Our next stop was the Mekong Delta. Travellers are drawn to this region partly
by the mystique that this famed river holds (it’s the 12th longest
river in the world and passes through six countries – China, where it starts,
Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam), but also for its expansive, quiet (mostly) rural
existence supported mostly by agriculture and
fishing.
We arranged accommodations ahead of time in two
towns/locales in the delta. The first
was a small town, Can Tho, where we stayed for only one night - just long
enough to wander the streets for a part of a day and to see the main attraction,
the famous floating market where growers, middle men and buyers sell fruits and
vegetables. Unlike the floating villages
on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, where the villages are built on stilts, the
floating markets in the Mekong Delta (there are many of them) are truly
floating. Fruits and vegetables are sold
from boats that gather into a market setting in the middle of the river's channel. The Mekong Delta is so large and has so many
channels that the main channels have been given their own
names. We hired a boat and English
speaking guide (Ann) to take us on a tour of the market. She greeted us at our hotel, dark and early
the next morning, at 6:15, much to the kids’ chagrin.
We walked with Ann to the river in total darkness, boarded our small longboat and then watched the sun rise over the river as we motored toward the market - no lights, no life jackets, no worries according to the locals.
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Daylight was just peeking through as we started off |
Along the way, Ann explained that this was a wholesale market so there would mostly be large boats there selling big volumes of their products. Some small boats would be there buying things and also selling noodles and coffee to the tourists. The market wasn't as bustling as it is some days because there was a holiday that week, but it was still a neat experience to see the big boats loaded with types of produce parked in the water waiting for sales. They showed what they were selling by hanging it off a pole high up at the front of the boat. Our guide said people live on the boats and would stay at that market spot until all of the goods on their boat were sold, sometimes for several days.
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This boat is selling a wide variety of items - see the selection on the pole |
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Color on the Mekong |
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fresh tomatoes for sale |
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Many boats had eyes painted on, we were told that it is bad luck to point at the eyes |
We toured around for awhile then stopped to buy a bowl of noodles from a woman with a little noodle boat cafe.
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A nice bowl of steaming noodles starts the day off right! |
After the market we went to a rice noodle factory to see how rice is ground down, made into a slurry by adding water, cooked on silk over heat to form the papers, then dried in the sun. Once dried, the large rice papers are put through a hand turned machine which cuts them into noodle strips. It was a beautiful process to see with steam rising in the morning sun and the workers chatting happily to each other. It was interesting to learn that the drying time depended strictly on the weather, so some days noodles are dried in a few hours, and on wet days no noodles are dried at all.
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Maya checking out the rice slurry |
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Skillfully pouring a scoop of slurry onto the silk to cook over the fire |
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taking it off when it is cooked to perfection
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Laying it on the bamboo mats for drying |
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Rice papers drying in the sun |
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Papers dried and ready to cut |
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The kids cutting rice paper into noodles |
We went back home through some small canals which seem to be the heart of the delta. There seemed to be dozens of small canals, mostly lined with simple homes and most with a small wooden boat out front which the family uses to fish with and to get around. These families have much less use for cars - the rivers are their roadways and the boats are their vehicles and their livelihood. Some poorer families live in their small boats on the river, or in small shacks along the river where they can never own the land like those who live across the street from the river do.
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A boy harvesting water hyacinth - Ann told us that when she was young, after the war, her family was
very poor and they had to gather water hyacinth to eat - this boy might be harvesting it for his family or for
their livestock
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A couple out fishing for food |
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A home complete with a fishing net system in the front |
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Working on his daily catch |
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A family would live in this boat, and others in the makeshift homes on the river bank |
It was an interesting morning spent with our guide learning about life on the Mekong River.
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