I am one of the legions who are not early risers.
In Southeast Asia, this really made me stick out. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I could have passed for native.
Many markets get going before the sun comes up and are dead and gone by 9, which to me is excessive. But, if you want to see many of the markets, you better be out there early as well. This is why our group was told to be down in the hotel lobby at 6:30.
Ante Meridian, folks.
But, was this particular market worth it?
You betcha! We met in the lobby and walked back over to our waiting boat, which we boarded gingerly. Then we settled in for the ride to the market.
Life along the river:
We weren't on our way to just any, you know, dry-land market. Nope.
We were going to a floating market! In this area, where water is even today the most efficient roadway, it makes sense that there would be markets that would float.
They've actually become quite the tourist attraction. There is one, closer to HCMC, that pretty much only exists for the tourists these days - you don't buy food there, you buy wine holders and statuettes of Uncle Ho and the same generalized tourist gack you can pick up in a regular on-land market.
This market's a holdout. The majority of the business done here seems to be in wholesale fruit and vegetables. Oh, you can buy a kilo of mangoes if you want, but that's not the way to get the best price.
Our guide pointed out a feature of the floating market. Since you can't easily tell just what a boat has in its hold, vendors attach an example of whatever they're selling to a bamboo pole, which they stick up above the boat. Sensible.
Some people had a huge array dangling overhead, while others would have only pineapples, or just a pumpkin swaying gently in the breeze.
A lot of these larger boats will come and spend several days, until they sell everything in the boat. They sleep on the water and eat from the boats circulating, offering drinks and bowls of noodles.
Our large boat arrived on the edge of the market and tied on to a boat selling pineapples. Half of us jumped out of the boat into a smaller canoe, where we got an up-close tour of the market.
People in equally small boats pulled up next to us, offering guava and pineapple and papaya and things we didn't recognize. They made a couple of sales.
We stared at the business of the market and at just how at home people seemed on the water. There were even some semi-permanent structures built on boats right in the middle of the river.
Some families appeared to be taking a break from sales, escaping the already oppresive sun.
I can't imagine taking a boat to do your shopping, especially if you're going to buy in bulk. Could you imagine people rowing a canoe to Sam's Club to buy a 48-count pack of toilet paper?
I was watching these guys closely, crossing my fingers against a big wave.
After fifteen or twenty minutes, we were returned to our boat and traded places with the waiting half of our group. Husbear took his camera and sat on top of the boat, while I went underneath to bask in the shade. It was hot, people!
People in our group came and went, and then I noticed that some of them were holding halves of pineapples like lollipops! It turns out that the boat we had attached ourselves to was doing brisk business.
Not only were they selling whole pineapples, they were willing to cut them up for us as snacks! For 5,000 dong, one of the women would select one of the beautiful, stem-on specimens laying in her boat,
and commence chopping with a machete, cutting off the skin and slicing out the hard eyes in a beautiful spiral pattern.
(5,000 dong? About 30 cents. Just like here.)
She left the stem on for ease of snacking. Her pineapples were delicious, and so ripe you could actually eat most of the core. Here in the States, you'll often get a pineapple where only the outer inch or so are soft enough to eat.
Eventually, the other half of our group came back, and our boat made its way away from the market and down a little side canal. We were on our way to see another family rice paper operation!
We'd already seen one with Hai a couple of days prior, so we tuned out a little when being told about the makings of the actual sheets. The process was exactly the same, with the bucket of rice water and the steamer and the fire made from rice husks.
This operation was a little larger, though, and we admired their rice paper sheets drying on woven mats.
Apparently, this family uses most of their sheets to make rice noodles, which are made by putting these sheets through a machine that looks an awful lot like a shredder. This picture shows only a small portion of what the family had out, and we were told additionally that during the rainy season (while we were there) the family dries less rice paper at a time so when it rains their product isn't ruined.
We also got to meet these guys and their mama.
They were part of a brief lesson in economics. It's really common for Vietnamese farmers to keep their money in pigs, because piglets are cheap and full-grown pigs are expensive and can be sold to make money for the farm. Plus, they eat farm scraps.
Keeping their money in pigs... you do realize that's a figure of speech, right?
The farm visit was brief. We walked back to our boat, again. It seemed we were spending much of this jaunt walking back and forth to boats.
On embarking, we were asked if we wanted to go to a factory or go relax in a hammock in the shade. The group overwhelmingly voted hammock.
Our boatman also offered to drop us off a little way from the town bar, so we could have a bit of a walk through the jungle if we wanted. We wanted.
I know I wore that head covering a lot when we were in Asia, and I'm not sorry, even if I do look a bit... sickly? in the picture above. I felt so much cooler with it on. Definitely not cooler as in "don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me", cooler as in "not quite this/close to keeling over and smashing facefirst into the pavement".
We reached the promised beverages and enjoyed a little quiet time with a beer and then a Vietnamese coffee and then water. Lots of water. Lucky they had a bathroom.
Then, to the boat! I know, you're shocked. This time, we were going back to Can Tho for lunch.
The ride back was fairly short, a half-hour or so.
When we arrived in Can Tho, our guide gave us a recommendation on a restaurant near the dock and told us where and when our next stops would be. Yup - we were splitting again! 2-day people would go back to HCMC after lunch, but we would be heading for the Cambodian border, to a small town called Chau Doc.
It was about 700 degrees in Can Tho, so Husbear and I decided to just go along with the lunch recommendation.
The lunch was shite. Hamburgers and fries were on the menu, along with some bizarre French dishes. We ordered from the Vietnamese side of the menu and hoped for the best. Everything was watery (even the fried spring rolls) and nothing tasted of anything. Lame.
So after lunch we bought a street banh mi to split.
This one was stuffed with pork floss, which is much much better than it sounds. It's strongly meaty and a little sweet. It's also fairly dry, but once you douse it with sauces it's a great addition to a sandwich.
We appreciated it in a little park right on the waterfront. A huge, silver Ho looked down at us. Approvingly?
We quickly approached combustion, so we walked back to the hotel. I stayed in the lobby with a book while Husbear wandered the streets of Can Tho - he's much better at ignoring extremes of temperature than I am.
By the time he got back, a Ford Explorer-type vehicle had arrived to take us and six other people to Chau Doc.
No, I'm not kidding. This car was the size of a Ford Explorer, and we fit eight people into it. For three hours. Luckily there were two rows of bench seats, but our luggage barely fit.
My knees and butt cramp up just thinking about it. Or is that the new exercise video talking?
After three hours, we pulled up next to a break between some buildings and pretty much exploded out of the door.
Next conveyance:
The boat was pretty nice inside, with mats on the hard wooden benches. They sold pho and beer, even.
We spent most of the ride on top of the boat, where there was a little open-air platform.
This boat gave us one of the strangest experiences we had in Vietnam. It was getting on towards the time of day for everyone to bathe in the river. Whole families waded around, from very young babies held in their mothers' arms through the elderly, dangling their feet in the water from short piers.
And the kids' favorite pastime seemed to be waving at tourists.
There were only six of us on the boat, but almost every child we passed tried to get our attention like we were visiting royalty. They screamed, waved, did backflips off of docks, and generally acted like having us wave at them would be the highlight of their day.
It was really an odd feeling, being on point in case someone waved. We felt like it would be rude not to acknowledge the theatrics.
This is not to give the impression that everyone waved at us. Some people were still busy working.
As the sun started to go down, the wind picked up and soon we were in the middle of a huge storm. On the water. In an open-sided boat.
The crew put mats down on the sides of the boat which kept some of the rain from getting in, and ran back and forth very busily trying to get things stowed away where they wouldn't fly off the boat.
Soon, we had to stop and tie on to a thick branch a little ways off shore. I was actually handling this pretty well, for once, figuring that the worst-case scenario would be the boat sinking, but since we were only a few feet from shore that wasn't terrifying. So we used the time to read about Chau Doc, our eventual destination.
Soon enough, the storm quieted down to a drizzle and we were on our way.
We didn't arrive in Chau Doc until almost 8, having been traveling since 2:30. This really seemed like a wasted day, and I was a little ticked when we arrived at our hotel.
One of the other guys we were now traveling with suggested a well-reviewed restaurant in town for dinner, and the guides actually offered us a ride back into town from the hotel.
All six of us ended up going, and we had a really good time talking with our fellow travellers. We ordered a sweet and sour chicken,
a much lighter version of the old standby. This one included pineapple and lightly cooked tomato, for a nice tart punch. The chicken was a little dry, unfortunately.
The problem of overcooked meat didn't stop there. Our other dish was their specialty, a clay-pot cooked pork. When it was set down between us everyone lifted their noses in the air appreciatively. The hot pot gave off a strong smell of garlic and fish sauce, which has to be one of the most ideal flavor combinations!
Perhaps the pork was overcooked because of the clay pot itself. The meat continued to cook in the bubbling liquid while we ate. The flavors were strong and certainly delicious, but dang stupid dry pork!
Husbear added chilies that the restaurant really, really didn't want to give him. I think it was because of our big white faces again, not because this dish shouldn't be spicy.
After dinner, our guides drove us back to the hotel again, where we fell over. We had another early call in the morning.
I can't believe this post took me so long to write! If I take too long next time, don't forget to check out our sidebar. I've added a couple more blogs, two mothers who are intimidatingly wonderful bloggers (halushki, a little pregnant), a drop-dead amazing food photographer (Cook & Eat), and a like-minded though certainly more high-falutin' traveler and eater who liked Taverna Nikolas on Santorini just as much as we did (fifth flavor).
