Mekong cruise, RV Mekong Pandaw, Cambodia, Vietnam, Killing Fields
Between the gentle pace of life on the water and reminders of past horrors, the Mekong is unforgettable.
Somewhere on the bottom of the mighty Mekong, near the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, lies a white cue ball, no doubt a novelty for curious catfish. It bounces off the billiard table of the RV Mekong Pandaw cruise ship one afternoon and, before anyone can leap to its rescue, plunges into the swirling brown depths. Game over. But we needn’t worry. A few hours later, ever-helpful ship’s purser Jimmy has magically produced a fresh set of balls and the game’s click-clack is once again the soundtrack to cocktail hour.
The billiard table is one of the few sources of entertainment on the 48-passenger RV Mekong Pandaw. There’s a comfortable saloon, a small library, a compact gym and spa, plus a theatre where films are screened at night. Cabins have no television or sound system and the Wi-Fi is intermittent. And that’s just the way we like it.
Denied screens, our two teenage children must look up, and lo and behold they discover seven other youngsters are on board. They are forced to make eye contact, introduce themselves, and before anyone can say Snapchat they are braiding hair, giving each other manicures and, yes, playing pool.
We are aboard in July for RV Mekong Pandaw’s first Mekong Classic cruise of the season, which starts as the annual monsoon gets under way, providing daily drama with thunderous skies and sudden squalls. The downstream itinerary, which has a range of new offerings, takes us from Siem Reap in Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
The ship, affectionately known as the MP, is an olde-worlde beauty of brass and teak. It was built in 2002 as a replica of one of the hundreds of steamers that ferried goods on Myanmar’s Irrawaddy River from the 1860s until World War II. In 1942, the entire fleet of the Scottish-based Irrawaddy Flotilla Company was scuttled to prevent the ships’ use by the invading Japanese. The company was revived by Scottish entrepreneur Paul Strachan in 1995 and Pandaw now plies the waters of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and India on 17 ships.
Our timber-lined, airconditioned double cabin is not spacious but is more than adequate, with plenty of storage, a neat en suite with shower, and sliding doors opening to the ship’s balcony. Downstairs is the dining room, where passengers converge for generous three-course lunches and dinners; breakfast is a more laissez-faire affair. But the best spot of all on-board is the massive 750sq m shaded top deck of perfectly varnished teak. Here you can socialise at the bar, relax on rattan sofas, play pool, or take yourself off to a quiet corner for a snooze on a sun lounger.
Our journey begins at the former ancient capital of Siem Reap, where my family of four has spent two days clambering around the crumbling temples of Angkor. As the two Pandaw buses depart the city, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party is staging a show of strength ahead of the July 29 national elections.
The streets are packed with utes and motor-scooters carrying CPP “supporters”, most of whom will have been paid for their flag-waving. The election result is regarded as a foregone conclusion, and so it proves to be a few weeks later.
But we leave the political charade behind, rumbling across the countryside past tidy farmhouses on stilts as Cambodian guide Sam points out rubber, cashew and cassava plantations. When we pull up at the town of Kampong Cham in the afternoon, the Mekong stretches before us.
Moored on its shore is the MP, our home for the next seven nights, gleaming after a couple of months of TLC. Before long we are checked in and on the move. Gaggles of children call out greetings from the banks while men, chest-deep in the water, wrangle fishing nets and women wash dishes.
Up on the top deck for 6pm cocktails, we meet our fellow passengers, a convivial bunch of Australians, New Zealanders and Britons with a sprinkling of Americans, ranging in age from seven to 76. It’s a mixed bag that includes a pilot, a banker turned hotelier, a mechanic, a lawyer, an artist, a retired farmer and even a 1960s pop star, Buddy England, who regales guests with tales of his stage career, including six years with The Seekers.
We are introduced to the crew, given a briefing on the next day’s activities and then at 7pm the dinner gong sounds. This will be how each day gently concludes: drinks, chitchat, briefing, dinner, chitchat, drinks, bed.
But the days are busy, or as busy as we want them to be, given guests can opt out of shore excursions whenever they wish. During our six days we take almost every mode of land transport imaginable, from bus, oxen cart, and tuktuk to horse cart, motor cart, bicycle and cyclo. We are treated to an energetic display of the Khmer martial art bokator and visit a silk farm where women who have been widowed or abandoned earn a living weaving exquisite scarves and garments. There are trips to honey, vegetable and fish farms, plus strolls through villages where we feel like we’re on a royal tour, so warm is the welcome. It’s all part of the diverse tapestry of life on a river that sustains 60 million people along its 4400km length from China through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Our first excursion takes us to Koh Trong, an island where huge green pomelos hang from trees in every yard. As part of a Pandaw reforestation program, we each plant a variety of tree in the rich clay soil, then visit a primary school where one brave member of our party gives the kids an English lesson.
We take a bus trip to Kratie to see the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins. Fishing has been banned on this stretch of the Mekong for about 10 years, yet we learn that a week earlier a dolphin was lost to illegal fishing, reducing their known numbers to just 91.
The fishermen are now employed to take tourists out in their small motor boats. Within 15 minutes, the first distinctive blunt snout and stubby dorsal fin has been spotted. It’s soon followed by another, and another. Our boat driver positions his vessel a distance from the pod, cuts the engine and we coast in silence waiting for the next sighting.
The excursions may be action-packed but back on the haven of the ship it’s easy to find a solitary spot where you can watch the Mekong slip by. Each time we return, the crew welcomes us with cold drinks and refresher towels, and muddy shoes are whisked away for cleaning.
On the third night travelling south, we dock in the Cambodian capital. With a population of 1.5 million, Phnom Penh is an assault on the senses after the gentle rhythm of river life. Crossing the road is a death-defying feat and there’s a frisson of aggression from tuktuk drivers and market vendors.
A group of us wanders down to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, where the walls are covered in black and white photos from Khmer Rouge days; there’s a real sense of being in a place that witnessed an extraordinary episode in Cambodia’s history.
There’s a notable change of pace when we cross the border, mid-Mekong, into Vietnam. Traffic on the river is heavier, noisier and larger. Huge sand dredgers motor past so low in the water it’s amazing they stay afloat, transporting enormous loads to feed the country’s insatiable construction boom.
We have bid farewell to our Cambodian guides and met their Vietnamese replacements, one of whom turns out to be a little preoccupied with jokes about men’s appendages. Even my 13-year-old son rolls his eyes at the endless “noodle” quips. But the guide means well, and cheerily imparts his in-depth knowledge of country and culture.
One of our favourite outings takes place on Con Phuoc, in between a spot of birdwatching among the melaleucas of Gao Giong sanctuary and a trip to a coconut-candy factory at Ben Tre. On this island, we meet a group of women, plus one elderly gent dressed in the most precisely pressed pair of pyjamas imaginable, who convene each day to make bamboo baskets. They are all smiles as the kids sit down to try their hand at weaving.
The next day, as storm clouds gather, we venture to a village house to make banh xeo, delicious crispy Vietnamese pancakes. We’re put to work grating coconut and grinding rice to make the batter.
Over a primitive earthenware burner, the woman of the house demonstrates her precise control of the wood-fired flame as the pancakes are cooked to crunchy perfection and filled with bean sprouts and prawns. The end result is delicious. As we eat, an almighty downpour is unleashed on the tin roof above us, creating huge puddles that will eventually find their way down to the muddy Mekong in the river’s great circle of life.
Penny Hunter was a guest of Pandaw.
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MORE TO THE STORY
It’s at the Killing Tree that tears first well in my eyes. Here, we learn, the henchmen in Pol Pot’s murderous regime killed babies and toddlers by smashing their little bodies against the tree’s trunk. Too young to be put to work and too expensive to feed, the children were murdered in this most brutal way, often in front of their parents.
In a bid to understand the four bloody years from 1975 to 1979 that define Cambodia’s modern history, we have come to the Killing Fields, 15km from Phnom Penh, on one of Pandaw’s optional shore excursions. Now known as the Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre, it is where inmates of the city’s notorious Tuol Sleng, or S-21 prison, were sent to their slaughter.
A memorial stupa gleams in the sunshine as butterflies flutter around the lush gardens, creating an idyllic scene.
But look closer and you’ll see encased in the stupa’s walls the battered and bullet-holed skulls of victims. In 1980, after the Khmer Rouge had been deposed, 86 of the 129 mass graves here were unearthed, revealing almost 9000 corpses; in total about 17,000 men, women and children died in this place. In a conflict that saw up to three million people, or a quarter of the country’s population, murdered or killed via starvation and disease, this is just one place that witnessed horrors.
Another is S-21 itself, located in the heart of Phnom Penh in what was once a high school. People deemed enemies of Democratic Kampuchea were detained, interrogated, tortured and killed in the former classrooms. It’s haunting to scan the rows of black-and-white mugshots of prisoners, so scrupulously catalogued by this hideous regime. More than 15,000 prisoners entered the jail’s gates over three years. By the time those gates were opened by the liberating Vietnamese Army in 1979, only 12 survived, including four children.
Chum Mey, one of a handful of survivors still alive, sits quietly in the museum grounds, selling a book that details his two-year prison ordeal, which he endured only thanks to his skill at repairing machines. He wants the world to know the truth about S-21 so the crimes committed within it are never repeated.
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IN THE KNOW
Pandaw’s seven-night Classic Mekong itinerary between Siem Reap and Ho Chi Minh City runs regularly until the end of April next year. From $US1840 ($2515) a person; no single supplement; includes all meals, excursions, transfers to and from Siem Reap and Ho Chi Minh City. Children up to age 18 travel free with a full fare-paying adult on selected dates.