VITA SUL FIUME MEKONG
Trail photos
Author
Trail stats
- Distance
- 9.11 mi
- Elevation gain
- 3 ft
- Technical difficulty
- Easy
- Elevation loss
- 3 ft
- Max elevation
- 82 ft
- TrailRank
-
71
5
- Min elevation
- 14 ft
- Trail type
- Loop
- Time
- 3 hours 41 minutes
- Coordinates
- 619
- Uploaded
- March 21, 2023
- Recorded
- March 2023
near Cái Bè, Tiền Giang (Vietnam)
Viewed 291 times, downloaded 1 times
Trail photos
Itinerary description
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Extract from the travel notes of two participants in the expedition, Cristina and Milena, who with patience and passion have put pen to paper, drawing and snatching information from Vietnamese guides.
Mekong Delta
Departure for the Mekong River Mother-Me of water-Cong River 5,000 km long which originates in Tibet and crosses Burma Laos Cambodia Thailand China South Vietnam It is called the River of the 9 Dragons. River water, brown in color, is rich in silt which makes soil fertile indeed Vietnam's most important orchard crops.
Rice, on the other hand, is grown with three harvests per year. Rice stubble is burned as a fertilizer or used to plant yeasts for mushroom cultivation.
In general agriculture is more mechanized in the south than in the north.
There are no hot or cold seasons but a rainy season from May to November with rains lasting about an hour in the afternoon around 16-17 and minimum evening temperatures of 19 degrees and daytime temperatures of 30 degrees.
You cross the Mekong river branch where hyacinths or sea lilies cover the surface of the water and serve as bedding for birds.
It has a maximum depth of 20 meters. On the river you can trawl or fish with bamboo pots, eels, shrimps, etc
After the rains, the river overflows, flooding everything, and retreats within 3 days, leaving silt, which is a good fertilizer
The boats have 2 decorated eyes on the bow to scare away evil spirits.
In the south the eyes of the Vietnamese have a more rounded shape, in the north more almond-shaped.
Average age for men 73, women 76.
They had many children to have a workforce.
We got on a boat that made us navigate the river, taking a left branch called the Major Branch of the Mekong. The river is quite dirty and dilapidated houses overlook the sides, some on stilts. We were offered fruit watermelon banana tangerines and apples of love. We then waded into smaller branches of the river, between river islands full of dense vegetation, where we boarded smaller boats (4 of us on each boat)
Those who steered the boats were almost all women, who had their faces covered by fabrics, as if bandaged to protect themselves from the sun as well as with gloves even in the city. We rowed for a while, then he started a small motor, with a propeller on the surface of the water. On the sides there are muddy banks, full of vegetation and unfortunately also of dirt. Lots of plastic bags, bottles, masks, etc. At one point the propeller got caught in a bag, she freed it, cutting it with a machete.
At the end of the tour, we got back on the bigger boat and sailed down the river to a house boat, which we got on. Obviously a poor house, although they had done everything to embellish it, there was a table with side chairs, a hammock, etc. They offered us fruit and some coconut juice and some kind of flatbread.
Once we got off we went to the Cai Be' market, once a market on the water of which some house boats remain in memory before the attack. Already the descent from the boat took place in a path full of dirt and mud. The market is covered with sheets and cellophane which in some places are about 160 cm high. It is a market where mainly food, fruit, vegetables, meat and fish are sold, but also fertilizers including bat poop. In some places nauseating smells. There were live fish and toads tied still alive by the legs... in the market we all got our feet dirty due to the puddles of water in the tanks that contained the fish. Then we got back on the boat and went to the other side of the river where there was a puffed rice factory: under a large sheet metal shed, above a fire, there was a large deep frying pan where black sand was heated with a of oil by burning rice hulls as fuel, then brown rice added. After a while the grains popped (like popcorn). Then using a series of sieves, the sand, the chaff or bran and the puffed rice were separated.
Back on the boat we headed to an old colonial house overlooking the Mekong, with a beautiful porch, still furnished with period furniture, mainly decorated in mother-of-pearl. The wooden poles that support the hall are one hundred years old with the concrete base over a meter high to avoid problems during the flooding of the river. Since there is no place for the altar of the ancestors, a table has been placed at the entrance with the chairs tied for the ancestors on which they place the offers.
Mekong Delta
Departure for the Mekong River Mother-Me of water-Cong River 5,000 km long which originates in Tibet and crosses Burma Laos Cambodia Thailand China South Vietnam It is called the River of the 9 Dragons. River water, brown in color, is rich in silt which makes soil fertile indeed Vietnam's most important orchard crops.
Rice, on the other hand, is grown with three harvests per year. Rice stubble is burned as a fertilizer or used to plant yeasts for mushroom cultivation.
In general agriculture is more mechanized in the south than in the north.
There are no hot or cold seasons but a rainy season from May to November with rains lasting about an hour in the afternoon around 16-17 and minimum evening temperatures of 19 degrees and daytime temperatures of 30 degrees.
You cross the Mekong river branch where hyacinths or sea lilies cover the surface of the water and serve as bedding for birds.
It has a maximum depth of 20 meters. On the river you can trawl or fish with bamboo pots, eels, shrimps, etc
After the rains, the river overflows, flooding everything, and retreats within 3 days, leaving silt, which is a good fertilizer
The boats have 2 decorated eyes on the bow to scare away evil spirits.
In the south the eyes of the Vietnamese have a more rounded shape, in the north more almond-shaped.
Average age for men 73, women 76.
They had many children to have a workforce.
We got on a boat that made us navigate the river, taking a left branch called the Major Branch of the Mekong. The river is quite dirty and dilapidated houses overlook the sides, some on stilts. We were offered fruit watermelon banana tangerines and apples of love. We then waded into smaller branches of the river, between river islands full of dense vegetation, where we boarded smaller boats (4 of us on each boat)
Those who steered the boats were almost all women, who had their faces covered by fabrics, as if bandaged to protect themselves from the sun as well as with gloves even in the city. We rowed for a while, then he started a small motor, with a propeller on the surface of the water. On the sides there are muddy banks, full of vegetation and unfortunately also of dirt. Lots of plastic bags, bottles, masks, etc. At one point the propeller got caught in a bag, she freed it, cutting it with a machete.
At the end of the tour, we got back on the bigger boat and sailed down the river to a house boat, which we got on. Obviously a poor house, although they had done everything to embellish it, there was a table with side chairs, a hammock, etc. They offered us fruit and some coconut juice and some kind of flatbread.
Once we got off we went to the Cai Be' market, once a market on the water of which some house boats remain in memory before the attack. Already the descent from the boat took place in a path full of dirt and mud. The market is covered with sheets and cellophane which in some places are about 160 cm high. It is a market where mainly food, fruit, vegetables, meat and fish are sold, but also fertilizers including bat poop. In some places nauseating smells. There were live fish and toads tied still alive by the legs... in the market we all got our feet dirty due to the puddles of water in the tanks that contained the fish. Then we got back on the boat and went to the other side of the river where there was a puffed rice factory: under a large sheet metal shed, above a fire, there was a large deep frying pan where black sand was heated with a of oil by burning rice hulls as fuel, then brown rice added. After a while the grains popped (like popcorn). Then using a series of sieves, the sand, the chaff or bran and the puffed rice were separated.
Back on the boat we headed to an old colonial house overlooking the Mekong, with a beautiful porch, still furnished with period furniture, mainly decorated in mother-of-pearl. The wooden poles that support the hall are one hundred years old with the concrete base over a meter high to avoid problems during the flooding of the river. Since there is no place for the altar of the ancestors, a table has been placed at the entrance with the chairs tied for the ancestors on which they place the offers.
Waypoints
Waypoint
47 ft
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