Not quite the front line...

My Son (Beautiful Mountain) is a site of ruined Shaiva Hindu temples constructed between the 4th and 14th centuries by the kings of Champa, an Indianised kingdom which occupied parts of Central Vietnam from the 2nd century until its ultimate conquest by Vietnam in the 19th century.

The Cham people were considered masters of brick construction, and the temples pictured were built no earlier than the 8th century. The first temples at the site were made of wood in the 4th century, before being lost to fire in the 6th century.

Hoi An is a remarkably well preserved trading port located near the mouth of the Thu Bon River in Quang Nam, central Vietnam. The architecture of the old town displays a fusion of indigenous Vietnamese culture and foreign influences, including Chinese, Japanese and later European. The port was active from around the 15th century until its decline in the 19th century, which accounts for the exceptional preservation of its traditional buildings.

Ben Tre city is the provincial capital of its namesake, Ben Tre province, situated around 50 miles southwest of Ho Chi Minh City in the Mekong River Delta.

We took a tour of the local area, arranged by our home stay and in the excellent care of our local guide, Ben.

Having grown up in the local area, but also traveled to Singapore to study for his Tourism degree, Ben was able to talk to us about the local communities we visited, but also explain them in the wider context of the local and national economies, which certainly added to the experience.

Our tour included a boat trip along the Ba Lai and Ben Tre rivers, a bike ride around the backstreets of the local riverside villages, a punt up a palm-tree lined tributary, and a ride in a tuk-tuk, all punctuated by visits to several local family-run businesses.

We learned that traditionally, the local economy has been centred around agriculture, with rice farming and coconut cultivation, all made possible by the irrigation provided by the vast river delta of the Mekong.

It was interesting to observe the synergies that have evolved between various local businesses. For example, we visited a small brick factory which utilised clay from exhausted rice terraces. But nothing could better express the collaborative nature of the local economy, than the extent of utility it has found for the humble coconut.

I tried to keep a mental note of all the uses we encountered for coconuts throughout the day. I’m afraid it got away from me quite early on, but the list includes construction, fertiliser, fuel, filtration, ornamental art… and all that before you even start on its nutritional value or great taste!

Other local businesses we visited on our tour included a local rice wine distillery, a coconut processing plant and an artisan rice paper manufacturer, where Del and I had the chance to try our hand at making rice paper. My effort wasn’t bad but Del’s was almost up to professional standards!

When we took the decision to take Maya out of school for a few weeks, we didn’t take it lightly, and this kind of day, filled with so many first times and hands on educational experiences, was exactly what we had in mind. So it was most rewarding to see Maya and Willow taking in everything the Mekong delta had to offer, and we came away with enough material for at least a few road-trip school days!

We began our day at Ho Quoc pagoda, Phu Quoc’s largest Buddhist temple, built in 2012 with an architectural style that can be traced back as far as the third century BC. The girls responded immediately to the sense of calm about the place, and they enjoyed peacefully exploring the various pagodas, taking in the many colours and smells, including red lanterns, golden dragons, jasmine and incense.

Among the site’s various statues - most of which depict Buddha in various forms - my eye was caught by a row of “Arhats”, who according to tradition were the original followers of Gautama Buddha. Having achieved the state of Nirvana by way of the four stages of enlightenment, they became free of worldly cravings and are now charged with protecting the Buddhist faith until the arrival of “Maitreya”, an enlightened Buddha prophesied to return to earth in the future.

From Ho Quoc we headed to Sunset Town, a vast new development on the Southwestern corner of Phu Quoc which has been built up around the launch point of the world’s longest cable car to Hon Thom, a smaller island to the South of Phu Quoc which itself has seen rapid development in recent years with the construction of Aquatopia “Southeast Asia’s most modern water park”.

I had read about the scale and pace of Phu Quoc’s ambitious development in recent years, but it was still a shock to arrive at what is essentially a mock up of a Mediterranean town, complete with cobbled streets, pastel coloured townhouses, renaissance palaces and even its very own Colosseum!

The contrast with the temple was striking and I couldn’t help but wonder what the Arhats would make of all this. I’m sure there’s a clever insight to be made about French Indochina and Vietnam’s still recent fight for independence from European colonialism, but I can’t quite grasp it here so I’ll leave it alone.

However, nothing could have prepared me for the most surprising feature of Sunset Town… the whole place was almost entirely empty. A mile of coastline, two white sand beaches, a state of the art bridge arcing out around the bay, rows and rows of units all carefully presented in the Mediterranean style, waiting to one day become the hotels, restaurants and shops of some future tourist utopia, but for now standing empty. The place felt eery, like a ghost town, only in reverse.

The story here is that when development happens at the scale and pace seen on Phu Quoc in recent years, things don’t always go to plan. A combination of rampant land speculation, development investment outpacing infrastructure investment, conflicting agendas between the local, national and international communities, serious issues with the management of plastic waste, and then Covid, have left many such developments across Phu Quoc standing empty. Their owners are most often big corporations such as the domestic giants Sun Group and Vin Group, whose pockets are deep enough to sit on their hands for now and bet on a future when these streets are filled with tourists from mainland Vietnam, China and beyond.

One thing is certain, change will continue to shape this land, as it does all lands, and everything in between. I am reminded today that to travel only offers a series of snapshots in time, slithers of experience to observe in context, and that’s enough.