The Can Tho attitude

From Saigon to My Tho, and My Tho to Can Tho. Apart from some lovely islands, My Tho wasn't a very nice place. The people weren't very friendly and there wasn't much to see, so we left after two nights to come here to Can Tho, which is a very lovely place full of friendly people and quite a lot to see.


Today we woke up before dawn so that we could get a boat up the Mekong Delta. Going up the huge river as the sun was rising was pretty amazing, especially as we were given lots of little bananas. We stopped off for some tea and coffee on the way, and then continued further up the river until we reached the floating markets, something Can Tho is famous for. Merchants with boats packed full of fruit all meet in the centre of the river, bartering and trading across the water before the sun gets very hot. Their boats, some of which are also their homes, host a variety of pipes and mechanisms which provide a constant background of whirrs, splutters and putt-putts, making the whole place seem like some strange jungle steampunk dreamscape. After seeing the market we stopped off at a noodle farm, to see how noodles are made (we'll never give away the secret). We had some coconut and then continued up the long and pretty river to the second floating market, which was even nicer than the first as we climbed aboard someone else's boat and ate some pineapple.

Pineapples.


After chilling out on their boat for a bit we travelled even further up the river, to a tiny little restaurant to get some lunch (or, rather, brunch). We ordered, and had massages while we waited for the food to arrive. Some more tiny bananas were had. This restaurant was, as well as massage parlour, a farm, so all of the food was fresh and tasty (although one of the pigs had severe mosquite bites, as a French man showed us when he noticed Tom's bites). We were in no rush so we lounged around in their hammocks for a while...and then the rain came. It's rained here almost everyday so far, and when it rains it pours. We just took shelter and then...well, lounged around in hammocks for a bit longer. Nice. Eventually the rain died down and we got the boat aaaaallll the way back to the hotel, having some more bananas on the way.



A good day then. Vietnamese food can't quite compare to Japanese as of yet. Tonight we went to a terrible restaurant where I ordered sauteed fish and received a sausage with raw mushrooms. However, I will say that Vietnam is very good for fruit. It's darn tasty, and people just give it away. This is good, as fruit is the one thing we didn't have enough of in Japan. We replaced that food group with Snickers bars instead.