Southern Hospitality: Mr Hung’s Homestay in the Heart of the Mekong Delta
Jordan, myself, and 30 other sweaty, sorry souls were crammed into an old ice cream truck, hurtling down the highway. At least, we were fairly certain that the rickety local bus dispensed waffle cones and sundaes in a former life. The contraption played a tinny “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” as it slowed down to jogging speed to allow people to throw themselves on or off. The driver’s Evel Knievel antics and the baby next to me crying for six straight hours had my nerves at the breaking point. Why were we going to Can Tho again? Oh yes, we were meeting a man named Mr. Hung at a foreign bus station, and he was going to take us home with him. Welcome to Vietnam.
We stumbled off the bus in Can Tho before I gave in to my fantasy of feeding that child a too-large Cheeto, and we heard (thank heavens!) “Jordan! Jordan!” upon our arrival. Our host himself had met us at the bus station. I climbed on the back of Mr. Hung’s motorbike, and off we went. Mr. Hung swung through the moto madness that defines Vietnamese city streets with a lead foot, keeping up a steady stream of conversation. At one point, I commented on the sheer number of motorbikes and scooters. He replied, “Oh yes. In your country, you are very rich and everyone has a car. My country is still poor and so we all have motorbikes. Sometimes, whole families on one motorbike. They get in accident and, KABOOM, whole family dead.” He laughed and gunned the bike. My white-knuckled grip got, if possible, even tighter. We passed underneath a dark overpass (“Oh Dear Lord, what have we done?”) and past a rollicking wedding celebration. Mr. Hung explained that in Vietnam, couples go to a fortune teller to find auspicious wedding days. Some numbers are lucky, some unlucky. I asked him about the 17th, the day we got married. “Oh no! Very bad!” was the response.
When we arrived at “Hung’s Homestay,” what is actually a very comfortable set of bungalows on the river and next door to Mr. Hung’s actual house, the women of the family immediately set a huge dinner of fish, vegetables, rice, and spring rolls in front of us. Mr. Hung clapped us on the shoulder and said, “Relax! You’re at home now!” Our mouths stuffed with spring rolls, we could merely nod and grin. In fact, every meal we had at Mr. Hung’s was delicious and served in enormous portions. One night, we even got to try the local rice wine with some friendly German and Dutch couples.
The next morning, we woke up at 6 am for a personal tour of the Can Tho floating markets with Mr. Hung. The wedding party from the night before was still rolling. When we expressed our astonishment to Mr. Hung, he merely said that people in the country set their own schedule. “If we want to get drunk on a Tuesday, we do it.”
We ate breakfast on our longtail boat as we motored our way through a series of canals to the action. The floating market in Can Tho is a wholesaler’s market — not a Winn-Dixie on the water. Farmers from all over the Mekong Delta load their boats with their produce, and stay in Can Tho until it’s gone. Sellers hang their wares — pineapples, onions, taro, whatever — from a bamboo pole by way of advertisement. Buyers’ boats ply the waters, buying what they need to resell at markets on land.
Mr. Hung also escorted us to a rice farm, rice factory and family business making rice paper and rice noodles. He was a fantastic guide, coaxing us to try new fruits, explaining things we didn’t understand, and paying our entry fees in cigarettes. That morning really reinforced the fact that the Mekong Delta is the rice bowl of Vietnam, its economic lifeblood. We were also amazed at how much manual labor is still required. Some farmers still harvest rice manually, and then thresh the fields with scythes if they can’t afford the equipment. Women still make rice paper by hand, one round at a time.
Can Tho is at the geographical and economic heart of the Delta. It’s a big city, and we were glad we stayed out in a country village. It had an appealingly slow pace to it. A bike ride got us nothing but smiles, unhurried coffee breaks by the side of the road, and a whole school full of kids waving “Hello!”
After our awkward experience at a village homestay in Thailand, we were unsure about whether staying with Mr. Hung was a good idea (not to mention how sketchy it seems to stay with a complete stranger — would we agree to be picked up at the Bayou Le Batre bus station by Affable Jim Bob for a few nights with him?). But it was a great experience, with a warm welcome and delicious food included in the price. Best of all, staying in Mr. Hung’s little hamlet was the best way to get the pulse of a place that still seems to run on the age-old engines of family, waterways, and rice.
