66 ITime out in...Vietnam
ng into the arrivals hall of Tan Son Nhat
ational Airport for the first time in more
decade, I see my name on a board and look
the beaming smile of a be-suited driver,
scorts me to a gleaming Mercedes-Benz.
I pass in luxurious, air-conditioned comfort through
Ho Chi Minh City. The modern world has swept
Vietnam into its eager embrace; Japanese cars and
mopeds now outnumber bicycles ten to one, computer
shops and high-rises sprout throughout the city...
but the familiar chaos of interweaving vehicles and
pedestrians remains.
We head south towards my destination, deep in
the heart of the Mekong Delta. Outside the city an
age-old rhythm is once again apparent; the roads are
newer and better maintained, but the flanking fruit
stalls, the expansive green fields, the regular rise and
fall as we arc over rivers or canals on sturdy bridges,
glimpsing hand-rowed longboats and bulky rice
barges – these are quintessential Delta images that
will never disappear.
This region is Vietnam’s rice basket. Its eponymous
benefactor is the Mekong Song Cuu Long –“the River
of Nine Dragons”as the Vietnamese call it, because
by the time it has entered the country after its long
journey from the Tibetan Plateau it has split into two
main waterways: the Hau Giang, or Lower River, also
called the Bassac, and the Tien Giang, or Upper River,
which empties into the South China Sea at five points.
After a 30-minute vehicular ferry ride to cross the
Bassac, a short drive brings us to the gravelled entrance
of the Victoria Can Tho Resort. Its refined, 1930s-style
French colonial architecture, colonnaded lobby and
languidly turning ceiling fans place me back in a world
of privilege, plantation owners and French Indochina.E
The Mekong Delta is an evocative
time warp, writesJeremy TredinnickMother
JUNE (^2016) businesstraveller.asia
Right:Vegetable
seller fresh from the
main market JEREMY TREDINNICK
rivers
of