Want to actually eat the exotic foods at Asian markets? On this cruise you can

This isn’t your average supermarket visit. Strolling down the street in the riverside town of Sa Dec, it’s half heaven, half horror show for someone more conditioned to the Australian shopping experience.

The fruit and vegetables laid out on the edge of the muddy pavement are incredible – plastic baskets filled with the freshest ingredients you’ve seen in your life, eggplants, okra, limes, tomatoes, watercress, radishes, banana flowers as far as you can see. Stacks of herbs are shoulder-high, so fresh they must have come out of the ground mere hours ago.

Half heaven, half horror show… vendors sell fresh seafood at the Sa Dec fish market.Credit: Getty Images

Walk a little further down the busy street, dodging bicycles and mopeds and stepping through crowds of shoppers, you can spot sea snails of every size and variety laid out in baskets, live prawns swimming in broad trays, river fish flopping in shallow pools, bonito glistening on ice.

Then of course you have the live frogs tied in bunches of three, the snakes wedged in plastic containers, the eels wriggling at your feet, the raw meat hanging in the open air. Food is different here in some ways, the description broader, the ingredients sometimes unfamiliar.

But what an introduction to the Mekong Delta.

This isn’t just a sightseeing trip either, which is a relief. As a regular tourist you can’t really buy any of the produce here, there’s no way to make use of it, so instead you’re just a body taking up space, wandering the main street in Sa Dec with camera in hand.

Luxury lounging aboard Aqua Expeditions’ Aqua Mekong.

But the kitchen crew from our river ship, Aqua Expeditions’ Aqua Mekong, have also landed and are making their way through the market picking up a few little extras here and there: packets of noodles, bunches of herbs, bags of vegetables. It’s probably not strictly necessary, but it shows a commitment to sharing the wealth, to justifying our existence here by at least spending a little money and directly supporting the local economy.

That’s a nice touch, and it’s a noticeable one throughout this four-night journey from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Everywhere we stop, every riverside town, every rural village, the crew buy something, money changes hands, a small amount of wealth is transferred. And then we move on.

This journey proper begins by the riverside in My Tho, where we board the Aqua Mekong after a minibus ride from Ho Chi Minh City. There’s such a heady romance to the Mekong even here at the busy dock, as the sun sets into the distant haze, local ferries cruise by blasting local pop music, and ships laden to the gunwales with cargo chug down the rushing brown river.

The 20-suite Aqua Mekong … billed as the first five-star vessel to cruise the Mekong Delta to Cambodia.

The Aqua Mekong is billed as the first five-star luxury vessel to cruise the Mekong Delta to Cambodia. There are only 20 suites, each with king-sized beds and floor-to-ceiling windows that can be eased open to breathe the muggy, fragrant air, or kept closed to allow the air-conditioning to do its thing. There’s a plunge pool up on the top deck; a media room for movie screenings, and spaces indoor and out to lounge around and watch as South-East Asia glides by.

Menus are designed by Thai specialist chef, Australian David Thompson.

And that it does when we awake for breakfast the next day, taking seats in the dining room to enjoy a mix of Vietnamese and Western standards – the menus here have been created by the Thai specialist chef, Australian David Thompson – as the frantic river traffic of the lower Mekong begins to shift into high gear.

One of the signature attractions of this vessel is the fleet of skiffs carried on board, which can be floated at a moment’s notice and used to ferry passengers into spots that many standard river-cruise ships cannot access.

Sa Dec is a case in point, a riverside town with no large dock, accessible for us via a scenic skiff ride and a clamber out just by the market.

The ideal blend of action and idle.

That afternoon, we enjoy another of Aqua’s signature experiences: a bike ride. There are 10 mountain bikes on board, which are all waiting for us on land as our skiffs pull up on a large island in the Mekong, and we’re given helmets to begin a gentle ride through villages and plantations.

This is a perfect opportunity to slow down and take in the languid nature of rural life here, the only traffic the occasional scooter, the only sounds the barking of dogs and the shriek of kids as they jump from bridges into canals. Their parents, meanwhile, just smile and stare at the passersby.

Guest suites offer a choice of fresh air via floor-to-ceiling windows or air-conditioning.

We’ll soon discover that this cruise provides the ideal blend of action and idle, the time spent on board lounging around taking in the Mekong at the appropriate pace interspersed with time on the bike, where you can stretch your legs and raise your heartbeat while getting closer to the soul of the Delta, the people, the villages, the culture.

The ship acquires fresh produce along the way.

The next morning we’re back on the bikes again for a flat 18-kilometre ride on an island close to the Cambodian border, where coconut husks dry by the roadside, cockerels are kept in small cages, and the smell of cooking fires wafts as we pass through villages. There’s time to call into a shop for a “ca phe sua da”, a Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk, one of the true pleasures of this part of the world.

And then we’re in Cambodia. It’s incredible the way an imaginary, invisible line can change the world completely. Suddenly the river traffic of Vietnam is gone, as are all the tributaries splaying out into the delta: now the Mekong is a single, sluggish, and very much empty mass of water, its banks similarly bare as we make our way north towards Phnom Penh.

The crew on board the Aqua Mekong are predominantly Cambodian, and it’s clear that this chance to share their own culture and nation, so often underappreciated on a global scale, has been keenly awaited. (I later ask Narath, one of Aqua’s Cambodian guides, about the architecture we see in a local Cambodian temple, and where it’s similar to Thai or Burmese architecture. “Yes,” he says, pointedly, “the architecture they have is similar to Cambodian”.)

Mekong meander … become absorbed in river life.

On a day spent motoring towards the nation’s capital we’re treated by Narath to a demonstration of the krama, a traditional Cambodian scarf with numerous uses and traditions attached. We’re also served a few delicacies: deep-fried tarantulas, a regional specialty here, plus a few other crispy bugs and beetles. Far tastier than you might expect.

Phnom Penh appears soon, around a bend in the river. Its flashy new skyscrapers seem incongruous with the torpor of the Mekong, and it’s almost a relief as we continue on north to Koh Oknha Tei, also known as “Silk Island”, where silk is still produced by hand, right from the cultivation of the worms.

There’s time again for a bike ride today, this time on the neighbouring island of Koh Dach, accessible via local ferry, where the roads are rougher and the villages smaller than we’re used to by now, though the welcome is just as friendly.

As usual, money changes hands with locals. Small items are bought, there’s a genuine exchange. Tomorrow we will be in the heart of Phnom Penh, where this sort of thing won’t matter so much. But today, a little means a lot.

The details

Fly
Jetstar has direct flights to Ho Chi Minh City from Sydney and Melbourne, and also flies from Phnom Penh to Australian ports via Singapore. See jetstar.com

Cruise
Aqua Expeditions’ four-night Mekong Explorer Cruise travels from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh (and the reverse) aboard its luxury 20-suite vessel. Packages include transfers from your hotel, all food and selected drinks, laundry, Wi-Fi, and two daily guided excursions aboard private speedboats – with the use of bikes and kayaks – from $US6080 ($A9125) a person, twin share. See aquaexpeditions.com

The writer travelled as a guest of Aqua Expeditions.