TRAVERSE 173
TRAVEL- VIETNAM
LEIGH WILKINS
THE NATURE OF HISTORY ITSELF
The first border crossing into Vietnam at Châu Đốc feels less like an arrival and more like a quiet transition between states of mind. Cambodia slips away behind you in a blur of dust and open sky, and suddenly the Mekong Delta begins to close in, lush, humid, green to the point of excess. It’ s a place where water dictates everything, where roads curve around rivers and canals rather than through them, and where the rhythm of travel immediately slows, not out of reluctance, but necessity.
I had come to Vietnam with a loose plan and a firm curiosity: to travel north from Châu Đốc to Hanoi using whatever means made sense at the time, motorcycle when the road called for it as well as part of a ride with Vietnam Motorbike Tours, buses when distances stretched too far, trains when I wanted to watch the country unfold without the pressure of navigation. But more
than the journey itself, I was chasing something less tangible: the quiet presence of history embedded in temples, shrines, war remnants, and forgotten corners that rarely make it into guidebooks.
Châu Đốc is a fitting place to begin that search. The town hums with a subdued spirituality, anchored by Sam Mountain, where temples and shrines cling to the hillside in layered devotion. Pilgrims move slowly, deliberately, carrying incense and offerings, while the air smells faintly of ash and rain-soaked stone. There’ s no spectacle here, no sense of performance, just a lived-in reverence that feels deeply rooted.
From the beginning, I understood that Vietnam’ s spirituality isn’ t confined to grand monuments. It exists in small roadside shrines, in faded altars tucked between houses, in the quiet rituals of daily life. And as I began to move north, that understanding only deepened.
TRAVERSE 173