Floating Market

Up early for breakfast beside the river. Coffee, breads, the sounds of river life.

At 7, time to leave and head to the floating market. Waiting for the van to arrive. Village life was in full swing, despite a power cut. Interestingly, it must be a common occurrence, as but on the street the kids were sitting beside the road, selling 1 liter bottles of fuel … and eating their breakfast. All seemed very normal …

Off to the market where we had our own open boat, with quite the character of a skipper. Lowered the long shaft into the river and up we went. Around 45 minutes upstream to the Cai Rang floating market, the largest in the delta. So interesting … larger boards of bulk fruit etc, wholesaling to the smaller boats, in turn who sell to customers. Pineapples, coconuts, sweet potato, corn; just so many different goods for sale, really amazing.

A brief trip upstream to a rice paper making enterprise and then back down the river, via the floating market, to the land market. Like so many others we’ve see – fish, meat, well everything, out on the footpath to buy. All fresh, none of it refrigerated.

Brilliant trip, and after 3 hours or so we were back at the wharf, into the van and heading home to Ho Chi Minh. Via of course a lunch stop, which like the first was rather touristy. Which I found quite interesting in this tour, it was all about experiences, but then they take you to a large and expensive tourist stop. Oh well.

Back into Ho Chi Minh and the madness, but this time round it was familiar and felt safe again. But of course, no rest. Got back at 3 and at 5 Adam and I we’re out again for what turned out to be a real highlight, a food tour, by bike of Ho Chi Min!

If you’ve been to Saigon you’ll know it’s motorbike city. 10 million people, 6 million bikes, and seemingly, no road rules. So it was interesting being on the bike, instead of trying to avoid them as pedestrian. The tour is a trial by the company we had booked Mekong with, tentatively called the Pancake tour. The pancake is an icon of Saigon, so it was all about tasting the many different variations. To cut a long story short, 5 food stops over about 5 hours, and lots of driving, and interesting food. We had to rate the experience of each one, and in general they were all fantastic, especially the street side ones. But it was the bike riding that was amazing, Adam and I each had a driver and they both skillfully wove our way through the traffic, and avoided any incidents thankfully! Amazing.

Finally, back to the hotel where I dropped Adam up to bed, and then I went and talked with business owner for an hour, giving feedback on the tours. Really interesting and we ended up talking in general about business in Vietnam. Quite fascinating, she wants to do things differently and better, as one of my observations is that while the Vietnamese are great sellers, they don’t appear to be great innovators. Much of the “same same”, a phrase you hear often. Satellite office for Cabbage Tree? Maybe … ;-)

What a day!