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Reflections on a week in November down the Mekong with Pandaw River Cruises
Reflections on a week in November down the Mekong with Pandaw River Cruises
They say that whatever you're looking for you will find in Vietnam; they say that you'll understand a lot in a few minutes but the rest has to be lived*. I'm not sure what my wife and I were expecting of Vietnam and Cambodia, but Pandaw Cruises' 7-day excursion down south-east Asia's longest, oldest and most majestic of rivers, the Mekong, delivered in spades.
As we rejoined our life back in a cold, frosty, London, our friends asked us, what stood out most. Ironically we replied, not the weather; despite the humidity, the warmth (33 degrees) seemed most welcome, intrinsically part of the landscape. Not the ship's crew, we went on, the warmth of whose welcome was exceeded only by the post excursion, cold towels. Not even the food, imaginative and flavorsome, the Head Chef a marvel at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Not our oak-paneled cruise ship, with its cinema and gym, nor the majesty of the Mekong; its languor the life blood and livelihood of 20 million souls. Not the orgy of bridge building along its entire length (4,100km) nor the Manhattan-style skylines of Ho Chi Minh City (although the Bitexco Tower is not to be missed). And strangely, not the shadows of the Vietnam War, a conflict the nation is doing its best to forget; not even the Killing Fields of Cambodia, where so many people so brutally met their end.
No; what hits you most, what resonates above all, is the kindness, the grace and humanity of the people.
You are greeted, in both countries, by a welcome of remarkable warmth, the people genuinely delighted to see you. One morning, just north of Phnom Penh, we were stopped in a market and thanked for "coming to Cambodia" and urged to "come back again". This undisguised pleasure is even more evident in their children, whose cheeky waving and shouting seems in such contrast to the cynicism and wariness of young people in the West.
This intrinsic humanity is, perhaps counterintuitively, not limited to the countryside but seems to be prevail in the cities as well. One evening for example, in Ho Chi Minh City, our friend tripped and fell, badly spraining her ankle. We'd barely had time to offer our help, when a police woman appeared, sat our friend on her police motor bike and seamlessly rustled up some tiger balm. Next, a heavily laden street seller stopped and, unceremoniously (and without permission), took off our friend's sock and vigorously, and to the severe discomfort of our friend, rubbed in a white cream. Before our very eyes, the swelling went down and the pain abated. I tentatively tried to o?er some sort of compensation but was firmly rebuked and informed that, "this was what anyone would do". Travel, as they say, most definitely broadens the mind.
This act of genuine altruism, goes, in my view, to the essence of the culture and the strong sense of community that permeates the very heart of Vietnamese and Cambodian life. The community is far stronger than the sum of its individuals whether it be socially, where extended families live together - interestingly, married couples move into the bride's family home - or indeed professionally, where large family businesses are the norm.
This sense of community was reinforced by our excursions to a series of small family businesses from silk fabric weavers and aluminum recyclers to riverside floating fish farms, and every one of them not only appeared efficient and productive but they did so to the sound of constant laughter and giggles. While some of this laughter may have been (understandable) private jokes about we tourists, these large, extended family units were all gainfully employed, highly efficient (nothing is wasted) productive, and purposeful and all of them exuded an almost palpable sense of belonging.
Poor in material possessions they may be, but poor in spirit or purpose, they are most definitely not. Their social mission is refreshingly simple yet remarkably focused and ironically, resonates with that of our very earliest ancestors; food, shelter, and family. Work, however simple, and though highly manual, is simply a means to this most human of ends.
Both Vietnam and Cambodia have changed greatly over the last decade or so. And, given the amount of infrastructure construction currently underway, they are highly likely to change again. As both economies become more developed and ostensibly, more sophisticated, we can only hope that their peoples will remain as they are.
Richard Smith-Morgan, November 2024
*Thomas Fowler from the 2002 movie starring Michael Caine, The Quiet American