Level-land

Can Tho, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

The Mekong Delta is flat. The Mekong River has its beginnings worlds away, up on the Tibetan Plateau. It winds and plunges and carves its way from Tibet, splits Lao from Thailand, crosses Cambodia and then enters Vietnam, splitting into two great branches, the north and south. Then it fans out into many arms, the six largest each wider than the Colombia river back in my home state of Washington. The Mekong river built this delta with silt and sand and mud and mountains ground to dust. One of the largest riverine landscapes on the planet, the Mekong Delta was slowly driven out into the Gulf of Thailand and the China sea, jutting further and further south as the eons passed.

This is a landscape that is always seeking a common level. Think of it as a sort of Second Law of Thermo Dynamics. The Second Law states that all systems seek entropy, the common lowest temperature possible in any system. Another way to view this law of physics is that all systems are in a state of decay. I have always taken great comfort in that fact, but I digress. In the case of the Mekong Delta, all systems seek a common level, an entropy of flat.

If there is a declivity here, anything below the level, it is filled with water. Anything above the level is either a sentient being, has leaves and branches, or is man-made. And the watery parts, well, they are trying to become not-watery parts. All of the canals require dredging to stay open or they will fill with silt and plant life until the land becomes level, but rarely walkable. River channels shift constantly, becoming land where they were and water where they weren't. Anything above the level is trying to sink to back to it, buildings included.

You cannot bury your dead here. Not in this landscape. Coffins, like everything else here, seek the common level, buoyed from the soil by the water just below it. The dead rest above ground. In most family or village rice paddies there is a bit of ground as high as the paddy dike and as dry. On this postage stamp of land, just above the level, are the stone and concrete crypts. It is easy to spot the older crypts. They are sinking to the level. The dead are kept close and honoured, but they are not immune to the pull.

Outside of main towns, houses are built on stilts and deliveries more often than not come by water. I have hired a boat for tomorrow, and my own Ferguson to guide me around the labyrinths of this watery world. Mrs. Ha, or perhaps her Uncle (or one of her friends or relations, Rabbit) will take me to two of the famous floating markets. We are leaving at 5:30 AM so as to see the markets and not the tourists coming to see the markets.

I also have a more personal mission to perform tomorrow while out on the river. I will speak of this when it is done.

Sent from the Watery Lair of the Flying Monkeys