Slow Living In the Mekong Delta: The Rice Basket of Vietnam

I arrived in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) with no expectations or real understanding of what the city had to offer. I had focused on the main areas I’d wanted to visit, gathered a list of places to eat from a friend of a friend, and figured I’d find my way through talking to people and walking around. Coming from Siem Reap, Cambodia, it was a hard transition from slow living to a bustling city, but it came to be one of my favorites legs on this trip.

The city itself is full of color and life. There are people walking around at all hours, socializing, eating, and just hanging about. The first night, with not much time,  I reluctantly left the hotel room to wander out into what felt like chaos. I wove through the streets to one of the many rooftop restaurants, and ordered far too much food and looked over the city with the blaring sound of EDM and a couple other live bands below in what seemed like a pop up festival. Intrigued as I was, after dinner, I retreated to my room to prepare for a day trip the next morning.

Waking up early, we left HCM and drove two hours past fruit farms and lush rice paddies to Cai Lay, the gateway to the Mekong Delta; an area I knew from a friend who owns my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Oakland. Though deeply rural and riparian, the area is one of Vietnam’s most densely populated, made up with people of many different origins including Vietnamese, Khmer, and Cham. The cultural diversity accounts for the diversity in religions ranging from Buddhism to Catholicism, Cao Dai to Islam.

In southwestern Vietnam, the delta is formed where the vast Mekong River empties into the ocean through a network of distributaries. Originating in the Tibetan highland plateau, the river spans through China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam where it meets the South China Sea. Cuu Long, the Mekong’s Vietnamese name, translates to Nine Dragons for the nine tributaries.

Upon arrival, we boarded a wooden boat to explore the river. Amid thick jungle brush on either side, we glided down to get a close up view of the countryside and life on the water; where people catch fish, wash their clothes, and irrigate their land. The river is the main source of life in the area and know as Vietnam’s rice basket. As the largest rice-growing region in the country, it provides 60% of the country’s rice with three harvests a year.

The Mekong Delta also provides an abundance of tropical fruit including durian, jack fruit, coconut, pineapple, dragon fruit, and banana. After floating down the river, we switched to bicycles to ride through narrow village lanes and visit one of the many orchards in the area, where you can enjoy seasonal fruits year round. There, we wandered the tropical fruit farm, met the owner and his wife, and were taken to a wooden table tucked beneath trees carrying a multitude of ripe fruit. We drank tea and sampled the freshly picked harvest, eating in order from the most sour/ bitter  (pineapple) and making our way through grapefruit, rambutan, longan, jackfruit, and mango to finish with the sweetest, banana. Though the sour fruits were ripe and delicious, we were given a chili salt for dipping to bring out the flavors.

The owner, a small man with glimmering eyes and a contagious laugh (aka Mr. Smile), came by to see how we were doing and immediately started joking with us. He had been living on this property with his family for 20 years after the war, and lived simply but happily. He pulled a paper-wrapped package from his pocket and yelled, “Bombs!” while laughing and then threw them into a bowl of water. The pods exploded and seeds shot out in all directions. Amazed and surprised, we squealed and laughed. He then put them in my hand with some water, closing my fist and waited in anticipation for them to pop. Next, he targeted my husband, Cory, and put some into his pocket, before pretending to change his mind, laughing about us needing to make babies—we were on our honeymoon after all. In retrospect, it was mind-blowing that he was able to joke about bombs and the war after having been intimately involved in a 20 year war.

He explained how the irrigation works there, how his family works on the land, and showed us more tricks from the vegetation. He had placed flowers behind our ears, and given Cory a flower to give to me. Bright, flirtatious, and full of life, I wondered how people who have overcome so much and yet still live so simply, hold so much joy and trust in their hearts. Walking back to our bikes, we thanked them and shook their hands, and I felt a sadness leaving behind such a beautiful family and life. We held a serious look for a fleeting second before he was engulfed in laughter again, telling us to come back and visit once we had babies.

The tide was too high to take our sampan boat to lunch (we would have needed to go under a bridge, where there, at the time, did not have enough room for us to cross). We boarded anyways just to have the experience of balancing on the river. Two steps in and I felt like I was on a stand up paddle board. I found my seat and took in the sun before walking to a local home for a rustic meal of Mekong Delta specialties including fish from the river, banana flower salad, and soup. The owner of the house brought out food course by course and watched attentively as we ate. Scraping off the fried scales of the fish, we scooped pieces of the fish meat to place into the rice paper (dipped in water for only a second to not lose the integrity of the texture), put in some basil and other greens and dipped it into a spicy, sweet chili sauce. We sat and enjoyed the simple meal, wondering how beautiful life would be to live here on the river, catching fish and tending to an orchard. Full, happy, and grateful, I was reminded—it really is about the simple things. 

Photography by Jen Woo. Featured image by Anne Lin.