The tide is high, the lotus flowers are in bloom

Lotus flowers blooming in Moc Hoa fields. Photo: Nguyen Khanh Vu Khoa

Coming to the West in mid-October, I encountered the season of water lilies blooming all over the region from Long An , Dong Thap to An Giang. The cars were running on the national highway, far away on the roadside, the purple color spread far and wide, interspersed with the modest yellow spots of the clusters of sesban flowers leaning in the wind.

Twice stopping at a mid-trip stop, the dish that the whole Saigon group eagerly ordered to the table was always braised lotus flowers with fish sauce, accompanied by a typical fish dish of the West during the flood season: young linh fish.
In October, the flood season comes, and young linh fish have just entered their breeding season. Thousands upon thousands of schools of young linh fish follow the floodwaters from the vast Mekong River to the entire Southwestern Delta.

“Dance of water”. Photo: Nguyen Khanh Vu Khoa

Also in this season, purple, white, and pink water lilies keep moving along the water, raising their heads to welcome the sunlight. Not far from Saigon, a sky full of purple water lilies on the fields of Moc Hoa - Long An has flooded the eyes of the city dwellers, evoking strange excitement.

This season, water lilies are probably the “beauty queen” of the alluvial land of the Western Delta. Wherever you go, you will see the “beauty queen” with radiant faces, showing off her most gorgeous beauty.

The water lilies of this land have escaped from the small ponds around the houses. They overflow into large fields, both a source of livelihood and a place for local people to combine eco -tourism .

Water lilies are grown in the fields. The stems are plump and plump, as young as silk, and the flowers spread out as big as a pot of fish stew. As for the ghost water lily, which grows wild, the white water lily, grows naturally in the middle of wild fields, canals, and ditches, with long, skinny stems that can reach up to 6 meters in length. Ghost water lilies only bloom at night, wither near dawn, and then sink back into the water. In the water lily fields, tourists often only get to admire purple and pink water lilies, with only a few rare white water lilies interspersed.
This season, girls and women freely dress up in simple silk ao dai and ao ba ba, and do not hesitate to step into sampans filled with purple water lilies to make a photo album.

The purple and pink lotus flowers as a background for the dreamy white ao dai in the early morning sunlight, that poetic moment makes people strangely moved. The round, lush green leaves floating on the water surface are also an extremely safe "landing site" for the red and green dragonflies.

This season, both professional and amateur photographers always bow down to the water lily fields. The moment when women and mothers wash the mud off the water lily stalks, shake off the water before tying them up and stacking them on the boat, they call it “the dance of water”. The splashing water creates a colorful effect for the photo, both magical and powerful.

Water lily season is spreading across the West, so beautiful that it has become a trademark for the October tourist season, as a special sign of the flood season.

But the most outstandingly beautiful water lilies are found in Moc Hoa and Kien Tuong town of Long An province, no other place can compare. In October, the flood season floods the fields, if people are afraid to mention the flood season, then the people of the West are excited to welcome the flood season. Because following the water from the immense mother river (**) flows in so many products of fish and shrimp.

It is a gift from nature that the people of this delta are lucky to receive. Le Quang Trang - a young writer from An Giang - once compared this product to a kind of "river milk" - a very familiar and extremely sacred comparison.

Amidst the vastness of the rivers and streams, the color of the ornamental flowers makes those far away anxiously wait. Wait, to touch the fresh, fragrant surface of the flowers; to reach out and pick a lotus stem, to hear the crisp sound of the newly broken lotus on the dining table, next to a bowl of braised young linh fish, next to a pot of braised fish sauce with the fragrant smell of the fields...

(*) Linh dinh: local language, meaning "drifting"
(**) Minh mong: immense

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/con-nuoc-linh-dinh-bong-sung-tro-minh-3144098.html