Touring the orchards, paddy fields and swamplands of the Mekong Delta, you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve stepped into the pages of a geography textbook. A comma-shaped flatland stretching from Ho Chi Minh’s city limits southwest to the Gulf of Thailand, the delta is Vietnam’s rice bowl, an agricultural miracle that pumps out more than a third of the country’s annual food crop from just ten percent of its total land mass. Rice may be the delta’s staple crop, but coconut palms, fruit orchards and sugar-cane groves also thrive in its nutrient-rich soil, and the sight of conical-hatted farmers tending their land is one of Vietnam’s most enduring images. To the Vietnamese, the region is known as Cuu Long, “Nine Dragons”, a reference to the nine tributaries of the Mekong River cruise, which dovetail across plains fashioned by millennia of flood-borne alluvial sediment.
Surprisingly, agriculture gripped the delta only relatively recently. Under Cambodian sway until the close of the seventeenth century, the region was sparsely inhabited by the Khmer krom, or “downstream Khmer”, whose settlements were framed by swathes of marshland. The eighteenth century saw the Viet Nguyen lords steadily broaden their sphere of influence to encompass the delta, though by the 1860s France had taken over the reins of government. Sensing the huge profits to be gleaned from such fertile land, French colons spurred Vietnamese peasants to tame and till tracts of the boggy delta; the peasants, realizing their colonial governors would pay well for rice harvests, were quick to comply. Ironically, the same landscape that had served the French so well also provided valuable cover for the Viet Minh resistance fighters who sought to overthrow them; later it did the same for the Viet Cong, who had well-hidden cells here – inciting the Americans to strafe the area with bombs and defoliants. South Vietnam tours packages
A visit to the Mekong Delta is so memorable because of the region’s diversity. Everyday scenes include children riding on the backs of water buffalo or cycling to school through country lanes clad in white ao dai; rice workers stooping in a sea of emerald; market vendors grinning behind stacks of fruit; bright yellow incense sticks drying at the roadside; flocks of storks circling over a sanctuary at dusk; Khmer monks walking mindfully in the shadow of pastel pagodas; locals scampering over monkey bridges or rowing boats on the delta’s maze of channels.
MY THO
The closest Mekong Delta city to Ho Chi Minh City, My Tho is a city with a fascinating history. It was the center of the ancient civilization of Funan from the 1st to 5th centuries AD, before the culture mysteriously disappeared—no one really knows the reason—and it wasn't until the 17th century that the modern city was established, by Chinese refugees fleeing Taiwan (then known as Formosa). During the Vietnam War, My Tho was one of the centers of operations for American and Australian troops. The largest battle in the Mekong Delta was fought in 1972 at Cai Lai, only 20 km (12 miles) outside the city.
Now mostly known as a supplier of fruit and fish, My Tho is considered a day trip from Ho Chi Minh City, and consequently the dining and accommodations options are somewhat basic.
CAN THO
The meeting point of various waterways, Can Tho is the capital of the Mekong Delta and the region's gateway. This bustling hub of activity is connected to other centers in the Mekong Delta by a system of waterways as well as by road. For those seeking a comfortable base from which to explore the delta, Can Tho has a number of elegant accommodations options, as well as several river cruise companies with trips ranging from half-day explorations of the nearby floating markets to multiday cruises through the region.
Can Tho retains a hint of its colonial past as one of the largest French trading ports in Indochina. During the Vietnam War, Can Tho was almost constantly surrounded by hostile Vietcong forces, but the city itself stayed loyal to the Saigon regime and many American and South Vietnamese troops were based here. It was the last city to fall to the North Vietnamese army, on May 1, 1975, a day after the fall of Saigon, as North Vietnamese forces moved south.
