Long Hoa Excursion

Greetings from afar! Klaus and I did an overnight this week at the Long Hoa village in the northern end of the Mekong Delta.

Chilling on the boat ride over.

The bus ride there was about 3 hours from Can Tho where I study. This was three hours of traffic dodging and constant horn blowing, a style of driving that still blows my mind. It is like taking half a road in the US, making it two lanes, adding buses going both directions, thousands of motorbikes going every direction, people, animals and other random obstructions. I honestly think that driving a vehicle here would be impossible for me. It seems that the only way it happens is with a lot of horn wear and tear. That is the funny part about driving. Cars here act like they own the road despite their minority presence. Therefore, if you are biking along and they want to turn/move they will hold their horn down and start moving expecting you to dodge out of the way. I think the American in me just wants to stop my bike and sit there and have a stare down to see who would win – me or the horn or me getting plowed over?

Anyways, back to Long Hoa… from the bus we took a “ferry” about 30 minutes across one of 8 active branches of the Mekong River. The island itself is located in the center of this channel (see google maps image below).

Google Maps Image of Long Hoa

Mudfish at the Boat Dock

We came to study the island due to its vulnerable location with potential sea rise as well as observe a mangrove forest replanting project that was done to help protect the seaward side of the island from storm surge/increase biodiversity/better the livelihoods of the residents. The island inhabitants were predominately farmers who raised shrimp and crabs in the brackish waters of the dry season and then a rice crop in the fresh water of the wet season. 

Crab from the crab pond.

As an interesting geologic side trip....this island was formed by mangroves growing on a sandbar, as sea level dropped the island was exposed. Mangroves store a lot of sulfur. When they died off during the sea level drop and left a lot of sulfur. As this was buried in a reducing environment the sulfur was incorporated into pyrite. Now, when this soil is dug up the pyrite oxidizes releasing the sulfur which then becomes sulfuric acid and acidifies the water = bad for rice and crabs. This is a huge problem all across the delta. 

Yellow-sulfur and red=iron in exposed acidic soils

One farmer we met also built a bat house and collected the guano to sell for fertilizer. His house had about 2,000-3,000 bats and brought in $5/wk. 

Bat House- looking up

The more interesting parts of the visit came from spending the night in a local village house. It is a fascinating lifestyle – dirt floors, no running water, open fire stoves, no mattresses, etc. The toilet situation was a little interesting – the houses all had a room in the kitchen with a slightly inclined floor leading to a gutter that went outside. In this room people took bucket showers and also used the bathroom on the floor. This was then rinsed away with a bucketful of water. Now, I have to say I’m not picky about toilets – going in the woods doesn’t phase me, holes in the ground don’t phase me but, peeing on a hard cement floor that really isn’t inclined is fairly challenging. I’ve yet to figure out how to use these effectively without feeling the need to shower. Too much info?? =)

Homestay House

Despite the bathrooms, life on Long Hoa seemed at first sort of enchanting – living off the land, a simple life on an island. However, as I started to interact with the locals I realized how confining this must be. It was interesting to notice there was no recreation at all available, not even a futbol field. Most people just worked, sang karyoke, drank alcohol and watched TV if they had it – no parks, no shopping, no restaurants, no sports, …nothing. It is kind of hard to imagine living like that for a lifetime. 

Bridge in the village/typical landscape

Tree on the island

Graves: In Vietnam most people are buried in these colorful graves on their land. It is not uncommon to see a gravesites in fields, in the front yard of houses, next to fish ponds, etc.

Klaus and I also got to try our hand at a few local jobs. We woke up early, took a walk as the sun rose. 

We met a farmer feeding his crab pond. We got to help out in the process. 

Feeding crabs at the farmer watched.

We also tried our hand at netting shrimp.  Interesting fact: A lot of shrimp that get exported to the US come from small farms in Vietnam like those on Long Hoa.

Practicing shrimp fishing.

In the downtime a friend and I cooled off by swimming out through the mangrove swamp (~300-400m) and into the open ocean = yay!

Mangrove Swamp - Behind us is the ocean

Overall, it was a great excursion and a good break from life in the city. 

Making Friends

Up next: Sunday we travel to Tram Chim National Park to observe rare sarus cranes, sample soil, test the water and explore the park for three days.