Day 9 - Floating Market Of Can Tho

When you consider the fact that we were in Can Tho for only about 18 hours we really took an amazing amount of pictures. There was just so much cool stuff to see in this Mekong Delta town.

We woke up early in the morning on November 17th and got to see what the view from our hotel room was like. We were not disappointed.


And we had not one, but two balconies.



We were left an assortment of complimentary items in our room, which included a bag of rice and a bottle of rice vinegar. I suppose it keeps the guests from stealing the towels. And just in case there was any question that we were tourists, being white people in an Asian country and all, Lisa could always put on the free hat and confirm it.


We were up early for our breakfast cruise and tour of the floating market, a package that is offered by the hotel. We were met in the lobby by our tour guide and he led us out to the boat dock. We got on a small boat and cruised a little ways down the river to meet the Lady Hau, an old rice barge turned into a luxury boat for the hotel. We were greeted by lovely ladies in traditional áo dài as our waitresses.


We then feasted on a traditional Vietnamese breakfast of...

...made-to-order omelets, coffee and pastries. Well there was some exotic fruit, too, so it wasn't 100% Westernized.


We had breakfast and cruised along the river for a while, taking in the scenery.




Finally we came upon a huge collection of boats. We were at the floating market of Can Tho.



Our tour guide, who had dropped us off at the Lady Hau earlier, showed back up in a smaller boat, as did several other guides with boats. I hadn't realized until that point that we would have a guide all to ourselves. We got on board with our guide and the two guys running the boat. We headed into the thick of the market.

I'll let these pictures do most of the talking, but here is how the market generally works. Farmers come from their fields by small boats early in the morning, from as far away as 40 miles we were told, with a load of produce. The larger boats are the wholesale merchants, they buy the goods from the farmer to sell to the restaurants and shops. No individual buying goes on at the floating market, only bulk.

The merchant boats have long poles running up the front where they hang whatever it is they are selling. Some boats sell one thing only and others seem to sell whatever they can get their hands on. So on some poles we would see a single watermelon and on others we would see the entire produce section of a Whole Foods.








It looked like you could buy anything on the river, from furniture...


...to caskets.


Our guide then took us a little farther down the river where we docked and walked through another market area. One where you could buy a couple of pieces of fruit or a fish and some rice.


We walked through that market and down the walkway, passing the local convenience store along the way.


We ended up in a local rice noodle business. We got to watch the process of rice being boiled down (or something to that effect) to a soupy batter and then turned into noodles. A woman would then take the batter and spread it over this flat, hot cooking surface.


A few seconds later another woman would pick up the now dough-like sheet and spread it out on a bamboo rack to dry.



Later they would be cut into strips.

This was a total family business we were observing. It looked like daughter at the hot plate and mom with the racks. And baby was hanging out, too.


We took the boat again to another, larger market on the river. There didn't seem to be anything you couldn't buy there. Every kind of vegetable and fruit, every kind of thing that swims, flies, or walks and a huge variety of rice. We didn't take any pictures of the living things for sale because it was just too damn depressing.





We boarded the boat again.



We turned off the main part of the river, went under a low bridge and made our way up a small canal.







We ended our tour at the coolest little spot. We ran up against a bank in a small part of the canal and were helped off into a fruit orchard. We sat at a table under a tree, ate fruit and drank tea. There was another group of tourists there when we arrived but they soon left and we were joined by the man who owns the orchard.

He was this wonderful 69-year-old guy who was so nice. We sat and talked with him for a long time. He had actually been in the South Vietnamese army and did a year of training in America in 1968. He was an engineer who went around to bases fixing refrigeration systems. He even showed us his certificate he got from the U.S. military for his training. He kept it all these years and even had it laminated. He had no trouble talking about that period of Vietnamese history and was an infectiously happy man.

As much as we were having such a great time there, so much that we forgot to take pictures again, it was finally time to go. We shoved off after loading into the boat and made our way through the canal back out to the river and the hotel. After packing and going down to the hotel bar for a quick lunch it was time for us to travel again. I couldn't believe it was only the day before that we had gone all the way from Phnom Penh to Can Tho by boat, van and tuk-tuk.

This time we were being met at the hotel by a boat driver that would be taking us to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon. We hired a charter because there is no public boat service (at least that a tourist can find) between Can Tho and Saigon, and I'm so glad we did after seeing what it was like to be on the roads in this part of the world.

The ride to Saigon was uneventful, just taking in the scenery and watching the amazing amount of commerce that goes by on the Mekong River. I can't even begin to imagine what they could possibly do with that many barges of sand. We made it to Ho Chi Minh City in about 4 hours, disembarked and caught a cab to our hotel.

After a night at the Victoria Resort in Can Tho, the Ha Hien Hotel in Saigon seemed like a Days Inn. And the view from the room was definitely not quite the same.



It was already after 5:00 by the time we got in to Saigon so we basically walked around for a little bit in the ABSOLUTELY INSANE traffic of the city. We found the backpackers district where all the tour offices were and bought a Lonely Planet guide from a girl selling them on the street. Young guys and girls selling books on the street would become a common sight the rest of our time in Vietnam. The Vietnam guidebook we brought with us, Fodor's See It, turned out to be a pretty worthless piece of crap so we needed an upgrade. We only had to pay $7 for the Lonely Planet on the girl was selling, and we soon learned that it was because it was a pirate copy. It was still good, it was just obviously photo copied pages of the Lonely Planet guide. Sometime the pages were crooked or had shadow lines from a copier. A great deal for seven bucks. You know, for us, not for the people that put all their work into the Lonely Planet guides.

We went and had some Indian food then dodged cars and motorbikes all the way back to the hotel. I'll write more on the crazy driving and traffic in Vietnam later, but I was already worn out by it and had only been in Saigon for a few hours. After the day we had it took us no time at all to fall asleep that night.



Next - War Remnants Museum, an awesome hat and the fruitless search for sandals that fit

Day 8 (Part 2) - Riding With A Chicken To The Lap Of Luxury

We said goodbye to Cambodia after pulling away from the border control dock for the second time, having gone back to retrieve our errant Frenchman. I figured we should keep our eyes on the guys running our boat if they can lose track of a passenger when they only had ten of us.

Within about a minute of pulling away from the Cambodia dock we again headed to shore and docked at the Vietnam border station.


We must have gone only about 500 yards. We unloaded again and were led by a guy to a small building with a waiting room similar to that of a small town bus station, with a couple rows of plastic seats. There was a guy sitting behind a window at the front of the room. The man who had led us from the boat collected our passports, visas, entrance cards and gave them to the guy at the window. Once the guy in the window made sure there was a passport from everyone the first guy led us out of there and we walked to another location. As we came out of the building more young girls selling refreshments were waiting for us. They walked alongside trying to sell us sodas, water and beer mostly, but also bananas and snacks. Even though we were in Vietnam now they made it very clear they would take Cambodian Riel and American Dollars.

After walking about a hundred yards we were shown to a little shelter with a couple picnic tables lined up next to each other. It looked just like one of those picnic shelters you can find at any public park, except for the three or four guys in green uniforms standing around.

They kept shooing away the kids trying to sell us stuff, though it seemed pretty good-natured and they obviously knew the girls.

We didn't take too many pictures while we were waiting, this being our first time in Vietnam and not knowing if taking pictures at the border station would be frowned upon. I did take a picture of Lisa that was really about trying to get a picture of a soldier in uniform (they weren't like seriously guarding us and didn't appear to have guns) and of the guy in the distance with the cart. He had pulled up while we were there and most of the kids went running over. He seemed to be selling little toys, stickers and maybe some candy to the kids.


After about twenty minutes or so, and a random bag check for two of our fellow boat mates, we were on our way again. And after buying a beer from one of the girls on the way back to the boat.



Less than 45 minutes later we arrived in Chau Doc. Unlike when we arrived at the public dock in Phnom Penh and were set upon by tuk-tuk drivers, the dock in Chau Doc was empty and quiet. It was at the backside of a hotel so there was no public access. A woman from the hotel came down and met us. She asked where people were going and if they needed transportation. I had found some limited information on-line about how to get from Chau Doc to Can Tho, where we had to get to that night, and all I really knew was that we needed to get to the station to catch a bus. I knew the name of one potential bus company, that it might cost around $5 and should take about three hours, but this info came from one posting on message board and wasn't that recent.

The lady at the hotel told us she could arrange for our bus and that they would come pick us up, getting rid of the need to hire a tuk-tuk to take us and our luggage to the station. It was exactly $5 just like I had read and the bus would be by in 30 minutes. The name of the bus company was different but I didn't have any confirmation on that anyway.

We got picked up in some sort of older 4x4-type vehicle with one other passenger inside so we were a little confused.

The lady in the front seat was a Vietnamese woman who lives in California and was visiting her sick mother in Saigon. She had come to Chau Doc for the day to pray at her old hometown temple.

We realized when we pulled into a gravel parking lot with a bunch of passenger vans lined up that we we were just in a shuttle that takes you to the station. We got out and the driver of the jeep got our luggage, I think Lisa had the tickets taken from her by a young man who then grabbed our bags, shoved them in the back of one of the vans and herded us inside to our seat. This all happened in about 20 seconds. The 15-seat van was about three-quarters full and we were the only non-locals.

The kid who had taken our tickets and our luggage jumped in, slammed the sliding door shut and we sped away. We made a couple of quick stops to pick up a couple other people, with the kid sliding the door open for them to jump in as the van slowed down. We were squeezed into our bench seat next to one other guy and Lisa was trying to see over the seat in front of us to get a view out the front window. She can get carsick if she can't see out the front.

It was after several minutes that I realized the kid, a lanky guy who looked about 19 or 20, was with us for the duration. After several more stops of people getting on and off I figured it out. He was actually the conductor of the van. Passengers would jump on and he would collect their money after asking them where they were going (I assume, no one else spoke English for the entire ride).

Despite the cramped seat this was great. We were on local transportation. All along the route people got on and off, the van never actually stopping mind you. When we approached someone's stop they would get by the sliding door, the driver would slow down, the kid would slide the door open and the passenger would jump out to a running stop.

The same happened thing in reverse for boarding passengers. The kid would scream with his head hanging out the window at someone standing by a stop, presumably asking them if they wanted on this particular van, say something to the driver who would then slow down, the kid would throw the door open and put his hand out to help the person on the van as they made a running jump.

It was awesome.

The driving style, though, was a little scary. The driver, a middle-aged guy, just booked it down the road weaving side to side around the motorbikes, bicycles and other cars on the road. He would honk to tell people to get out of his way. The conductor kid seemed to have a job in this regard too. He would hang his head out the window and scream at the other drivers on the road. Not really sure what he was saying to them, but it sounded like this to me:

"Aye-aye-eeeeeeeee!"

The whole ride was like this, weaving back and forth, going into the other lane even when it seemed as though the oncoming traffic was a little too close to be doing that. Lisa had a tough choice - keep looking out the front window and be scared shitless or don't look and get carsick. She chose the heart pounding over the nausea, since it may have been seen as rude to puke in the middle of the van.

Shortly after we had pulled out of Chau Doc we started occasionally hearing what sounded like a clucking noise. I think for a minute Lisa and I both thought we were hearing things until we realized that both of us were hearing it. Somewhere on the van there was a chicken.

After a while all the seats on the van were taken. Someone got on and I wondered where the hell they were going to put him. The conductor reached under the seat in front of us, pulled out a little plastic foot stool and plopped it down in the tiny little aisle-way between the seats and the door. He would have three of these set-up eventually.

By the time we got close to Can Tho the 15-seat van we were riding in was carrying 18people.

And a chicken.

Prior to arriving at Can Tho, the kid said something to someone in the back row. Over our heads he was handed the chicken in what looked like a wicker bag. Apparently we were approaching the chicken's stop. And we were. He handed the bag to someone in the front row who jumped out at the next slowdown.

After the chicken was handed forward Lisa leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Do you think what the guy said was 'would you please pass the chicken?'"

I could hardly keep myself from laughing out loud, snickering under my breath.

We arrived at Can Tho, the biggest city in the Mekong Delta, and everyone jumped out. Being the only tourists in the van, all of the moto and tuk-tuk drivers surrounded us when we got off. Some kid told us he would take us to our hotel for $1 and I said OK. He then jumped on motorbike without any trailer whatsoever. I explained to him that there were two of us and we had luggage, which he had seen. He kept insisting it was no problem but there was no way I was getting on that thing with my suitcase. It seems that they wanted to have two of them take us on their motorbikes, Lisa and her bag on one, my bag and me on the other. That just wasn't going to happen.

So another guy said he had a tuk-tuk and he told us $1 per person. He grabbed our bags and we piled in. Unlike the tuk-tuks we had been on so far, this one was a two-seater instead of four. So the luggage was kind of balanced on the front ledge of the thing with me keeping hold.

We were going to the Victoria Resort hotel. We had no luck booking a room at some of the smaller and cheaper hotels we looked into all those months ago. Seems rooms can go quickly and far in advance in Can Tho. We were only going to be there one night so we bit the bullet and booked a room at the Victoria for a lot more money than we were spending anyplace else on the whole trip. It was also a little more Western tourist-centric than we like in our international travel.

We pulled through the front gates (yes, gates) in our tuk-tuk and stopped by the entrance. We were met by a bellhop who seemed surprised to see a tuk-tuk in front of the Victoria. He took care of our bags and we gave the driver $5.

We were told to sit down in the lobby and we were brought cold towels and water. We didn't even have to stand at the desk during check-in. They brought us our room key, sent us upstairs and said the luggage would be brought up in a minute.

So after a day of traveling that took about eight hours and involved a tuk-tuk, a boat, a 4x4-type thing, a van and another tuk-tuk, it ended with us walking into one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed at in my life.

This was our room, a corner suite:

Along with fresh fruit and flowers.




And a cute gecko above our bed to keep us company.


Yea, this might be a nice place to stay.



Next - The floating market of Can Tho