Multifaceted, colourful Vietnam is full of contrasts and surprises. From the architecture of its cosmopolitan cities, such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City - ranging from awe-inspiring ancient temples to French colonialist masterpieces - to its stunning and varied natual beauty and delectable food specialties, the countlry abounds with rewarding opportunities for exploration.
In Ha Long Bay, 1,600 islets and islands - including limestone pillars up to 330 feet tall - jut from the water, creating a dramatic mountainous seascape And while you're on the Vietnamese coast, the local seafood is a treat worth seeking out. Restaurants here offer very fresh, healthful fare. In fact, if you visit a fish market, the catch is typically just a few hours old - so fresh you won't even detect a wafting fishy ordour in the air.
In the floating markets of the Mekong. there are so many interesting goods for sale that you can look, smell, taste and buy your way through this vertable cornucopia. The tradition of selling products from boat to boat goes back more than 100 years, and the delta has hundreds of markets.
Trading begins before dawn, and by sunrise, the waterways are clogged with an army of sampans. Painted bright yellow, red and blue, they twist and turn, jockeying for position as pineapples, pumpkins and pomelos, plus a heap of turtles, a box of snakes and even a pot-bellied pig quickly change hands, along with crumpled Vietnamese dong bills.
Wholesalers moor here, each specializing in one or a few types of fruit or vegatables. Bigger boats snap up everything by the bushel and resell it in the big cities. Vendors of smaller items hoist a smaple of ther wares on a bamboo pole so their goods can be seen from a distance and they don't have to cry out. Their cries wouldn't be heard anywary in the vastness of the river and with the noise of boat engines Some vendors not only sell on the river, but live there too, their lives linked to boats for generations.
Shoppers come by land and water, jumping from boat to boat. Many of them are women in colourful clothing and dressy hats driving their little boats by the large sampons. The signal to buy is only a whisling or waving hand.
The markets are a great opportunity to see real trading going on. With more and more transportation moving to newly built roads, they could be the last chance to capture a bit of the old boat to boat trading atmosphere on the Mekong. Your'll get a real sense of the river's significane to Southeast Aisia.
The Mekong Delta - a maze of canals, rivers and streams - harbours Khmer pagodas, coconut plantations and villages surrounder by rice paddies. It is a triangular plain of approximately 15,000 square miles that begins in Cambodia where the Mekong River meets the Tonle Sapo channel and the Bassac River. There, the Mekong divides into six main channels and the Bassac into three to form the "nine dragons" that stretch down into the out delta in Vietnam and out to the South China Sea. The region also includes the island of Phuquoc, fringed with white-sand beaches and laced with empty dirt roads.
Since ancient times, the Mekong Delta has acted like a sponge, storing water during the monsoons and then releasing it. Not only is the land irrigated, but it is refreshed with rich soil, making it so naturally fertile that Vietnam has become one the world's leading exporters of rice.
The delta is also one of Vietnam's most densely populated regions; its 15 million inhabitants, predominantly ethnic Viet, also include a large population of Khmers. Serveral movies have been filmed in the Mekong Delta that feature the region, including The Floating Lives (2010), Buffalo Boy (2004) and Francis Ford Coppola's epic war file Apocalypse now (1979).
Badly damaged during the war, the delta forests were where the Viet Cong concealed their bases. Now, 50 years later, they have been replanted and rare animals, thought to be extinct, have recovered. The only sounds you hear today in this typical jungle are the call of birds, rustling palm fronds and small boats crossing the currents. It feels like a place suspended in time - rich, delicate and almost perfect.