Can Tho – 31st May – 2nd June

We arrived into Ha Tien from Cambodia and stayed a night getting out bearings. For what is meant to be a small town, the fast pace hustle and bustle took us by surprise after two months in the some of sleepiest places in Asia. There isn’t a lot to the place so I won’t bother writing about it.
The next day we hopped on a small bus and are taken to Can Tho, the capital of the Mekong Delta, and famous for its floating markets.

 We stayed out of town in a homestay which was more like family run style hostel. The guests stay in little bungalows on the riverside and later on during the day Hung (owner) takes everyone up river then walks with them through the village, talking about the way people live, what is grown and how its changed. Later on that night we sit down and Hung’s family make us dinner and show us how to roll some spring rolls, unfortunately you don’t get to eat with the family. After dinner Hung pulls out a plastic bag of rice whisky and inserts a chop stick in top and pokes it out the bottom corner making a little spout and fills peoples glasses, then lowers the chopstick into the hole plugging it up for the next round; genius.

The next day we go by boat to the floating markets. Farmers from hundreds of kilometers travel by river to Can Tho to sell their produce, there are a few floating markets which are quite a sight. Small to large wooden boats painted brightly with eyes on the prow to scare away the river monsters, drop anchor and raise a sample of their produce up the flag pole so from a distance you can spot your target. Boats filled with tens of thousands of pineapples, watermelons, durians, jackfruits, onions, cabbages, the list goes on.

Pineapple farmers advertise their goods

Local business men buy some pineapples

 And in between these boats are small dingys owned by local businessmen that buy a few hundred of this and that then go to their local markets and sell it onward to stalls. Little dingys rowed by little old ladies go from boat to boat selling hot bowls of noodle soup or iced coffees; the market is its own little city. After tasting some of the local fruits we go around the city looking at the other trades popular in the region, which include a family run rice noodle factory where broken bits or rice are boiled with starch and made into a paste. Then this is ladled and smoothed in circles onto cloth which is above a steaming pot, moments later they are moved into the sun to dry, and then once dried they are put into a shredder and dispatched around town.

Making rice paper for noodles

Thousands of tiny seedlings

Woman making banana tube seedling holders

Many local nurseries thrive on the popular markets and sell small seedling any fruit of vege you desire, small teams of woman make small tubes from banana leaves and pack them with ash (from the business down the road which burns rice husks to power their rice noodle steam pots, nothing’s wasted) After our tour of the city we are dropped off at the bus station and head for Saigon.

Rice fields in Can Tho