Southern Vietnam: Thoughts on the Mekong Delta

This past week we had the opportunity to got to southern Vietnam and experience some of the differences between Northern and Southern Vietnam. We went to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), the Cu Chi Tunnels, various parts of the Mekong Dealt and Phu Quoc. To me the most interesting part of the trip was the time we spent in the Mekong Delta.

The first thing that struck me about the delta was just how much of the area was actually covered by water. We went over dozens of bridges and passed literally hundreds of kilometers of flood plains. I guess I should have been expecting lots of water from the word “delta” but the only other river delta I’ve seen is Sacramento river delta, and while that does have some flood plains there is an elaborate system of dikes in place that has artificially turned most of the area into land (at great expense to the natural ecosystem).

The second thing that struck me was just how much of the population lived on the water. Of the roughly 21million people living in the delta region 1million live one boats year round working as merchants and traders. We got a chance to experience this first hand by going to two of the floating markets. One floating market was a small retail market. While there were some bigger boats that families appeared to live on, there were also many small boats where individual farmers would bring some of their crops to sell. The place was absolutely beautiful; piles of pumpkins and pineapples, sticks with the goods for sale displayed and dozens of eyes painted on the front of boats.

Another interesting thing was the huge amount of diversity in the delta we visited a Muslim Cham village (who had been converted by Malay’s), a Cao Dai temple and a Theravada Buddhist temple. While I just saw a mosque in Hanoi today (off of the 31 bus line) I can’t imagine that many religions flourishing in Hanoi. I guess as the delta region was only recently added to Vietnam it still has many influences from other cultures.

Yet for a beautiful and diverse as the delta was it is under huge environmental threats. The first threat is from the huge push for more agricultural productivity. This has driven people to establish dykes and use considerable amounts of fertilizer/pesticides to produce three rice crops a year. The result is a huge decrease in sea food growing in the rice paddies as well as depletion of the soil because the yearly floods are no longer allowed to deposit a fresh layer of silt. The second threat comes from dams on the Mekong river. To date China has built seven large dams on the river, and it plans to build thirteen. Anh Khoi was telling us how during the flood season he used to be able to paddle just a few kilometers upstream from his village to reach fresh water, but now has to paddle a significant ways due to the reduced flow of the Mekong river. The last threat that I learned about was global warming. Many of the houses were built less then 1 foot from the flood waters. Thus even a small rise in ocean levels could drastically impact the lives of millions of people. I really hope that something can be done to help counteract some of these problems because the delta was one of my favorite places in Vietnam and I would be very sad to see it destroyed.