The Heart of the Mekong Delta

                                         by Jim Goodman

river scene in Vĩnh Long province

       Travelers to the heart of the Mekong Delta—the three popular tourist destinations of Mỹ Tho, Vĩnh Long and Cần Thơ—find themselves impressed with how well organized, developed and thriving everything seems to be.  They see roads and waterways busy with traffic, farms neatly laid out on the lands between the canals, orchards filling the river islands, bustling city markets and boats of all kinds lining the piers. 

       Four centuries ago, though, this very same area was mostly swamps, peat bogs and thick forests, very sparsely populated by a few stray Khmer villages and river trading posts, mostly run by Chinese down from Cambodia.  That was true of most of the rest of the Delta at that time.  The only heavily populated parts were at the mouth of the Mekong, today’s Sóc Trăng and Trà Vinh provinces.  Khmer communities had lived there for centuries, but the next nearest concentration of Khmer settlements was close to today’s Cambodian-Vietnamese border.  The salient feature of the Delta in those times was its under-population.

boats at the pier in Mỹ Tho

       That began to change from the middle of the 17^th century, due to events far to the north of the area.  In China the Ming Dynasty fell to the Manchu from the north, who founded their own Qing Dynasty.  The Qing did not establish authority over the entire country at once, but by the 1670s had vanquished the last of the Ming loyalists in the south.

       In Vietnam, the decades-long, off-and-on war between the Trịnh Lords of the north and the Nguyển Lords of the south came to a halt in 1672 with a formal truce and a fixed boundary at the Gianh River in today’s Quảng Binh province.  While they still kept a wary eye to the north of their realm, the Nguyễn Lords were now free to turn their attention south.  With peace and its resultant prosperity and population growth, the Nguyễn Court began to conceive its southern ambitions.

Vĩnh Trang Pagoda, Mỹ Tho

       Central Vietnam, the part of the country under Nguyễn control, was too narrow for the kind of agriculture associated with the Red River Delta in the north.  Rice cultivation could never be sufficient to support its increasing population.  But if the wilderness of the Mekong Delta could be tamed and transformed into a rice production area, that would solve the problem. 

       Before the Nguyễn Court could formulate a cohesive strategy to satisfy this ambition, though, a contingent of 3000 Chinese Ming Dynasty loyalists, recently defeated by Qing forces off the south coast of China, arrived in Nguyễn territory seeking asylum.  The Nguyễn Court was uneasy about allowing an armed body like this too near the capital, but arranged for the refugees to be settled in Biên Hòa and Mỹ Tho in the Mekong Delta.  Ostensibly this required securing permission from the Cambodian regime, which had nominal jurisdiction over the area.  But the Cambodian Court at that time was favorable to Vietnamese interests and so agreed.

Mekong Delta mudskipper

       The Nguyễn regime assumed that by settling the Chinese refugees in the south they could count on them to, in return, develop the commercial potential of the region and promote Nguyễn interests.  This proved to be true in Biên Hoà, but not in Mỹ Tho, where the Chinese established pirate gangs that preyed on the river commerce.  They even allied with a new, anti-Vietnamese Cambodian king and the Nguyển side had to send down a military force to drive out the Cambodians and subdue the Chinese pirates. 

       To insure the safety of ever more Vietnamese immigrants to the area, the Nguyễn regime took over the administration of both Mỹ Tho and Saigon before the end of the century.  Things more or less settled down after that and in the 18^th century a regular influx of Vietnamese pioneers came to clear swamps, cut forests, make farms and set up villages.  Permanent settlements began to spread between Saigon and Mỹ Tho, then down to Vĩnh Long, Cần Thơ and further upriver. 

Delta riverside houses of split palm leaf

       This slow and steady conquest of the tropical wilderness continued on into the 1700s despite the steady disintegration of the Nguyễn Lords regime after mid-century.  But after the outbreak of the Tây Sơn Revolt, the capture of the Nguyễn capital and the flight of the royal family to Saigon, a new phase of history developed.  The Tây Sơn forces pursued the Nguyễn family, eventually caught up with them and killed all but one in 1777.  The sole escapee was Nguyễn Ánh.

       Organizing loyalists, over the next several years he led the recapture of Saigon, was expelled again, took it once more, and then was driven completely out of the country.  He took refuge in Bangkok, where he persuaded King Rama I to back his cause.  In 1784 the new ally dispatched 30,000 infantry and 300 warships with 20,000 sailors and marines in support of Nguyễn Ánh’s contingent of less than 4000. 

bridge over a Vĩnh Long canal

       After some initial success, the Siamese fell into a Tây Sơn trap on the river at Rạch Gầm Xoài Mút, near Mỹ Tho.  Tây Sơn forces destroyed the entire fleet, and then attacked the invaders’ infantry with such success that only a few thousand managed to escape and return to Bangkok. 

       Nguyễn Ánh also escaped.  But the Tây Sơn victors turned their attention to the north and soon conquered the rest of the country.  Meanwhile Nguyễn Ánh returned to Saigon again and this time made it his base in a long, relentless struggle with the Tây Sơn until his final victory in 1802.  Then he made Huế the capital of his new dynastic regime and turned over the administration of the Mekong Delta provinces to his favorite general.  

Cái Bè floating market and cathedral

       For a long time to come, though, this was still the least populated part of the newly unified country.  Most towns were hardly more than that, even after the French colonized the Delta in the 1860s.  In their own census of 1900, the population of Cần Thơ was about 9000.  But after taking control of the north, they sponsored farmers there to move south to open new lands.  From then on the population began to multiply at an accelerated rate.

       Today in the heart of the Delta it seems there is no place uninhabited.  The former tropical wilderness of past centuries has all but vanished completely.  The conquest of the frontier has meant a transformation into an intricate relationship between the use of land and water.  The best hints of this fascinating environmental interplay come with a boat ride from the piers of one of the three cities.  

making spring roll wrappers

canal in Vĩnh Long province

       Just 70 km south of Hồ Chí Minh City, Mỹ Tho today retains only a few square blocks of its Chinese quarter, on the other side of the Bao Đinh canal that divides the city.  The city lies on the Tiền Giang River, one of the main branches of the Mekong as it approaches the sea. Vietnamese have long dominated the population here and for them the great attraction of Mỹ Tho is the Vĩnh Trang Pagoda in the northeast part of the city.  The compound resembles a palace more than a temple, its buildings a light yellow color, with gold and orange trimmings.  In the park beside it are large images of a standing Buddha, seated Maitreya and Reclining Buddha, all in white.

Munirangsyaram, a Khmer temple in Cần Thơ

       The road west of the Bao Đinh canal flanking the river is the only other attractive part of the city.  It has its array of boats, a couple of colonial-era buildings and at night becomes filled with convivial outdoor restaurants.  Most visitors don’t stay the night, though, but take a boat ride through the canals of the province for an intimate look at rural life on the water.

       The ride takes the traveler out of the urban riverside environment into the backwaters of the area.  The cargo vessels carrying loads of sand or bamboo give way to medium-sized boats, with big painted eyes on the prow, carrying everything from furniture to fruit.  The tour boats inevitably stop at selected villages because they produce a special food or other product.  But on the walk through the woods to get there one can sometimes spot one of the Mekong Delta’ s most unusual creatures—the mudskipper.

Cái Răng floating market near Cần Thơ

       About 15 cm long, shaped like a torpedo, with disproportionately bulging eyes on its smooth head, it has a pair of thick fins resembling forearms.  In fact, it looks like a creature evolutionally transitioning from a fish in water to a legged animal on land.  They are certainly fun to watch as they scoot across the land, battle each other on occasion or sit motionless with their tails in the water to keep some part of the body moist.

       It is a fish, but spends much time on land, using its fins like crutches to slowly ‘walk’ across the mud or sand and even climb the trunks of bushes and thick plants.  If it wants to move quickly it uses its tail to help propel it forward.  On land they can breathe by mixing the air with the water still stored in the gills, but after a while have to return to water for a refill.  They are likely to be spotted anywhere shallow water meets dry land.

       Vĩnh Long, the next stop 72 km west of Mỷ Tho, is about the same size, just as bustling and with an equally pleasant, quieter quarter along the Cổ Chiên River, a branch of the Tiền Giang.  The riverfront road between the two canals flanking the town features a street market at one end, the boat and ferry piers in the middle, and a row of fine French colonial buildings past the piers.  A few km southeast is the Văn Thành Miếu, a rare example of a Confucian temple in the south.

business in the Cái Răng floating market

      The prime traveler activity here is to take a boat journey around An Binh Island to the floating market at Cái Bè, then back through narrow canals to Vĩnh Long.  The tour itinerary may include stops at a ceramics production village, making bricks, tiles, pots and other vessels and a ride through the floating market at Cái Bè.  This phenomenon exists in other parts of the Mekong Delta, but usually only in the early morning.  While more active in the morning, Cái Bè’s floating market runs all day.  Like other venues, here the boats tie a sample of the product they sell attached to a mast on the boat, as a signal to buyers in the area.  

       A prominent Catholic cathedral stands on the shoreline here and for the rest of the day’s journey the passengers will notice that there are as many churches as temples along the route.  In the 18^th century, when Vietnamese immigration to the Delta was just getting started, a large proportion of the pioneers were Christians fleeing periodic campaigns of persecution by the Nguyẽn Lords’ governments.  Saigon actually had churches before it had any Buddhist temples.  

early morning at Cái Răng

       Since it’s an all-day tour the boats also make a lunch stop where the main dish is grilled elephant ear fish, so named because of its shape, and served mounted upright to show off that shape.  Boats also make stops at a snack-producing village making sweet cakes, popcorn and rice paper pancakes used to wrap spring rolls.  On the way back to Vĩnh Long the boat enters narrow canals full of cargo boats carrying longans, pineapples, coconuts and other products oft the many fruit orchards on the islands.  Some of the side canals are too narrow for the tour boats, but passengers can see the sampans on them, which sometimes stop to gather palm leaves along the shore, used for the walls and roofs of simple houses along the river, much like the Khmer dwellings at the mouth of the Mekong.    

Cái Răng floating market activity

       The third stop, Cần Thơ, 86 km southwest of Vĩnh Long, is the largest, sprawling along the south bank of the Hâu River, another major branch of the Mekong, with a population now exceeding 1.2 million.  The main attraction here is the floating market at Cái Răng, several km downriver.  Activity here begins at dawn and starts thinning out just a few hours later.  Like at Cái Bè, masts on the boats advertise the product for sale, but besides the far greater number of merchant boats here, the scene also includes innumerable small boats peddling snacks, drinks and other merchandise to those on the big boats.

       Other than the early morning floating market, Cần Thơ has a couple of Chinese temples, Chùa Munirangsyaram,--a  Khmer pagoda compound, plus the expected bars and upscale restaurants of a big city.  The outstanding feature of Cần Thơ, however, is its size and prosperity.  This is a place that grew from an overgrown village a century ago into the fourth largest city in the country.  Traveling in the heart of the Mekong Delta today, it is hard to realize that just two centuries ago it was mostly a swamp.  Mỷ Thơ, Vỉnh Long and Cần Thơ today represent the stunning legacy of those initial Vietnamese pioneers.

sampan on a Vĩnh Long canal

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Vĩnh Long is one of the stops on our cultural-historical journey through Vietnam.  See the itinerary at deltatoursvietnam.com                   

       

Khmer at the Mouth of the Mekong

                                                    by Jim Goodman

      

Chùa Chim, a Khmer temple in Trà Vinh

       For most of its history the Mekong Delta was the most underdeveloped, least populated part of what is today Vietnam.  When the first Vietnamese, and to a lesser extent Chinese, began moving here in the late 17^th century they discovered a land dominated by water, subject to the flooding of the main branches of the Mekong River, as well as its many tributaries.  In between these lay swamps and bogs and scattered patches of higher land, mostly covered with thick forests. 

       The indigenous population then was nearly all Khmer.  Some lived in the slightly higher plains that now border contemporary Cambodia.  But the bulk of them lived near the mouth of the Mekong, on lands straddling the Hậu River branch, what now consists of Trà Vinh and Sóc Trăng provinces.  Even today 70% of Vietnam’s Khmer minority lives in these two provinces.  Vietnamese migrants didn’t try to expel them or take over their lands.  They simply moved next door, cleared swamps, constructed canals and made new farms.  Khmer communities remained in place, governed by their own chieftains.

Angkor Era relic at Chùa Phướng

7th-8th century Lokeswar from Trà Vinh

       That autonomy lasted until Minh Mạng’s administrative reforms in the 1830s.  Vietnamese became a majority in both provinces by the 20^th century.  But Khmer culture and traditions have persisted nevertheless.  The Khmer still comprise about 30% of the population in both provinces, mainly village people, with active temples and a strong ethnic consciousness.

Ao Bà Om

       No records exist of when the Khmer first settled here, but it was perhaps not long after the collapse of the Funan state in the 6^th century, if not earlier.  A beautiful stone carving of the Mahayana Buddhist deity Lokeswar, found in Trà Vinh province and dated 7^th-8^th centuries, in the classic Khmer style, is equal to anything produced in the Cambodian heartland at that time.  It is on display in the History Museum in Hồ Chí Minh City, along with a pair of exquisite stone, life-sized devis (unfortunately missing their heads and lower arms) from the 11^th century, also from Trà Vinh.  Obviously, the Khmer cultural connection between Trà Vinh and central Cambodia goes back a long way.

Khmer devotees at Chùa Hang

       Other evidence exists of Trà Vinh’s ties with the ancient Angkor Empire.  The artificial pond Ao Bà Om, a few km from Trà Vinh city, dates its construction to over a thousand years ago and many of the temples standing today replaced earlier ones that, during Angkor times, honored Hindu or Mahayana Buddhist deities.  Chùa Phướng, on the outskirts of town, kept the ruins of one of the ancient buildings in its courtyard.  The stone staircase features railings with the original Buddhist heads in a style familiar to anyone who has visited Angkor.

       In religious matters, Khmer culture in Trà Vinh shifted to Theravada Buddhism around the same time as in the Cambodia heartland.  The first Theravada Buddhist temple in the province went up around 1450, about twenty years after the first Theravada temple in Cambodia, at Phnom Penh.  Khmer cultural development in Trà Vinh and Sọc Trăng ran parallel to that in central Cambodia, but political and administrative ties are less certain.

classical dance masks in the Khmer Cultural Museum

      The two provinces are as far downriver from Angkor, or subsequent Cambodian capitals like Udong or Phnom Penh, as one can go.  Very few settlements existed between them and eastern Cambodia.  There were no big urban centers and the economy was simple, self-sufficient agriculture.  The area was not so heavily populated to be of any crucial economic importance to Cambodian governments.  It is difficult to imagine Angkor or subsequent regimes sending tax collectors or military recruiters that far away from the capital.  The Khmer at the mouth of the Mekong enjoyed virtual autonomy from the time of their first settlement until their absorption into the Vietnamese state.  Yet this political integration and the occasional assimilation campaigns in the past have not diminished the Khmer attachment to their religion, language and culture.

       Though Trà Vinh’s growth as an urban center only commenced with the early 18^th century immigration of outsiders, the city today still exudes a strong Khmer atmosphere.  A large percentage of the schoolchildren are Khmer, as are many of the merchants in the covered market or on the street beside the river, easy to recognize by their darker skin complexion.  The town has several attractive Khmer temples and small groups of saffron-robed monks on a stroll through the city are a common sight in Trà Vinh.   

riverside market, Trà Vinh

       The Vietnamese form the majority of the city’s roughly 75.000 residents and several Mahayana Buddhist temples cater to them.  Trà Vinh also has a church for its Catholics and two temples for adherents of the Cao Dài faith.  The small but active Ông Pagoda, founded by Chinese immigrants from Fujian in the town’s commercial center in the 16^th century, serves the local Chinese business community, while a relatively new temple on the northern side of the city to the Goddess of the Sea attracts those in the fishing trade.  

       Most of the town, including its temples, hotels and commercial center, lies along the west bank of the Long Bình River, a small, moderately busy tributary of the Mekong, into which it flows several km north of Trà Vinh.  Most streets in the residential neighborhoods are lined with tall, shady trees, unusual for a Mekong Delta town, which keep the temperatures bearable even on hot, sunny days.   Trà Vinh doesn’t offer much in the line of entertainment:  no discos or bars.  But there are a few places where one can enjoy cold beer and grilled seafood like scallops, oysters, sea snails and the tasty Delta specialty called ‘finger snail,’ a kind of elongated clam, baked with spices in its finger-length shell.   

'finger snail'

       While it’s a pleasant, uncongested place to stroll around, the main attractions in the town, and the province as a whole, are its Khmer temples.  Architecturally, they are noticeably different from the Mahayana temples of the Vietnamese and Chinese, as well as the Catholic and Cao Đài churches, resembling instead the Theravada temples in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, featuring tall, angled roofs that immediately mark their Khmer identity.

       No two are exactly alike, but they do share a number of common characteristics, both in structure and in decorative elements.  Except for a couple of smaller temples in the city center, Khmer temple compounds are walled, with fancy entrance gates, enclosing a spacious area with several buildings and groves of big shade trees.  The religious buildings rest on raised plinths, the main hall rectangular, with sloping, tiered roofs, supported either by the buildings’ exterior walls or a row of pillars.   Angled support struts, carved with images of mythical beings, half-woman, half-bird, are lined along the lower roof edges on both sides of the building, connected to either the walls or the pillars. 

unusual relief carving 

       The interior will feature a large seated Buddha, often with distinctly Khmer features, as well as a number of smaller, standing or seated Buddhas.  The walls inside will likely be covered with frescoes of Buddhist mythology and scenes of everyday life. 

       Variations in this basic design are legion.  It could be a single roof or double.  The walls on each of the longer sides of the building could be solid or scalloped with open areas.  The pillars could be plain or covered with painted patterns.  The buildings could be white, yellow or something else.   In the garden behind the main hall, or to the side or even in front there may be life-sized sculptures depicting famous scenes from the life of the Buddha, such as his first seven steps after birth, the Temptation of Mara, the first Sermon, etc.  There may be columns surmounted by a four-faced Bodhisattva, derived from the famous image at the Bayon in Angkor Thom.  There may be odd relief sculptures on walls inside the compound, like deities riding pigs, or statues of Khmer historical heroes.

Chùa Âng

       Certain temples in the immediate area boast of unique features.  Chùa Phướng, on the southern edge of the town, has its preserved Angkor-era relics.  Chùa Chím, in a wooded area on the western outskirts, features a miniature replica of Angkor Wat and the Bayon in the garden behind the main hall.  Chùa Âng, five km southwest of Trà Vinh and the most venerable in the province, lies beside the ancient pond Ao Bằ Om and is opposite a Khmer Cultural Museum.

        According to local legend, the creation of the pond originated with a dispute a thousand years ago over who had to pay for wedding expenses—the groom’s side or the bride’s.  So they decided on a contest to resolve the issue.  The women would build a square pond, the men an oval one, and whoever was nearest completion by daybreak would be exempt from wedding expenses. The women won by a trick.  Before dawn they lit lanterns to brighten the sky and fool the men into thinking the night was over.  They laid down their tools but the women continued.  When daybreak really did arrive it showed that they had won.  The oval pond no longer exists, but the women’s pond Ao Bà Om today is a popular retreat for city folks.  Tall trees surround the pond, many of their roots rising above the ground in weird and grotesque shapes.  The Àng Temple next door was originally a Hindu temple in the Angkor era and a Theravada temple replaced it in the late 15^th century.  It has since been restored a number of times, including fairly recently.

       The museum across from Chùa Âng has a nice display of items relevant to the religious and material life of Khmer people.  Among the exhibits are all the traditional tools and devices used in agriculture, baskets of sundry kinds, wooden containers, mortars and boxes, hunting and fishing gear, musical instruments, temple decorations and dance masks.  On one wall are the founding dates, locations and photographs of all the major temples in the province.

decorative carving, Chùa Âng

purification rite, Chùa Âng

       Most of these lie south and southeast of the city, where nearly all the villages are Khmer, their locations marked by entry gates on the main roads with very Angkor-like images.  A turn down one of these roads takes one past rice fields backed by sugar palms and eventually reaches the temple compound, walled and forested, that lies at the edge of the residential area.

       Village houses generally sit on both sides of a canal or stream that bisects the settlement.  Trees and bushes obscure the banks and hide the water except at the several bridge crossings.  While they may do some fishing from the bridges, villagers don’t use boats to get around.  The unpaved roads through the village are barely wide enough for a car, but local vehicular traffic is all by bicycle or motorbike, anyway.  Small shops and refreshment stalls stand at major junctions, like the ones that turn back towards the main provincial roads. 

Khmer houses of split palm leaf, Trà Vinh province

       Throughout the residential area groves of sugar palms and other trees occupy every space not used for a house or a garden.  The houses, generally one story and resting directly on the ground, are not clustered but stand alone or in groups of two to four related families and are from twenty to fifty meters apart from the nearest neighbors.  Some of the wealthier villagers have houses of brick or cement, but most houses are simple structures employing split palm leaf for the walls and roofs. 

       Villagers’ lives revolve around the labor demands of an agricultural economy and the obligations of their religion.  Neither is very strenuous, for the work is only heavy at the time of planting or harvesting, when they do it collectively.  And while pious villagers make voluntary contributions to their local monastery, gifts that have sustained maintenance of the religious buildings, because monasteries are required to grow their own food, they do not have to get out in the morning to fill monks’ begging bowls. 

miniature Angkor Wat and the Bayon at Chùa Chim

       The principal characteristics defining Khmer culture and identity are language and religion, both of which appear to have good future prospects.  Instruction in the Khmer language was formerly only available to boys who enrolled temporarily in the monasteries. Nowadays Khmer is one of the three minority languages in Vietnam (the   others are Giarai in the Central Highlands and Hmông in the north) authorized for bi-lingual education at government-sponsored schools, abetting the language’s preservation and development

       As for Khmer Buddhism, the continuing active role of the monasteries in socio-cultural life, respect accorded to monks and the popularity of regular rituals and festivals indicates its persistent, deeply ingrained strength.  This religion has sustained the Trà Vinh Khmers throughout the vicissitudes of the past several centuries.  Neither it, nor the culture behind it, is likely to fade away anytime soon.

Khmer monks in Trà Vinh city

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              Trà Vinh is one of the stops on our cultural-historical tour of Vietnam.  For details see                                                                          http://deltatoursvietnam.com