Vietnam Travel > Travel Special Features > Mekong Delta - The Floating Life > Mekong Delta - When the water rises

Mekong Delta - When the water rises

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Dong Thap Muoi, in the Mekong Delta, is famous for its labyrinthine system for canals. Each year, during the season of rising water levels lasting from June to December, slender, peaceful canals suddenly surge and become small rivers that bear the responsibility of carrying loads of alluviums serving to enrich the local soil.

Canals quickly become the center of all human activities. Sampans and motorboats speedily run up and down the waterways; fishermen with square features and ruddy complexions go quietly angling on their small vessels staying afloat on the waves; young mothers with their babies in their arms are talking a rowboat down river to the market; boats laden with merchandise are drifting to a commercial point, and groups of schoolchildren with books under their arms are being ferried across the channel to go home after school.

On both sides of the channels, rows of coconut palms are reflected in the water, bamboo hedges tower up robustly, whereas white-trunked eucalyptus leaves hang down gracefully. Here and there banana trees are bent with their heavy bunches of dark green bananas, and cork-trees seem to sow their yellow blossoms on the channel banks in a vivid landscape.

From time to time, when looking up, you will unexpectedly encounter the dark eyes of some children standing by the windows of a house on stilts. Occasionally, the gentle white ao dai of a girl is fleetingly visible: she appears beside a coconut tree with eyes looking dreamily in the distance. Such images will certainly leave a deep impression on visitors from afar, as such poetic figures can hardly be conjured in bustling urban life. Coming to Dong Thap during this season, one cannot but visit Xeo Quit, an historic site and tourist area, as well as Gao Giong, or the "garden of birds". On the banks of the canal, Xeo Quit is 30km away from Cao Lanh town of Dong Thap.

It is situated on the soil of My Hiep and My Long communes, in Cao Lanh rural district. From My Hiep market, after 40 minutes by waterway, one finds oneself face to face with the primitive forest of dark green indigos submerged in water, in a windy, natural environment. the locality that used to be a revolutionary base in the fierce years of the American War have now become an ideal destination for tourists, both at home and abroad.

On a sampan drifting amidst the submerged area, the world of water and towering, interlacing indigos surrounds boat-goers, while tiny azure patches spot the sky above. The distant songs of birds is all that can be heard. Visitors relive the sensations of the dynamic and courageous pioneers who first discovered this land, when it was entirely the realm of jungles and wild beasts. The only thing that connects tourists with the outside world is the strangely graceful smile of the rowing girl who serves boat tours on her small vessel.

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