The river was much lower.  When we were in Kampong Cham in Cambodia September last year the River Mekong was swirling, deep, wide and strong.  There were turbulent bow waves around the massive supports of the big new concrete bridge and the surrounding land lay below a shimmering inland sea reflecting fishermen in small canoes.  Now in February the river had receded. Farmers had followed the receding waters, planting rows of rich green new rice along the ever expanding contours of the emerging river banks.  Islands, once isolated by swift dangerous currents, were now much bigger and surrounded by extensive sand banks and evaporating shallow pools of water. Every year the island community rallied together and built a bamboo bridge spanning the shallows to allow the people to walk, cycle or drive their horse drawn carts to the shore.  This was no wobbly insubstantial effort requiring perfect balance and nerves of steel but a perfectly engineered traditional structure capable of comfortably taking the weight of a car, and cars did indeed drive over the Kampong Cham bamboo bridge.  We arrived at dusk and chatted to the islanders crossing the 300m long bridge to attend to domestic chores. Some townsfolk came to see the fishing boats in the shallows silhouetted against the magnificent setting sun, dipping into the Mekong. Local lads jumped off the bridge to frolic in the clear water and impress their girl friends.  We were in Kampong Cham again for an advanced Khmer language course and Margaret held a couple local lasses in conversation as the sun finally set over the bridge.

Our friends Simon and Dani ran a very popular restaurant called Lazy Mekong Daze on the waterfront with a magnificent view of the ever changing river and the big bridge.  Simon was a quiet Englishman and Dani his wife, a lovely Cambodian girl.  Their son Alex was a baby when we saw him first. Now he was a bouncing toddler with teething problems.  Our attempts to discuss the domestic tribulations of baby teeth in Khmer with our Cambodian friends met with smiles at best and perplexity at worst.  On our way to Simon and Dani’s place, walking along the river bank we came across a group of teenagers who had discovered a puff adder.  They were tormenting the petrified yellow and black snake with bamboo sticks and it was striking back viciously and frantically in defence. It seemed an extremely dangerous form of entertainment, but we were to meet such cruelty again. 

We hurried back from Kampong Cham on Sunday to our office in Phnom Penh to meet our Department of Fisheries colleagues.  We had been invited to be part of the Cambodian Government delegation to visit the Vietnamese Ministry of Fisheries in Ho Chi Minh City.   The city used to be called Saigon and in fact the central area is still called Saigon.  Phnom Penh is only about a six hours bus journey from Saigon along an ever improving road.  Allan had always wanted to visit Vietnam, so this was a wonderful opportunity.  Ho Chi Minh is a big bustling energetic city with six million wonderfully friendly, welcoming and hospitable people.  Well that’s how it seemed to us.  Mind you we were the guests of the Vietnamese Ministry of Fisheries who wined and dined us at every opportunity in some of the best restaurants in the city. Inevitably fish was on the menu and being surrounded by so many fishery people we were soon using the Latin names for the critters we were enjoying.  The seminar sessions were presided over by the ubiquitous bust of “Uncle Ho” in front of a red curtain with large yellow hammer and sickle emblems and yellow stars prominently displayed.  What was remarkable is that Vietnam is about fifteen years ahead of Cambodia and second only to China in economic development despite being “bombed back to the stone age” and having been subjected to chemical warfare from millions of litres of defoliant sprayed on to the country by the United States forty years ago.  Since then, until recently, the world community, led by the US, has ostracised Vietnam denying the sort of aid that has flowed freely in Africa.  Despite this the people seemed friendly, forgiving and very energetic.  They have certainly bounced back.  Our mission was to discuss how Vietnam had managed to energise their fishing communities and fishing industry to reduce poverty and suffering and improve livelihoods of the poor rural people.  These lessons could then be applied, hopefully, to Cambodia. 

Our first week was hectic, visiting fishing ports in the morning then driving three hours back to Ho Chi Minh City for debriefing sessions and discussions before a formal dinner followed by a midnight visit to a huge modern wholesale fish market.  It was all very impressive.  After the first week our Cambodian colleagues returned to Phnom Penh and we stayed on.  We were staying in a Vietnamese Government guesthouse and that was such fun we stayed on and picked up the bill ourselves. Our fellow guests were civil servants apart from Van Loc who was an eighty three year old Ti Chi instructor.  He looked superbly fit, spoke great English, taught a Ti Chi class in the park every morning and abhorred waste. He used to take away any scraps of food left by other guests rather than see it go to waste.  He was a fascinating man to talk to. 

The Mekong Delta beckoned like the wave of an old friend.  The grand river having flowed from China, through Laos and Thailand and of course Cambodia slowed down and spread out.  The 100km wide outstretched hand of the Delta has nine major channels each as wide as the major rivers in the UK.  The arterial roads arch over these on modern bridges like the new Severn road bridge or the Forth road bridge or there are bustling ferry crossings.  At one crossing we counted ten large car ferries, donated by Denmark, all operating simultaneously from four terminals on each bank.  The delight of the Mekong Delta however was the hundreds of palm tree lined channels which criss-cross the fertile islands of the delta.  Here there are three rice crops each year, orchards dripping with fresh fruit and an abundance of wholesome green vegetables.  In a small dug out canoe we were rowed by a woman standing up in the back. She lent Margaret a conical hat to keep off the sun dabbling through the lush green foliage. So we looked much like the occupants of the other domestic river traffic plying the narrow watery byways of the delta.

We stayed in the delta for a couple of nights.  Can Tho is the delta’s biggest city with a population of 2 million people.  Here we had dinner on a floating restaurant.  The people were so friendly and welcoming that diners at the other tables spoke to us and some gave us fruit.  The Vietnamese for thank you is “Cam on.” 

One of the most interesting features of life in the delta is the floating markets.  Until recently the roads were not good enough to transport the volume of produce grown in the delta.  The huge network of waterways however provide the ideal way of moving agricultural produce around, and this practice is still active today.  The farmers pile their small boats high with watermelons, pineapples, cabbages, and even startlingly bright flowers in full bloom.  In the early hours of the morning, around dawn, they creep through the narrow channels emerging into the wider waterways where wholesalers wait in bigger wooden boats.  As the sky lightens to a monochrome grey hundreds of little boats bob and jostle around the larger boats amid keen bargaining.  Intense colour floods over the frantic activity as the sun emerges reluctantly over the palm trees lining the river. The colours of the flowers and vegetables were striking, competing favourably with the bright hulls with demon eyes painted on either side of the bows. As the day warms traditional conical hats were popped on and the eye was drawn to these universal icons of rural Vietnam. Trading was brisk. In one dugout canoe a farmer stands using his mobile phone. Behind him young women in conical hats throw up large plump green watermelons to the crew of a large boat. Each one is tested with a squeeze, the rejects being pitched directly into the water, to join the bobbing jetsam which will never grace a table in the city. By nine o clock it was all over.  The farmers wanted to return to their fields and the wholesalers set course for the large land based markets.  Some wholesalers sailed up the waterways to the big wholesale market we had visited in Ho Chi Minh City.

Returning to the wharfs at Can Tho we negotiated a makeshift bamboo bridge linking the small boat area with the shore.  The rickety ladder took us up ten feet onto a single plank lashed to bamboo trestles.  What the locals considered a perfectly serviceable jetty looked like an element of an army assault course.  Margaret negotiated it like the true fishery professional she has become.  After the many wobbling gangplanks onto the small insubstantial river craft she has crossed this bamboo bridge on the Mekong was just another step up.

Please have a look at the photographs with the same title and date as this entry.  What do you think of the site? We would welcome your comments.