Up the Mekong from the delta to Angkor

The Mekong is one of the great rivers of the world. It rises on the Tibetan plateau and flows for well over four thousand kilometres through China, along the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, through Laos and Cambodia, and finally into southern Vietnam, where it splits into many channels and reaches the South China Sea. The Vietnamese call its delta Cuu Long, "nine dragons", after its mouths. Along its lower course, it has fed some of the most fertile land and largest freshwater fisheries on earth, and supported civilisations that include the builders of Angkor.

Travelling up it, rather than flying over it, gives a sense of how much the river still shapes life in Vietnam and Cambodia.

The delta

The Mekong Delta is a vast, flat land of rice paddies, fruit orchards, canals and rivers, home to millions of people and one of the most productive farming regions in Asia. Life here has always been lived on the water. Houses stand on stilts along the banks, children paddle to school, and boats carry everything from rice and coconuts to furniture and livestock.

Can Tho, the largest city of the delta, is known for its floating market, where wholesalers gather at dawn on boats laden with produce. Each boat hangs a sample of what it is selling, a pineapple, a bunch of bananas or a pumpkin, from a tall pole so buyers can see it from a distance. Further upstream, near the Cambodian border, Chau Doc is a busy river town with a mix of Vietnamese, Khmer, Chinese and Cham communities. Its floating houses have fish farms in cages beneath them, and Sam Mountain rises from the plain above it, covered with temples and pagodas.

Phnom Penh, where the rivers meet

Across the border, the river runs into Cambodia, and at Phnom Penh it meets the Tonle Sap river at a broad confluence known in Khmer as the Chaktomuk, the "four faces". Cambodia's capital, with its royal palace, silver pagoda and riverside promenade, grew up beside it. Islands in the Mekong near the city, such as Koh Dach, known for its silk weaving, and the silversmithing village of Koh Chen, give a glimpse of rural life within reach of the capital.

The Tonle Sap does something extraordinary. In the dry season it flows from the great lake of the same name south into the Mekong. But when the monsoon rains swell the Mekong from June onwards, the river can't take all the water, and the Tonle Sap reverses its flow, carrying water back upstream into the lake. The lake then swells to several times its dry-season size. In November, as the waters fall again, the river reverses once more, an event celebrated in Phnom Penh with a water festival of boat races.

The river's future is uncertain. Large hydroelectric dams have been built upstream in China and Laos, changing the timing and volume of the river's flow and trapping the sediment that once replenished the delta's soil. In the delta itself, rising sea levels and the pumping of groundwater are making the land sink and letting salt water push further inland. For the millions of people who depend on the river for their food and living, these are pressing questions.

On to Angkor

The great lake feeds one of the richest freshwater fisheries in the world, and it was this abundance, combined with rice farming and sophisticated water management, that sustained the Khmer empire at Angkor, near its northern shore. The temples of Angkor, built between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, are among the greatest monuments in the world, and reaching them by way of the river that made them possible gives them a context that flying straight to Siem Reap cannot.

Travelsphere's Secrets of the Mekong, sixteen nights, follows the river's lower course. Its places include Siem Reap, the villages of Angkor Ban and Koh Chen, Phnom Penh, the Vam Nao channel, Long Xuyen, Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City.

Explore Worldwide's Cycle Vietnam and Cambodia, twelve nights, travels by bike. It includes Ho Chi Minh City and Cu Chi, the delta towns of My Tho, Ben Tre, Can Tho and Chau Doc, Phnom Penh and Koh Dach, Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom, Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.

The dry season, from about November to March, is the most comfortable time to travel. The delta is at its most beautiful just after the rains, when the fields are green and the waterways full.