It’s impossible to be here without reference to the war. Readers might assume I mean the Vietnam War, but I don’t. There’s no such thing in this part of the world – here it’s referred to as the American War. Just about sums it up really doesn’t it. The whole history of the country, especially the last one hundred years or so, is a class in perspective: same facts and content – completely different way of looking at things.

On the bus to the commencement of our Mekong cruise, Khou delivers an absolute belter of a geo-history lesson. Necessarily devoid of emotion or blame because, let’s face it, his captive audience is paying his wages, the tale of how he came to be on this bus, and how some of his cousins are part of a world-wide Vietnamese diaspora, is the result of years of Western transgression in IndoChina. Further, it’s the current conclusion of a story in which communism overcame the political economics of those colonialists who cut up other people’s countries, divvying up the spoils along the way.

So, no Vietnam War and, it transpires, no Vietcong, VC or Charlie. Who knew? Not me. In this neck of the forest, these are derogatory terms employed by those trying to justify the deaths of American boys. Round here, the Vietcong were simply known as Vietnamese soldiers who won the war because they were better at their jobs. And I would say 100% because they knew the land.

We disembark our beautiful Pandaw ship and journey into the mangroves and bamboo forests of Ben Tre by a smaller boat. It’s immediately thrilling even though the waterway is overhung with thick foliage housing who knows what insects and creatures. Exotic little birds dart across the water but, just as we’re getting acclimatised, we leave our restful mode of transport and begin a long hike through what is, quite frankly, little short of a jungle. Jackfruit, dragonfruit, pomello and coconut abound and form the economic basis for the folk who live here. How do they live here? To my spoilt Western eyes, conditions are inconceivable: scores of apparently related dogs, straggly but perfectly happy chickens and the potential of killer snakes. They’re doing really well says Khou; wifi is almost everywhere now. Small smiling children wave at us.

Later, we take a sampan through the mangroves: four of us at a time in a shaky wooden boat steered, and I use the term loosely, by a fragile looking girl who doesn’t speak. Some fellow travellers found the experience exhilarating…I thought it terrifying. But what I kept imagining was brave little men successfully hiding behind trees.