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Close-up of the houses on the Chau Doc river taken from the same bridge.
Many houses have cages in the water to culture fish for livelihood. Or I should say the houses are built on the fish cages.
There is a Cham settlement just inland from this location. They are descendants of the fallen Champa kingdom.
Vĩnh Tế Canal connects Chau Doc on the Hau Giang with Ha Tien on the Gulf of Thailand. The 87 km canal completed in 1824 has been the border between Vietnam and Cambodia.
The canal crossed by the smaller bridge is not the Vinh Te Canal but a minor canal leading to the border.
Although linguistically related with each other, the two countries are culturally very different. While Vietnam has been influenced by the Chinese culture and observes Mahayana Buddhism, Cambodia has received influences from India and Sri Lanka and observes Theravada Buddhism.
Houses are build on the dykes along the canal.
Núi Sam is a sacred mountain located several km southwest of Chau Doc, a city located on the riverside of the Hau Giang bordering on Cambodia. It is a rocky hill of 284 m that rises suddenly in the middle of a vast expanse of rice paddy.
Chùa Phước Điền or Phuoc Dien Temple is a Buddhist temple located on the western slope of the sacred mountain. It is famous for a cave housing Buddhist statues.
You need to climb endless stone steps, partly with bare foot, to reach the cave.
Expanse of rice paddy as seen from Phuoc Dien Temple. The Vietnam - Cambodia border is just beyond the row of houses and trees along the Vĩnh Tế canal.
The canal is constructed in parallel to the border and leads to Ha Tien facing the Gulf of Thailand.
It is only 39 km from Nui Sam to the site of Ba Chúc Massacre that was carried out by Khmer Rouge forces in 1978. They crossed the Vĩnh Tế canal and killed 3,157 civilians in Ba Chuc town in An Giang Province.
The incident triggered the Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in the same year, which led to the demise of the Pol Pot regime thereby stopping "the killing fields."
Alternative shot of the rice paddy taken at a location slightly different from the previous photo.
Trees surround a dry-field for vegetables.
Flooding in Mekong Delta is more serious in its upstream area than in its coastal area. The area with the four corners at Rach Gia, Ha Tien, Chau Doc and Long Xuyen is called the Long Xuyen Quadrangle. It is a fertile rice bowl of Vietnam but also notorious for flooding and long periods of inundation during the rainy season. The quadrangle had been largely intact before the Vietnamese arrivals.
Plain of Reeds or Đồng Tháp Mười to the east is another swamp area rivalling Long Xuyen Quadrangle. It will be presented soon.
One more photo from the same bridge over the Chau Doc river. The bridge on the opposite side marks the entrance to the historical Vĩnh Tế Canal.
It was Emperor Gia Long, the first emperor of the Nguyen dynasty based in Hue, that ordered its construction in 1819. It was completed in 1824 during the reign of Emperor Ming Mang.
The canal was not only intended to provide boat access to the Gulf of Thailand, but also to promote Vietnamese migration in, and to consolidate the Vietnamese rule over, the Mekong Delta.
Lengthy climb of stone steps was rewarded by a sweeping view over rice paddies surrounding Nui Sam.
Upper-stream area of the Mekong Delta used to be sparsely populated wetlands that were inundated during the rainy season. Vietnamese immigrants have converted the wetlands to fertile rice paddies by digging canals to drain water and constructing dykes to build houses and protect farmlands from floods.
Rice can be harvested three times in a year in the upper Mekong Delta. The area is now the rice bowl of Vietnam.
Chùa Phước Điền means "Buddhist temple of blessed rice paddy (福田寺)." The reason for the naming would be self-explanatory.
Two photos were merged to get this image.
Chua Phuoc Dien is constructed on the steep slope of the Nui Sam mountain. It was founded by a nun in the late 19th century, and the present structures were built in 1937 and onwards. Like other temples in Mekong Delta, it is not that old, which is reflected in the way the temple exhibits the statues.
There are several buildings along the stone steps leading to the main hall of the temple that is located close to the summit of Nui Sam. The cave that houses Buddhist statues is integrated into one of those buildings.
The statues are Bố Đại (Budai, 布袋), Phật (Buddha, 仏陀), Quan Âm (Avalokitesvara, 観音) from left to right.
Budai the Fatman is a deified Chinese monk. He is regarded as an avatar of Maitreya in China.
A photo taken from a bridge over the Chau Doc river, a tributary that joins the Hau Giang at Chau Doc. it is 1.5 km upstream from the previous photo.
The border with Cambodia is 20 km upstream from the bridge.
There are two types of houses: floating houses built on rafts on the river, and stilt houses by the river.
Tall stilts are indicative of the water level during the rainy season.
Vietnamese has a strong tradition of living on the water despite the government's discouragement. Water settlements are found not only in Mekong Delta but also in other parts of Vietnam such as Hue, Cat Ba and Halong Bay, and Hanoi. Moreover, water villages in Tonlé Sap Lake in Cambodia, upstream of the Hau Giang, are mostly inhabited by ethnic Vietnamese.
Southwestward view from the Ba Chua Xu pedstal over the Vietnam - Cambodia border area.
This photo shows how the Mekong Delta was developed by Vietnamese immigrants. First, they dug canals to drain water and to get the soil to build dykes. Canals were used also for transportation, and dykes were used to build houses and roads, and to protect farmlands from floods.
Most parts of the Mekong Delta are covered with geometric manmade canals.
Eastward view from the same location as the previous photo.
Rice can be harvested three times a year in Mekong Delta except for the coastal areas affected by seawater during the winter/dry season. The rice in the photo is a winter crop.
The paddy shows they do not transplant seedlings but sow directly unlike most parts of Asia.
A photo taken on the next morning of the previous shot.
It is a southward view from the Long Beach.
Long Beach is a yellow sand beach that extends 15 km southward from Dinh Cau Shrine in Duong Dong. It is probably the oldest beach used for tourism in Phu Quoc and has an appearance of the typical beach resort.
View from the highest building of the Phuoc Dien Temple.
The temple is built on the west facing slope of Nui Sam, and the Cambodian border is just beyond Kênh Vĩnh Tế or the Vinh Te canal that is marked by a series of trees and houses in the middle of rice paddy.
It is also the borderline between Mahayana Buddhism and Theravada Buddhism.
Construction of the Vinh Te canal began in 1819 and completed in 1824 under the Nguyen dynasty. It intended to give Chau Doc on the Hau Giang river an access to Ha Tien, a port city on the Gulf of Thailand. I suppose it is also intended to consolidate the Vietnamese rule of, and to promote migration and development in, the Mekong Delta.
Chau Doc is a border city located by the Hau Giang, one of the two major distributaries of the Mekong. The same distributary is called Tonlé Bassac or the Bassac river in Phnom Penh, 100 km upstream.
Can Tho is located 100 km downstream.
The Mekong as a whole is called Sông Cửu Long or the Cu Long river in Vietnam, which means "nine dragons." Nine implies "many" and the dragon is an avatar of the river thereby referring to the topography of the delta.
This photo was taken from a riverside park in Chau Doc City located at the confluence of the Hau Giang and the Chau Doc rivers. The Hau Giang is seen only at the upper right corner of the photo.
Please note that some houses are floating on the river.
Souvenir shops line up along the streets in the town at the foot of Nui Sam. The shops specialise in selling souvenirs for pilgrims, which means they must be conservable as you see in the photo.
The most notable souvenir in Nui Sam seemed to be salt-preserved fish meats as displayed in the centre of the photo, which are collectively called "mắm."
Fish meat ferments without toxic bacterias if stored with salt even in the tropical climate.
Nước mắm, the fish source that provides a basis for Vietnamese cooking, is the water (nước) exuding from fermenting fish meat. I admire the first people who tried the liquid with an odd smell.
There is a variation to preserve fish meat, which does not only add salt but also cooked rice. It produces lactic fermentation, and fish meat is preserved with slightly sour taste. This is the original Sushi that is found in Sutheast Asia, southern China, as well as in Japan.
What is known as Sushi in the world is its instant version that skips the fermentation process, which was invented in the 18th century in Edo (present-day Tokyo). It's a drastic departure from the original purpose of preservation.
Nui Sam is a granite formation with an elevation of 284 m. It stands out in the flat Mekong Delta and is probably its highest point.
This is a westward view across a lotus paddy taken in the early morning near the Nui Sam town in Chau Doc.
Lotus is cultivated as a root crop, therefore it is not a pond but a paddy.
Nui Sam Cable Car started its operation in the Lunar New Year 2022 between the Nui Sam town at 0-1 m above sea level and the Nui Sam summit at 280 m. It was installed by Doppel Mayr Company (Austria).
It is one of many cable cars in Vietnam.
Its station in the town has a Disneyland-like appearance.
"Broken heart" is formed from a group of seven palmyra trees if we are at suitable position
[An Giang at a glance]
This is the main shrine of the Ba Chua Xu cult located at the foot of the sacred mountain. It is a huge architecture constructed in the 1970s housing a statue of Ba Chua Xu.
The nameplate reads 主處聖母 (Chúa Xứ Thánh Mẫu), which means "Goddess Earth (locality, realm, country) Holy Mother." It is a typical goddess of Đạo Mẫu (道母), Vietnamese worship of mother goddesses.
The statue is supposed to be of a Hindu god but was carried down from the summit and is painted and clad as a goddess.
The worship of Ba Chua Xu existed in the early 19th century but became rampant in the 20th century, in particular, after the introduction of the Doi Moi economic reform in the 1990s.
I suppose she is regarded as a protector of private businesses.
It is interesting in that the Hindu god is worshipped by the Vietnamese as a goddess.
A similar example is Thiên Y A Na (天依阿那), which is identical to Po Nagar, a goddess of Champa, a kingdom absorbed into Vietnam in the course of Nam tiến, Vietnam’s southward expansion.
Dinh Cậu in Phu Quoc is a Thiên Y A Na shrine.
There are several goddesses that have similar characteristics in Vietnam. It seems the goddess worship is deep rooted in the mentality of the Vietnamese and takes different names by location. They are collectively called Đạo Mẫu (道母), the worship of mother goddesses.
The communist government first regarded the worship as a superstition, but their perception should have changed by now as UNESCO listed the "practices related to the Viet beliefs in the Mother Goddesses of Three Realm" as a World Intangible Heritage in 2016.
It only includes the practices in northern Vietnam, and Bà Chúa Xứ is not included, however.
The goddess worship like Đạo Mẫu is found not only in Vietnam but also in the southern coastal areas of China. More specifically, the worship of Mazu (媽祖) is supposed to have some relevance.
Nui Sam is a sacred mountain where Vietnamese migrants found a statue of Bà Chúa Xứ (婆主處) or Chúa Xứ Thánh Mẫu (主處聖母), which means "mother goddess of the realm." The sacred statue was found at the summit of the mountain and was moved later to the current location at the foot of the mountain.
Today only the pedestal of the statue remains at the summit, but it was seriously worshipped as you see in the photo.
Bà Chúa Xứ is a tutelary of business, health, and territory. She is not worshipped for the life after death but for the benefits in this world.
According to the English version of Wikipedia, Bà Chúa Xứ in Nui Sam is actually a statue of Shiva in the Funan period. Shiva is a god of Hinduism but the statue in the Bà Chúa Xứ temple is painted red and clad as a goddess.
Funan is the first Indianised state in Southeast Asia that existed from the first century CE to the 6th century in the area covering the present-day southern Vietnam, Cambodia and southern Thailand. They first observed Hinduism and later Buddhism. They are supposed to be an Austronesian (formerly Malayo-Polynesian) people.
This was captured from my room's deck at Victoria Núi Sam Resort, on Sam mountain, Châu Đốc, An Giang.
(048) Nguyên liệu chính của mắm thái là đu đủ xanh và cá lóc, cùng gia vị muối, đường, thính, ớt, tỏi... ướp theo kỹ thuật gia truyền của địa phương. Sợi cá lóc trong mắm ăn thật thơm, đu đủ rất giòn, nếu không nói là đu đủ chắc mình cũng không biết. Tên hiệu mắm là "Bà giáo Khỏe", mình lặn lội đi rước ở tận gốc xứ mắm Châu Đốc, An Giang về xong mới biết họ cũng có bán ở Saigon... hà hà...
If you are an adventurous person with the meal, you can find a lot of different kinds of products in these Asiatic markets. The aspect is not agreeable at first sight. I can't help you describing the taste of them, because I didn't dare to prove anything. I'm not an brave man for that.
This photo was taken in Chau Doc, Mekong Delta, Vietnam. September, 2014.
This picture was chosen for 'The Top Pics Of the Month Gallery!' -Roby's Friendly Corner Group. January 2017