Early morning call – 7:15 for the boat to the largest floating market in Vietnam – Cai Rang. Shower/toilet combo thing worked fine, btw, odd, but functional. We head downstairs for a nice breakfast (included -how do they do this????) and we are thinking to ourselves, wow, it’s noisy out there in that alley. All of a sudden we look down, and one of the girls is driving her scooter through the lobby! They park them inside. There isn’t really any room outside in the hotel entrance way, so, hey, ride right in! It’s obviously the norm, because we pass other hotels and bars later on that have scooters parked inside. There are something like 32 million scooters in Vietnam – and they park them everywhere…on every square inch of sidewalk …. everywhere!
Back to breakfast – eggs and bread and coffee. Done. Tour director comes right on time, we can leave our big packs here at the hotel because we’ll be coming back for lunch here. Ok, well, we don’t have any big packs, but we did take out all the clothes and toiletry stuff out of our little pack and put it into the Whale Foundation chico bag to leave behind. (Talk about a life saver that bag is! Just unstuff it from it’s little pouch and go. It hangs on the backpack and you never even notice it’s there – until you need it!).
So, off we go down the alley – which is now teeming with life – it’s the hardware alley – everything from paint to ball bearings to tools and fencing. It’s there! We head to the water to pick up our ride for the day – great little sight seeing boat similar to yesterday.
We grab seats right up front and sit back for the 45 minute ride to the market. Along the way we see more “river” life – fishermen, housing, kids playing with kites on little boats next to their houses, the lumber plants that are everywhere along the river (we find out later that they soak the wood in the water to treat it and harden it before using – so that’s why there are so many lumber plants on the banks of the Mekong). Everything is manual too – the wood comes in on a boat and is hand lifted off the boat and onto the pile on the banks. Then, when purchased, reverse the process. In the lumber plant picture below, you can also see a brick factory on the right. If you look closely you can just almost see a worker with hundreds of bricks stacked on his back, walking up the river bank from the boat to the brick shed. Man – that’s work! Those bricks had to weigh a ton!
Soon we approach the market. This place is bustling. A hundred boats? Probably. All over the place, with every imaginable produce available. Here you must buy a minimum of 50Kg – definitely a wholesale market – not touristico! There are also little boats that service the seller boats – these folks come up alongside with coffee, soda, beer, pineapples, bananas, and even 
hot food. Of course they hit on the tourist boats as well – it’s all pretty fun!
We get to stop and get on board a pineapple seller’s boat for pictures and fresh pineapple (50cents US). Awesome – we sit there and watch her cut the pineapple rind off and slice into the meat so that you end up with a pineapple popsicle type thing! Fresh – and oh so very good! Of course, as we are on the pineapple boat, tons of other little boats come up along side us to sell us more fruit and beverages.
Next up it’s the rice noodle factory. Guide gets us off the boat and walks us a little ways down this path, then says turn here and go straight. He has to go back for stragglers (and we’ve got a few for sure) Oy! We’re in the lead and walking down this path to nowhere. Hope we followed his directions right! We did, and eventually came to the factory. Same process to make rice paper, but adding tapioca flour to make the paper more elastic. Then put through a cutter that makes the noodles. Neat. Lots of animals here – pigs, baby chicks, etc. Next its the coffee stop for 15 minutes on a little canal. Ok – off to the boat again!
We head back to Can Tho with a stop at the rice factory for an explanation of rice processing. We’ve already heard this in Thailand, so we sort of just wander and walk and stretch our legs. It’s a nice relaxing boat ride back to Can Tho.
Back in town we are free to go have lunch. Guide tells us he has a restaurant he can recommend where they have snake! We’re game, only in that we’re not in the mood to be wandering around town looking for some place to eat – and heck – might as well let this guy get his commission from the restaurant.
Turns out 10 of us hang out there for lunch. Not only does this place have snake, they also have rat. Oh my! Not that adventurous. Guinea pig was one thing..rat? Unh uh. They also have frog – and alongside one wall of the restaurant are aquariums filled with aforementioned snakes and frogs! They don’t let you pick your own, but, what ends up on your plate definitely
comes from one of those glass boxes. One of our crew has the fried frog (tastes like chicken), the rest of us have the “normal” food – including a grilled shrimp that is the most monstrous thing we’ve seen - and its all very good. Chicken, veggies and noodles and chicken and rice for Ed was perfect. Beer (no wine, sigh), water. All’s well.
We are sitting outside, near the alley next to the restaurant, so we get to watch the bike deliveries. A couple of guys on bikes come whipping out of the alley every few minutes with a tray of food – literally a round silver tray with bowls of food and rice. How wild is that? We tried to get a picture, but they are way to fast coming out of that alley.
We have 2 hours to wander – which is a little too much in Can Tho to be honest. We walk around a bit, find the market and buy some of those yummy tangerines to take back with us for snacks. Then we head back to the restaurant to meet up with the rest of the group. We’re hanging out at the outside tables, having a beer, when whack! A silver tray bicycle delivery guy comes whipping out of the alley and runs smack into a woman with her food cart. The ensuing wreck sends his tray of food flying and knocks over her cart spilling boiling hot water and all her food all over the street. It’s just awful – on so many levels! First of all, you know all that food was her whole day’s work – and now she doesn’t have anything to show for it, nor will she make any money tonight. The bicycle guy picks up his stuff and heads back into the alley – never to return.
Local people around us help the woman pick up the food and put it into bags. She works on the cart, making sure it is still operable and putting back the hot charcoal she had in the burner underneath. A few people – we think the store owner next door – yell at the lady in the restaurant, but nothing really happens. Just about then, our guide comes back and we head off to the bus – so we don’t know how it all ended.
Back on the bus – we leave at 2:15 for our 3+ hour ride back to town. It’s not boring, to the extent that you can watch the traffic up a head and just remain in awe of how everyone drives and manages the roads.
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