tourism and life on the mekong delta

my second day in vietnam i went on an s@s overnight trip to the mekong delta. like i suspected my water craft experience would continue. in addition to riding around on riverboats (ones with less amenities than the ones in brazil), we had to take a ferry to get to cantho, where we would stay overnight.

on the boat we cruised the southern ah binh area and visited a snack food production business, where they made toffee like candy and sweet rice cake snacks (left and below). we saw how they were made by hand. of course they gave us free samples, and provided plenty of time for us to buy as much as we wanted. ill try not and eat all of what i bought so that some of you can try some too. however it's possible trader joes or cost plus sells them too. then there's the tenderloin and chinatown. i'm not trying to diminish my international experiences or their work, but packing and lugging stuff around the world is an unfortunate part of the travel experience.

sweet tangy rice cakes near the end of the packaging process:



candy making by hand:



i can only imagine what these people feel like with boat loads of tourists passing through snapping photos of them all day. we also rode through the residential areas of the river where many of the people who work on the floating markets live and grow their produce (since the 1986 reforms that permitted foreign investment, farmers have been allowed to own their own land). the homes range from meager to what would probably qualify as a mcmansion in these parts.

the nice thing about vietnam, not only are the people so friendly, but there seems to be plenty of food for the citizenry and export. phuc, our guide for this tour, said that the vietnamese people hold no animosity against their aggressors, because throughout history they've been invaded so many times they now see defending themselves as a fact of life - some countries have earthquakes, floods, or tsunamis, vietnam has invaders.

day one we visited a fairly small floating market in the an binh region. the farmers, and others, pay a tiny mooring fee to sell on the river. they live on their boats while they're selling. one piece of tall bamboo towers above most boats. whatever is sold on the boat is tied to the bamboo pole so buyers can see what they're selling from a distance. the homes and businesses that line the river don't look very substantive, but all in the area have cable satellite antennas on their roofs.

antenna skyline:



after spending hours on the river we ferried and bused to our hotel, the saigon cantho hotel in cantho, had a great meal that evening, and i enjoyed a five dollar massage at the hotel by a young woman name phoung, the same as the female protagonist in the quiet american, another piece of classic literature about men behaving badly. that evening we also heard some type of public broadcast over a public address system. the next day we asked phuc, our guide, about it. he said it was "propaganda". it airs certain mornings and evenings. social, economic and political messages are piped into communities over speaker systems installed on street corners, i guess its better than cameras. it's sort of a combination of the old advice manuals and the modern evening news, except that you can't can choose to purchase it or turn it on.

saigon cantho hotel:



larger market, where several rivers meet:



robin enjoying fresh pineapple bought, skinned and carved on the river; sweet doesn't begin to describe it.



got cabbage?



boatmaking along the river:



got lycee juice, pineapple juice, coke, 7up, aquafina? by the time she finished with us, she could have taken the rest of the day off.



still life on the river:



there is so much more i want to see in vietnam - in saigon, in the north (hanoi and cambodia), and the middle (hue). it's a very comforting and welcoming place.