see the baby frogs riding the back of the others?

surface. With how heavily bombed the whole area was during the war it’s hard to fathom what it must have been like to be 30 feet under the ground with B-52’s dropping 250kg bombs just meters above your head. The thought of the roof caving in still sends shivers down my spine. Several of the pictures should give you guys somewhat of an idea of how claustrophobic the tunnels really are.

On day 2 we were off to the Mekong Delta. A sprawling area of southern Vietnam, it’s home to more than 16 million Vietnamese people. Important in both transportation and agriculture, the Mekong Delta is not short of excitement. We took several boat rides, tasted the many fruits that are grown in the region, drank Vietnamese green tea and rice wine, wore bamboo hats to fight off the intense sun, and visited a massive floating market. While the Mekong Delta is a relatively popular destination for tourists visiting Vietnam, we didn’t see too many while we were down there and it gave Dad a really good impression about how real Vietnamese life goes down. So far Dad’s been mostly wide-eyed and excited to be exploring a country that

Old Man Bamboo Hat

I never thought I'd see Dad wearing one of these.

he only really knows about from the horror stories of the Vietnam War.

Because we aren’t too far from Cambodia, we decided to take a detour to Siem Reap and visit the temples of Angkor Wat. We’ll only be there for 2 days but at least Dad will get to see how incredible the temples of Angkor really are. On the 20th we arrive back in Saigon to continue the rest of our journey in this fascinating bustling country called Vietnam.

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