I grew up with a stack of old National Geographic magazines collected by my family over two generations. One of them (probably from the 1970s) had an image of a young lad carrying a huge Mekong catfish, straddled on his back,  hunched over by the weight.  This is seared in my memory and on our second trip to Vietnam, I really wanted to see the fabled Mekong River.

The day trip from Saigon, involved quite a bit of sitting inside a car, so Arjun and Dhanya stayed back and wandered around the market, eating durian and getting an exquisite golden good luck kitty.

Our friend Beetho, had arranged for a private tour and we set off with our guide for the day. After a few hours of driving along a modern highway, we were dropped off outside a shopping mall to peruse the local produce. Large tourist buses were parked ominously and day trippers like us were streaming in. Someone offered us a watery sip of cacao and we found ourselves in what can only be described as a live-streaming infomercial.  A woman, wearing an Ao Dai, cordoned us off into a room, shut the door, and rapidly showed off the benefits of bamboo fiber,  soaking up a glass of water with apparent ease. 

A bamboo fiber scarf magically turned into a bamboo fiber evening dress and I touched underwear that can be worn for several days without raising a stink. I sat through the entire show and walked off with a newfound respect for all things bamboo.  Of course, everything was horribly overpriced and clearly a tourist trap, but I have always secretly found TV infomercials strangely entertaining, and I did not detest being locked up inside one. 

Finally, we see the Mekong. Water hyacinths, float on the muddy waters and we take a short boat trip over to an “island”, where we walk into another made for the tourist experience. I fully realize the irony of complaining about things being too touristy, while being on a guided tour.

We taste the local honey and munch on jackfruits as a band of women with speakers dangling around their necks sing a bit too nasally for my taste. Then we all get into canoes, don conical bamboo hats, and are paddled along a narrow stream. Fronds of some kind of palm line the banks and mud skippers flip-flop away.

The woman paddling the boat starts gesturing for what appears to be a tip much before we reach our designated stop. Beetho generously hands out dollar bills all around. 

At the other end, we enter another of the faux local produce stalls. My fellow tourists have gathered around a woman who is handing out free shots of snake wine. I too want a sip. Out comes a hooded king cobra, marinating in rice wine, its eyes glazed white.

The alcohol is strong and burns my throat, clearly spreading good health. Geckos, scorpions, and assorted snakes sit inside bottles of rice wine, exuding their vitality into 40% alcohol. 

We round off our visit, by eating a large tilapia, well done and wedged upright on our plate. My search for the elusive Mekong catfish, slung over a bare back continues. 

After seeing stately Hue and riding serenely on a boat on the Perfume river (which incidentally is also brown and muddy) the Mekong feels somewhat like a letdown. It is probably hapless tourism that has stripped the region of its inherent culture and pulse leaving it behind as a shallow, consumerist experience. The Mekong river might be full of stories, but the tour is full of souvenirs and snake oil. Literally.