B (1)

Clockwise from

opposite top:

Victoria Can Tho

Resort; a fish farmer

dries fish; and a

traditional rowing

technique

businesstraveller.asia JUNE 2016

appliances and high-tech accessories sit alongside the

more traditional dried-food stalls and colourful shops

touting religious paraphernalia.

Wandering around this in many ways typical Asian

town, two initially incongruous smells pervade the air,

redolent of the old French Indochina: they are coffee

and fresh bread – one of the most pleasant colonial

customs to have endured in Vietnam is the coffee and

baguette culture that the French instilled during their

tenure in this tropical land. Coffee shops abound, with

low, deckchair-like seats facing the street in rows, cheap

but cheerful places to relax and watch the world go

by. Bicycles freewheel past with baskets stuffed full of

fresh baguettes, leaving tempting scent trails that draw

you further into the backstreets. It’s such an easygoing

place, you have to watch the time or a whole day will

disappear before you know it.

That’s something I must not do, because this

afternoon I’m heading to the Victoria’s other Delta

property in Chau Doc, a small market town also on the

Bassac, but more than 100 kilometres upstream, very

close to the border with Cambodia. The river is the

fastest way to get there, and the hotel runs a speedboat

service between the two.

It’s an exciting four-hour journey, filled with

interesting sights as the boat begins by hugging the

river’s right bank as it pushes upstream against the

Time out in...VietnamI 69

flatulent elephants, while smaller boats buzz by like
elephant-sized mosquitoes – it’s hard to know where to
look, so much is happening all around you.
Eventually we leave the market behind and turn off
onto a narrow, tree-shaded watercourse, winding our
way along curving natural waterways and up straight,
man-made canals. In places these are only two boats
wide, bridged by simple structures made from a single
tree trunk. It’s easy to see why these are called monkey
bridges – you’d need simian-like agility to cross them,
although young boys and girls actually cycle across,
I’m told.
After visits to a fruit orchard and a fascinating rice-
noodle factory, I am dropped off at the town’s bustling
riverfront promenade park. An afternoon storm is
approaching – yet again, I see how water dominates
the natural rhythms of life for all who live here – and
I retreat to the hotel for tea, a game of backgammon,
and the pleasure of reading a newspaper on a veranda
as cooling rainwater courses down the slanting roofs,
dropping in a waterfall onto the terracotta-tiled terrace.
The following day, early morning light bathes the
Victoria Can Tho’s beautiful yellow-and-white façade
in a pure, soft, golden light free of industrial fumes. This
is also the best time to wander around town, before
it’s too hot. Can Tho is the Delta region’s largest town,
and it is booming. Shops selling mopeds, modern