An eco-cruise along Vietnam’s Mekong River

Passing the manicured fringe of a neon-green rice paddy, cocooned in a fug of warmth, we walked right into a temple yard that was extra disco aptitude than sombre faith. Spellbound, we watched a girl pray in entrance of an altar bursting with yellow flowers, guarded by two massive, scarlet-snouted tiger figures, decked in cloaks of silver sequins trimmed with gold thread.

Inside a neighbouring temple, Buddha’s statue appeared to levitate amid lotus buds encased in glowing globes. Jungle rave? No, it was a temple devoted to a legend of a cub discovered floating on a tangle of water hyacinth 300 years in the past, which was rescued by an area couple.

“It’s mentioned that every 12 months, on the anniversary of the dying of its rescuers, the cub would convey an animal to a clearing for a ceremony of their reminiscence,” Jack, our information, informed us. “As we speak, locals come to hope for love, safety, and enterprise.”

We have been on Tiger Island in Vietnam’s endlessly fascinating Mekong Delta, about to go to the very family-run companies which could want such safety from a feline guardian. It was our first cease on a brand new cruise heading upstream on the Mekong River – from Can Tho, Vietnam, to Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. Our dwelling for 4 nights was the Victoria Mekong, a purpose-built eco-boat – the primary of its sort on the Mekong, and the primary to meander alongside an alternate, less-visited sliver of this closely cruised waterway.

Most cruises right here go to Sa Dec – dwelling of French novelist Marguerite Duras, who penned The Lover about illicit ardour in Indochina – in addition to busy Chau Doc and pagoda-crammed Sam Mountain, spending per week on the river. Conversely, the 35-cabin Victoria leaves from Can Tho (a 3.5 hour drive from Ho Chi Minh Metropolis) and cruises alongside Tune Hau – one in every of two fundamental distributaries of Vietnam’s Mekong.

It’s a wonderfully pitched four-night journey with journeys to offbeat highlights of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, providing soothing downtime after manic Saigon. You go to genuine communities with few different vacationers in sight, gearing up for energetic, ascendant Phnom Penh and the monumental temples at Cambodia’s Angkor.

Landlubbers will admire how silently the boat glides alongside – virtually shudder-free. Rooms are large with a relaxing palette of taupe, rice paddy inexperienced and tanned wooden, and include floor-to-ceiling home windows and balconies for absorbing the views.

Extra importantly, eco-credentials have been baked into its design. That is the one vessel within the delta utilizing photo voltaic panels; it’s practically solely plastic-free (minus the bathe cap); and river water is processed to supply contemporary and consuming water onboard. She additionally travels slowly, at six to eight knots per hour (in comparison with 10 knots for different cruises). This curbing of pace reduces emissions and prevents waves which trigger riverbank erosion.

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta deceives: the jungle mantle is so thick with wild and aromatic vegetation it conceals a lot of the enterprise of every day life. Past floating markets the place households promote fruit and veg, and large barges bulging with rice husks and painted with eyes to banish spirit monsters, what else was taking place behind the rings of bamboo, banana vegetation and mango bushes?

On Tiger Island, we have been about to seek out out. It’s dwelling to twenty,000 busy souls dwelling amid livestock, barking canines, and dozens of ceramic pooches, topping dwelling gateposts and providing non secular safety. We wandered previous bonsai gardens, pink cactus, hillocks of coconuts, and telegraph poles sporting loudspeakers which creak to life with communist propaganda in early mornings. We watched the clickety-clack looms of a fishing-net manufacturing unit and met a gent dipping bamboo sticks into incense powder, in addition to a sculptor carving dragons and tiger out of longan fruit tree trunks for lounge centrepieces.

Again on board, we lunched on younger coconut and pork salad, mud crab and quail egg soup, and fragrant steamed fish with ginger and sautéed Chinese language cabbage. Dessert and low we left to our subsequent cease at Lengthy Xuyen Metropolis. A conical-hatted vendor at its floating market hooked her boat to our barge and poured thick black espresso right into a cup, including ice, then condensed milk. After this addictive caphe sua da, we gorged on banh chuoi chien – rice flour, coconut and sesame-battered bananas, made contemporary by a vendor dockside.

Each have been an ideal pick-me-up for our subsequent go to – a tour of Lengthy Xuyen’s Museum. Its assortment displays each the area’s ethnic combine and chequered historical past. Khmer fishing traps, panels on the Hindu-ised Cham tradition, and Vietnam Struggle artefacts: bomb shreds, a bazooka, and – curiously – a metallic comb within the form of an aeroplane. Furnishings embedded with glowing mother-of-pearl figures of palms, fish, dragons, phoenixes, kingfishers and egrets portrayed legendary characters and the Mekong’s lush pure bounty.

That afternoon we headed away from the primary waterways, to glimpse one thing resembling that mother-of-pearl menagerie. We discovered it at Tra Su, a paperbark forest threaded with waterways carpeted in perky duck weed. In golden afternoon mild we boarded a small sampan boat via corridors of arching bushes, oars slapping via milky-tea colored water. The spell was shattered by a racket of storks and egrets, the flash of a tailorbird, and sensible deep turquoise of a bronze-winged jacana on take-off.

Reflecting on the journey to date, I used to be filled with appreciation for a way a lot effort our guides had made to take us off the overwhelmed path to satisfy communities and artisans of their place of job. Sure, we’d loved luxurious hospitality alongside the best way, however our hosts made certain we additionally lowered our carbon footprint by strolling wherever doable, or boarding small boats and durable rickshaws on and round these delicate river islands.

Vietnam’s nature had dazzled us and our subsequent cease confirmed its attract. At Tan Chau we met weavers and dyers at a uncommon silk-making enterprise. Tám Lăng Silk is the one place within the Delta the place the material is dyed with utterly pure supplies. The native mac nua fruit is used to stain large silk sheets, that are dipped and dried 100 occasions over 30 days, then pounded with woodblocks to shine and create a lustrous ebony black.

Black silk is extremely prized in Vietnam – to not point out by European vogue homes. Our information informed us that Angelina Jolie wearing a Tám Lăng black silk robe at Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil premiere in 2019. Ker-ching! I considered these prayers despatched up at temples for profitable enterprise. Job achieved: Hollywood and high fashion cash was cascading again into the delta.

Journey necessities

You possibly can construct the Victoria Mekong right into a Vietnam journey with Audley Journey (01993 838140). A nine-night journey prices from £2,490 per individual (based mostly on two sharing) and contains one evening in Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, one evening at Victoria Can Tho, 4 nights on the Victoria Mekong Upstream cruise from Can Tho to Phnom Penh and one evening at Palace Gate in Phnom Penh. The worth contains return economic system flights from the UK, transfers, resort lodging on a B&B foundation and the cruise on a totally inclusive foundation, in addition to excursions. Or e-book straight: victoriamekong.com.