My 24th Weekend in Vietnam

If my calculations are correct (and we all know numbers are not my thing!), I have just spent my 24th weekend here in Vietnam. I always used to say to students in Canada to try and make the most of their weekends, as they were such a great way to see things and meet people. And there is a finite number of them. Well, I don’t ALWAYS follow my own advice, although I do try and do at least one new thing every weekend, even if it is just a bus ride on a new route, or looking for some store I have heard about.
This weekend was quite neat. It started with the end of a class going through their 10-week cycle. I was so proud of them ... all but two passed and those two just failed Listening. It was a wonderful class, as I have mentioned before. They really worked well together and supported each other throughout the whole term.

Then, after school, there was a Tet celebration put on by RMIT. It was a bit early, but lots of lecturers from the degree programs are finished for the semester, so the best chance for a big crowd was then. The food was lovely and included lots of Vietnamese dishes, as well as a few Western ones and even a few Thai specialties. An open bar always brings a crowd and we all lined up to get lucky money from Andrew Scown, our outgoing VP. Everyone got VND 100,000, which is a little over $5. Some of our Vietnamese colleagues wore traditional Vietnamese clothes, especially lovely Ao Dais.The next morning, I was struck by how quiet and lovely the morning was. It is still cool enough for people to jog and the street that my balcony looks over was just normal ... people eating breakfast and going about their daily routines. I did laundry and felt at one in the ordinariness. Thuy came and we had a Vietnamese lesson ... I am utterly hopeless, in large part because it is so difficult, but primarily because I don’t study. She invited me to go on a one-day trip to the Mekong the next day and so I was happy to do so. I hadn’t been to that part of Vietnam and had been thinking about it ... so, why not?
We met on Sunday, at 7:30. She and her friend, Anshu, and I all met up in the backpacker district. It was a real departure for Thuy to take an organized tour, but good for her ... she did it! We bought tickets for a one-day trip which included a bus ride to My Tho and then boats to and around Mekong and Ben Tre, and then a speed boat back to Ho Chi Minh City. Our guide was great and explained that the trip might take 2 ½ hours or 3 ½ hours depending on the traffic and our driving speed. He told us that we would drive fast unless there were police around and we would drive very slowly if there were police. He then proceeded to tell us about the complicated lights and hand signal system drivers use to let others know what is going on regarding the police presence. He also told us that people in the Mekong Delta (all 20 million of them) do not call it the Mekong Delta, but rather Cửu Long... which means 9 Dragons.

It was so interesting to see the importance of the river in this part of Vietnam ... actually to understand how important the Mekong River is in the world. People LIVE on this river ... stilt houses, boat houses, fish farms ... you name it. It is a vital link within SE Asia and seemed so alive. I think we forget how important rivers are when you live in the London-without-the-mighty-Thames. I read somewhere that the Mekong was one of the last major rivers to have dams, but I have heard the Chinese have 5 or 6 now and have plans to build another dozen. These will have a major impact on the people downstream. So many people in so many countries depend on it. And then there is the gas exploration off the coast. And pollution. And what about rising water levels? Oy. I will pray for the Mekong now.

We did not tarry in My Tho and went to Unicorn Island (I guess there are four special islands ... tiger, turtle, phoenix, and unicorn ... which represent the four holy animals of Vietnamese Buddhist tradition). Phoenix Island is home to a floating pagoda built by a monk/holy man called the ‘Coconut Monk’, but we didn’t go there. We stopped in various places and had tea and honey here and fruit there and coconut candy somewhere else and lunch in a different place and there was always a boat ride in between. A highlight (for me, at any rate) was seeing a little Vietnamese pot-bellied pig wandering around the tea place. And the musicians playing at our fruit stop. I thought a lot about my friend, Grace, who plays erhu. Certainly the music was similar to Chinese music in some ways, yet very different. There was an instrument that sounded a lot like a slide guitar. After several traditional melodies, they finished up with a lovely instrumental of ‘Jingle Bells’ and we all applauded. Between the fruit and the coconut candy stops, we went through some canals in typical small boats, similar to canoes.I have seen many pictures of these scenes, and it reminded be a bit of going to the floating gardens in Xochimilco, in Mexico City. The boats in Xochimilco seemed ever so much more relaxing, however. The canoes in the Mekong were distressing, as it seemed that people were desperate to move as many of us through as possible. People weren’t exactly cutthroat, but it seemed as though they were in a terrible hurry to get another ride. Thuy asked one of the women paddling our boat how much money they made and she said VND 10,000 per trip, which is about 50 cents (split between the two of them) and that they could make 3 or 4 trips a day. So that all made a lot of sense to us. Needless to say, we gave our ladies a nice tip. I think we got a very nice boat ... our paddlers were very sweet to us ... maybe because of Thuy being able to talk to them.
After our lunch, we had a bit of a rest and then got on the fast boat back to Ho Chi Minh City. It was great to be on the water and not stuck on a bus .. even though it was a lot pricier. So much activity ... boats taking fruit, flowers, and sand to the big city. One of the biggest contraband items is Mekong Delta sand ... I am not sure if they are doing a favour by dredging parts of the river, but the government has forbidden it. It is carried out in broad daylight so I am not sure if those were family members of big poobahs, or what.I had noticed when Patty and I went to Cat Ba Island a few months ago that most Vietnamese boats have eyes painted on them. It is said that Vietnamese boat builders paint eyes on the front of the boats to bring luck to the crews, to ward off evil spirits, and to improve their catch. So I amused myself on the way home by taking pictures of some. Hard to do in a fast boat ... and most of them were a waste. But a few turned out OK. Each boat has a different personality, it seems to me.
As we entered the city, we went from the countryside to a very upscale neighbourhood just near RMIT to a cesspool of a section where a lot of houses jut out into the river and then to the dock section and finally the piers for tour boats and cruise ships. Quite the gamut! We arrived just as the sun was setting.All in all a very nice day and a perfect way to end my 24th weekend in Vietnam. Hope all is well with everyone in their far-flung locations ... and I hope that you are keeping cool if you are in Australia and warm if you are in Canada. All the best to you!