Cruising the Mekong River

Cruising from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Stu Lloyd relives the colonial days of French Indochina and the charms of the modern day Mekong en route.

Cruising along the Mekong River.

I am reading The Lover (the French classic known as L’Amant) by Marguerite Duras. It is set in the pre-WWII Indochina of Duras’ childhood and details a tumultuous forbidden fruit affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover, a man she meets on a ferry ride up the Mekong. While her characters are unnamed I can’t help feeling it is autobiographical and am soon steeped in the romance, not only of her steamy story but the nostalgia of those colonial times.

Reality and fiction seem to blur as we step aboard the RV Mekong Pandaw, one of a fleet of ships that are accurate reproductions of the colonial-era Irrawaddy Steamship Flotilla which dates back to the days of Kipling – think teak panelling, brass fittings, crew in snappy white outfits. Marry this with the mystique of the mighty Mekong River, and it’s more than just another boat ride… My mother sometimes tells me that never in my whole life shall I ever again see rivers as beautiful and big and wild as these, the Mekong and its tributaries going down to the sea, the great regions of water soon to disappear into the caves of ocean. In the surrounding flatness stretching as far as the eye can see, the rivers flow as fast as if the earth sloped downward.

Duras’ words ring just as true today, as we cast off with palpable anticipation from My Tho in the Mekong Delta. The Delta is known as the nine dragons (cuu long) for the number of tributaries which fan out from its two main branches, the Lower and Upper Mekong. This is the seafood basket of Asia, with US$2.5 billion of seafood hauled out of its 2000 fish farms annually being shipped to 167 countries worldwide. And its fertile alluvial flatlands make it the fruit-bowl and rice-bowl of Asia with one million tonnes of rice produced annually in the Delta.

The lover’s house

Duras spent six years in the town of Sadec. We have a shore stop here, one which I am most excited about as it is where her novel is set, and the house of her lover still stands. We walk along the bustling riverside to the house.

He says he’s just back from Paris where he was a student, that he lives in Sadec too, on this same river, the big house with the big terraces with blue-tiled balustrades.

So Duras described her Chinese lover’s house. And here it is, the house formerly belonging to Monsieur Huynh Thuy Le. It’s as gaudy as a temple, its tiles colourfully floral and geometric. Ceilings (up to five metres high) and walls are ornately carved and sculpted. Gold leaf flourishes catch the eye. Bat motifs adorn surfaces, a symbol of prosperity.

Monsieur Huynh’s prosperity was short-lived. When South Vietnam fell to the communists his family made a run for the West and the house was repossessed and converted into a police station.

In a time warp

On this boat, it is easy to believe that you are somehow time-warped back into the colonial era, especially as you watch another magical blood-orange Mekong sun set to the tinkling soundtrack of ice in long gin and tonic glasses. The passenger manifest comprises an amiable mix of Australians, Britons, Europeans and Americans – mostly retired, all exceptionally well-travelled. ‘This is turning into an eating tour,’ says Brian from the UK, loosening his belt after yet another extravagant three-course meal.

We cruise on up to the more languid sections of the Mekong, described by Duras:
In the misty sun of the river, the sun of the hot season, the banks have faded away, the river seems to reach the horizon. It flows quietly, without a sound, like the blood in the body. No wind but that in the water.

Countless hours are spent languishing in deckchairs, relishing the warmth of the sun, and the chill of the lime sodas. At Chau Doc (200km from the South China Sea but only 20km from the Cambodian border), a flash new pier adjoins the proud promenade where the colonial-looking Victoria Hotel holds forth, and locals play sepak takraw (think of it as volleyball played with your feet), indulge in ken-do martial arts exercises (think of it as sword-fighting with sticks) and tai chi. We take a tri-shaw ride around the town which puts us into Graham Greene’s The Quiet American colonial oeuvre.

We are up early the next day for our arrival at Phnom Penh, capital of a once-powerful kingdom that ruled much of South-East Asia. Fishermen work the waters, laying their nets in the morning mist. Several of Cambodia’s 6000 pagodas from the 6th-9th centuries slowly come into sharp focus. Flags of many of the world’s nations flutter in the morning breeze along the promenade.

Swiss-born Karl, morning coffee in hand as he leans on the railing admiring this marvellous scene, makes a point: ‘It’s so great to travel on a cruise because the scenery changes but you don’t have to pack and unpack every day.’

Sadly, today is our last day so we do have to pack …

And in raffish Phnom Penh, it’s as though the French never left. From the main temple in the 1860s Royal Palace which has tinges of Gallic charm in its Cambodian grace, to the National Museum designed by the French in 1920, louvre-shuttered buildings and white-washed tree bases along Norodom Boulevarde, and countless chic cafes along the waterfront there, remains some charm in a city with a brutal history.

From the airy balcony of the Foreign Correspondents Club we watch the Mekong Pandaw pull out from the wharf. We wave, sad that time doesn’t allow us to join our new-found friends on the rest of the journey to Siem Reap. But not as sad as Duras’ character leaving for France and waving her lover goodbye:
Then the boat bid farewell, uttering its terrible mysteriously sad wails that made everybody weep, not only those who were parting from one another but the onlookers too, and those who were there for no special reason, who had no one particular in mind.

You, too, will fall in love with the ship, the countries you traverse, and the people you meet along the journey.

Stu Lloyd travelled courtesy of Pandaw Cruises, Bangkok Airways and Hotel Sofitel Plaza Saigon.

Pandaw River Cruises’ 4 day/3night Mekong itinerary is one of the many cruises in four different countries that they offer. Visit: www.pandaw.com

Bangkok Airways, Asia’s boutique airline, flies between Bangkok and exotic holiday destinations in Maldives, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Hong Kong. Visit: www.bangkokair.com

Hotel Sofitel Plaza Saigon in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 is the registration and collection point for Pandaw cruises. Visit: www.sofitel.com