Can Tho

We got up early to take a boat to the floating market at Cai Rang.  Villagers come from hundreds of kilometers away to sell produce at the market.  At first I thought it was like a farmers' market, but it turns out that the villagers who come here are merchants.  They come for a month or two at a time with their entire families.  They first buy produce in their home town and bring it to Cai Rang to sell.  Then they purchase other produce at Cai Rang and sell it at another floating market maybe twenty kilometers away.  They buy and sell boatloads a few times and then return home, hopefully with a profit.  Local entrepreneurs appear in smaller boats selling fruit and drinks to the tourists, so I never missed a Diet Coke.

After the boat ride, we took the nicest bike ride we have had with a local guide, Mr. Huy.  He took us on increasingly smaller lanes until it was no wider than my bike trail.  There were occasional motorbikes, but mostly we had the trail to ourselves as we rode along the canals of the Delta passing the fronts and backs of houses.  Some houses back onto the water and use boats for transportation.  The land on the far side in this picture has no motorbike or even bicycle access.  The only connection for the residents is the "monkey bridge" with one handrail.  Mr. Huy lithely walked across but we were not allowed to.  The residents are concerned that we clumsy foreigners will break their bridge and destroy their only access.  We had a chance to cross a monkey bridge with two handrails later and it was a lot harder than it looked to me.  I'll post the picture Suzanne took of me on her camera when she sends it to me.

Mr. Huy also walked us through a local fruit orchard.  Besides the obvious papayas, mangos, pineapple, coconuts, and bananas, they have some very weird fruits here like jackfruit and dragon fruit that I have never seen before.  Even their apples and bananas are quite different from ours.  We had such a great ride with Mr. Huy that we begged him to take us further, but we had ridden a loop around the village and when it was over, that was it.

Finally we had a free afternoon.  Suzanne and I walked around Can Tho and had a late lunch at a riverside restaurant with a couple from our group who happened to wander by.  Then we did our "serious" souvenir shopping since tomorrow is the group's last day in Vietnam.  I'll be back for quite a while.  I think I managed to spend $10.  I tried to buy a piece of embroidery with an asking price of 120,000 dong ($6).  I offered 100,000 dong ($5) and she countered 110,000 dong.  I walked away and was surprised she did not run after me.  I guess this is not Guatemala anymore.  And for fifty cents (and some lost pride), I didn't go back.

After all our riding and walking, Suzanne and I treated ourselves to foot massages for $5.  We are trying to help the Vietnamese economy $5 at a time.  Most of our group cashed $100 when they got here which is 2,000,000 dong, so we are all millionaires.  In fact, we carry around millions in our back pockets quite casually.