Chau Doc and the Cham.

The ride from Can Tho to Chau Doc is a simple and pleasant one, running alongside canals and rivers for much of it. There are some sticky spots, most notably around Long Xuyen, which is an extremely busy provincial town, and my arrival there at around 17:00 made for some interesting manoeuvres.

The reason for going to Chau Doc, other than for its small, provincial charm, was to see the nearby Cham mosques. The town itself is nice enough, though it shuts down very early and becomes populated with insects of both carnivorous and non-carnivorous varieties.

The Cham to me are a very interesting people. A visit to sites such as My Son highlights what their forebears had achieved, with their present marginalised position a long way from the heady days of empire. They are Muslims, something which I also found fascinating, partly because I'd only ever visited Middle Eastern and North African Muslim areas (Islam is an area of interest for me) and partly because they have managed to survive despite Communism's dislike and suspicion of religion.

A Cham boy outside the Azhar Mosque.

Islamic graveyard, Azhar Mosque. 

The nearby mosques lie across the river from Chau Doc, requiring a ferry to get there. Once across, the Azhar mosque is right from the ferry landing, the Mubarak mosque left. Instantly there is a different feeling, even after such a short crossing. The people look different, they dress differently (the Islamic caps and veils become prevalent) and Islamic madrasahs and signage abound.

Despite this, Islamic practices around here are a little variant. I was surprised to see graveyards in the grounds of both mosques, something which I hadn't seen before, while representations of animals were present in the Mubarak mosque's compound, something forbidden by conventional Islam. I have read that Islamic practice is also off-kilter in terms of worship, mainly due to the Vietnamese government's obtuse approach; imams rarely speak Arabic, despite this being the liturgical language, and the faithful have been know to pray to Ali, the fourth Caliph revered by Shi'ite Muslims, as the Son of God, a rather strange departure from the usual formulae. The ride across to Long Chau was similarly punctuated by an Islamic landscape; veiled women, men in traditional Islamic clothing, madrasahs and small mosques by the road. 

Once over the river again, the Islamic vibe was completely absent; the Cham appear to inhabit only that area.