Monday November 20th
Our day begins early by grabbing food at a street stall and meeting up at the tour agent's office. Our bus is both newish and uncrowded for a change so our ride down into the Mekong delta is comfortable. At Vinh Long we board a tour boat (which is full) for a ride around the extensive network of rivers and canals that make up the Mekong delta.
It makes a fascinating change from what we are used to - and the rest of the country - to see a place where the water is the means of transport, source of food, place of business and heart of industry. The large rivers sport large boats, dredging and factories, smaller ones are lined by homes and businesses and small canals link everything and provide water to irrigate crops.
We make a couple of stops to see some typical tourist displays: how to make rice paper... how to make coconut candy... how to make puffed rice cakes. Contrived settings but fascinating all the same and the samples are tasty! After a couple of hours boating we get back on the bus and drive down to Can Tho where an extremely busy ferry service (six boats moving constantly) brings us and the bus over a wide stretch of River to the city where we'll spend the night.
We have some time to look at the town as we wander in search of food at dusk and very prosperous it looks with plenty of fashion, mobile phone and motorbike stores. This is the heart of agricultural production and Vietnam has been very successful in upping it's rice production to become a big exporter in the last few years (the long term effects of the intensive farming methodologies are yet to be seen...). The riverfront is lively with two favorite pursuits: taking the kids to the park for the slightly older set and cruising on your motorbike for the teens/ twentysomethings. We pick a restaurant in an old french building with a good view from the balcony and enjoy some of the local fish dishes.
It makes a fascinating change from what we are used to - and the rest of the country - to see a place where the water is the means of transport, source of food, place of business and heart of industry. The large rivers sport large boats, dredging and factories, smaller ones are lined by homes and businesses and small canals link everything and provide water to irrigate crops.
We make a couple of stops to see some typical tourist displays: how to make rice paper... how to make coconut candy... how to make puffed rice cakes. Contrived settings but fascinating all the same and the samples are tasty! After a couple of hours boating we get back on the bus and drive down to Can Tho where an extremely busy ferry service (six boats moving constantly) brings us and the bus over a wide stretch of River to the city where we'll spend the night.
We have some time to look at the town as we wander in search of food at dusk and very prosperous it looks with plenty of fashion, mobile phone and motorbike stores. This is the heart of agricultural production and Vietnam has been very successful in upping it's rice production to become a big exporter in the last few years (the long term effects of the intensive farming methodologies are yet to be seen...). The riverfront is lively with two favorite pursuits: taking the kids to the park for the slightly older set and cruising on your motorbike for the teens/ twentysomethings. We pick a restaurant in an old french building with a good view from the balcony and enjoy some of the local fish dishes.
posted by Tim | 5:24 PM
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