Down in the Delta

Three days in the Mekong Delta swirling endless flow past, present and future. It’s Tibetan source runs 4500 kilometers through China refreshing Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Tourists shared short stories. Icelandic, German, English, and French. They are on quick 2-3 week vacation through Southeast Asia. I felt their anxiety and time pressure. Some adjusted to Asian rhythm. Others suffered from sensory overload or beggar fatigue in a hurry to get somewhere else.

An open tour to My Tho, Ben Tre and Can Tho included a home-stay with a family deep in the jungle along a tributary.

Villages on small islands were a coconut candy production operation, honeybee processing, a python wrapped around your neck, fish farms, an alligator farm, a floating market, a rice paper making village, a Cham weaving village and Sam Mountain offering 360 degree visions of the huge delta and Cambodia to the west.

At a village home I awoke at 4 a.m. to sit by the river with the crescent moon and stars reflected in water.

Returning to Saigon life of dreams and hustlers I became a mercenary. Be aware. Be alive. 

Be a depressed pregnant woman. Hide behind a face mask below a conical hat. Silent. Passive. Quiet. Watching.

You see Truth and Beauty without evaluation, expectation, judgment or curiosity with a mercurial mercenary attitude, the quick and the dead.

Book of Amnesia Unabridged