From the Jahan in Southeast Asia, 2/6/2012, The Jahan

Chau Doc, Vietnam and Cruising the Mekong to Cambodia

How many fish do you have in your tank? Try 100 thousand. That’s big business, especially if you’re a part of the community in the Mekong Delta still struggling to make a living.

This was our last day in Viet Nam and we started the day riding our motorboats from the Jahan, past the floating markets, to this village upstream that hosts several fish farms. The word is misleading as the fish farms really are humble wooden houses floating on plastic barrels. A deck with square holes in front of each house is where the frenzy is: throw a small bucket of food pellets into the square hole and see hundreds of fish leaping and diving and hunting. Some even land on the deck. There are small fish, big fish, many related to the catfish, or the basa. This is what is raised here for export, and it’s a reminder that these fish, often called Basa fish, have been a subject of trade disputes with the United States. Ironically the fishermen in places like Texas and Louisiana who first objected to the fish being imported from Viet Nam included fishermen who were boat people, immigrants who left Viet Nam in the late 70s and early 80s to build a new life in across the Pacific. The fish in this village, we’re told, are fed with all the proper vitamins and proteins required by international codes. It’s all big business, and the export is truly helpful to the local people, we’re told. A quick glance into their living quarters, however, can tell you that they’re definitely not living in luxury: a decade-old TV, a couple of chairs, a straw mat on the bed, and a rickety table.

We visited Chau Doc, a border town with rows of houses on either side of the Mekong, and a major market. As we began the visit to the market, women were yelling out the prices of the dragon fruits, grapes, sour sops, and green mangoes. At times, many were yelling out the prices at the same time. “15 thousand a kilo of this, 30 thousand a kilo of this!”

One of our tour members turned and said, “After a while it sounds like Buddhist chanting.” Many of us had trouble choosing between gawking, amazed at what’s going on, or snapping a few photos of these lively scenes. It was just 10 am, and people were starting to eat lunch—a bowl of noodle with fish cakes, or a few thin slices of pork mixed with vegetables and rice. There were also stalls serving porridge, and several selling sweet pudding of tapioca, jelly, and chopped up tropical fruit. The smell was strong, but inconsequential compared to the area a few feet again where people were selling a fish and papaya preserved in fish sauce and sugar, or dried fish in a glistening liquid. There were people everywhere, in the middle of the row of stalls, or to the side where there were hardware stores, fishing equipment shops, and yet more stalls selling incense, traditional and western medicines. A few blocks away, an indoor market was reserved for clothes and household items. “Everything you ever need, and everything you don’t ever need,” one of us remarked.

We gathered at our meeting point: a temple offering refuge from the sun, and a place to wait for fellow tour members still enthralled with the food stalls. By the sidewalks, a row of local pedi-cabs was waiting for us. Some of us had been to Ha Noi and Saigon and were wondering why the cabs here weren’t the same. In those other places, sitting inside a pedi-cab was like being in armchair. Here the seats are quite high; it was hard to get on the cab. Once you’re on, you felt like you were sitting on a stool, your knees almost blocking the view in front of you. But a couple of minutes later, you get used to it all, and the ride around town became a joy. We rode around for perhaps 5 miles, and there was not a house that didn’t have a shop front. Furniture, wedding shops, internet stations, hairdresser, motorcycle repair shop, or even a small restaurant. It’s all there, sucking up energy and spitting it out in the same moment.

Back aboard the Jahan, the extraordinary friendly, extraordinarily hard-working staff offered us refreshing towels and iced tea before setting out a sumptuous lunch. As usual, they took our shoes and cleaned them to keep the boat clean. An extraordinary service and a healthy practice.

The afternoon was devoted to a lecture on the history and current conditions of the Mekong, with images of life and the civilizations that have blossomed in this part of the world. There were warnings and thoughtful assessments of various dams up river, and the potential threat the present to nature and human livelihood. That was followed by a presentation on the post war literature of Viet Nam, and the issues preoccupying writers about a society in transition from strict communism to chaotic capitalism.

After dinner, we watched a heart-wrenching documentary about a Cambodian woman from Texas who braves a journey to discover her parents’ painful secrets and struggles under the Khmer Rouge. Outside, the full moon was a bright round spot on the sky, and in the distance you could see the shining lights of Phnom Penh. Many of us will see in the lights the hopes of the peoples of Viet Nam and Cambodia for the future, knowing all the while that it will be a long while before the darkness of their recent past will fade away.