An Ohioan In Asia

Good morning, Vietnam!

July 9th, 2006

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We celebrated the Fourth of July with an all day excursion in Vietnam in search of the South China Sea. We had traveled more than 1600 miles along the Mekong, on the Mekong, and high above the Mekong for nearly a month. We had explored the people, cultures, and issues, which touch the river. It was time to bring our expedition to its logical conclusion.

The Mekong River separates into nine channels, forming a number of large islands, before emptying into the South China Sea about 37 miles south of Saigon. (The River comes by eight of its channels naturally. However, many Vietnamese believe that even numbers are unlucky, so they built a ninth channel. The Mekong is known as the “nine dragons river” in Vietnam.) There are many villages along these channels. We planned to visit a village close to the sea and then take a boat ride. Our local guide told us that it would take much of the day to reach the village and he suggested an alternative.

ONE OF THE NINE DRAGONS

We drove out of Saigon and into the country. We drove two hours along the National Highway before stopping in the city of My Tho. We boarded a ferry and crossed one of the Mekong channels to the island of Ben Tre, the Coconut Province. Ben Tre is a quiet place chiefly known, unsurprisingly, for the many coconut trees that grow there. Islanders drink coconut water, eat coconut candy, carve coconut wood, and use coconut leaves to make thatched roofs for their porches.

MAKING COCONUT CANDY

Coconut Province is a quiet place that has recently enjoyed some economic growth. The fishing is good. The soil is good. The planting is good. Private ownership of land is good, too. (Like the Soviets and Chinese before them, the Vietnamese communists eliminated private farms upon coming to power and replaced them with large, state-run “collective” farms. The results were predictably disastrous. Eventually, they saw the light and abandoned this policy.)
Vietnam today is the second largest exporter of rice in the world, behind Thailand.

We ate a delicious fish lunch at a restaurant just off the beaten path and then boarded a fleet of wooden canoes for a canal ride.

LUNCH

The canoes transported us to a bygone time — and then to a waiting ferry. There’s something special about traveling under your own power — or someone else’s, in this case — in the fullness of nature and the absence of machinery. I felt like Lewis and Clark exploring a vast, unknown territory. Priceless.

We boarded our ferry back to the village of My Tho, passing a strange little island along the way. The island is now abandoned. The people have gone and all that remains is an odd collection of buildings and structures reminiscent of an old amusement park. Our local guide said that the island was once home to the Coconut Cult. The founder of this peculiar cult believed that coconuts were the source of all goodness. He ate nothing but coconuts and urged his followers to do the same. He made the island a shrine of sorts and then died young. The government closed off his property.

CULT ISLAND

We got off the ferry, boarded our bus, and drove to the village of Binh Dai — on the edge of the South China Sea — to board a boat and head to sea. We stopped at a government office and asked permission to proceed to Binh Dai’s boat dock, which was located on government property. We waited and waited. And then waited some more. In the meantime, one of my colleagues passed a shell necklace from Hawaii to a child standing outside the bus. He gave away another necklace and a group of children quickly gathered beside the bus, climbing onto a chain link fence, asking us to pass them more presents from the window.

I got off the bus and passed out my three remaining baseball hats.

A crowd began to form.

Two of my other colleagues got off the bus and began passing out pens. The crowd grew larger. Soon, we had an audience of several dozen villagers.

They seemed fascinated by us. Our Vietnamese guide said that this was probably the first time that the villagers had seen non-Asians. A local government functionary asked us to stay on the bus. He was worried about crowd control.

We waited for about a half hour. In the end, we were turned away. The official said that it was impossible to get all the necessary clearances on short notice. So our guide’s alternative destination turned out to be a bust. We drove to the village of Rach Mieu on Coconut Island and right onto another ferry, which we took back to My Tho. We pulled to the side of the road for a moment so that our guide, Nguyen Thai Dy, could get off the bus and see his nine-month-old daughter, Miracle. Dy was thrilled to see his little girl and to show her off to his clients.

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