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Published: August 8th 2008
Peace............. this is the defning word to sum up my time in Can Tho. i had left Ben Tre at 8am for a 4 hour hour bus journey where once again i had the pleasant fortune of having a Vietnemese person learning English to sit next to me and spark up conversation (all be it limited). nonetheless due to these encounters i can now already speak more Vietnemese in less than 2 weeks than i knew after 6 in Thailand. it is also a perfect way to really get a feel for what Vietnam is all about, teach people who genuinely want to learn and has been some of the most rewarding parts of my stay here. (anyone interested in teaching English, the going rate is $15 p/hr and often includes accomodation, no need to speak Vietnemese).
as i had absolutely no idea where i was when i arrived, for what i think was the first time, i consulted my LP for a guesthouse and jumped on the back of a motorbike into town. after checkin in my bags i went for a wonder to check out what this 'city' (its amaller than Enfield and i dont mean the borough)
was all about. so i walked and walked and walked until i got to a little clearance next to the Mekong where people were sitting and drinking coffee and decided to stroll along the riverside. it got to a point where there was no path but decided to go on, jumping over trenches and wading through long grass until i saw a boat that looked like it was a restaurant, unfortunately it was closed so i followed a path that was close by. i soon realised that the boat belonged to a very posh resort that i was about to walk into uninvited through the back entrance, realising that the worst they would do was kick me out, i put on a 'yeh i stay here' strut and carried on, took a look around, then made my way back into town. by this point i was gettin hungry and stopped off for some munch at the Mekong Restaurant (Baguette, creamy chicken soup, Vietnemese coffee, almost a litre of iced jasmine tea and a chocolate ice cream - 1 pound! nice) and carried on strollin. along the banks of the Mekong this little city have made a huge effort to maintain
pristine gardens with perfectly kept hedges, benches and a sprinkling of cafes that make for an extremely serene place to chill and watch the world go by. once past the main river promonade i was suddenly met by a bustling street market full of colour, where as is common in Vietnam, business was taken to the street and u had to walk in the road as the pavement was covered with fruit and living seafood in buckets. i again recieved some strange looks from people especially when i went into the indoor market which i got the feeling had never been visited by a westerner before, the very few white people i saw in Can Tho all seemed to restrict themselves to the odd cafe or restaurant that had some kind of English writing on the sign outside. from the beggining of the market area to a little while past it i noticed there were little alleyways that i peered down to find shacks made of tin and people going about their lives, quite the contrast from the well kept promonade i had just left no more than a few meters away. i had just walked the length of Can
Tho and back so stopped off in an internet shop for a while before realising the time and made my way back to the guesthouse to book the boat trip to the floating markets the next day. the rest of the day was uneventful, read my book, wrote my blog and got to bed before 10.30pm as i was up at 5am for the boat trip!
so the alarm went off and i dragged my arse to the cold shower to wake me up and met my driver, a very cool, smiley dude who spoke a liitle English and wore a hat similar to that of Captain Jack Sparrow. we made our way to the river promonade, where i was shocked to find, at 5.45am, people jogging, an aerobics class and even one woman sitting cross legged on a bench meditating. slightly different to what u might find on an early morning stroll along the Thames i thought, a few piss heads from the night before still bangin around is probably more likely. we got to where a small wooden longtail boat was waitin and jumped aboard. now strange as it is, my camera had been on charge for
2 hours the previous night and was full, however when i turned it on when i got on the boat it had the power to take 4 pictures and died?
an hour journey to the first market and we slowly made our way through a plethora of boats selling mainly fruit, bought a coffee and a whole pineapple that was cut in such a way that i was holding it like a lollipop 😊 we cruised through taking in the sights and smells, banging against the other boats as we went, smiling and saying hello (xin chao) to the the boatmen and women and also their children as we went. along the banks of the river were a long line of shacks on stilts where people were living and i felt a certain peace to be taking a journey that has been taken for centuries relatively unchanged. there was the odd 'Can Tho Tourist' boats that were full of Vietnemese probably from Saigon that didnt look particularly happy, possibly because their boat was quite big and there were so many of them they couldnt really interact with the market, they just drove through and took pictures. we sailed another hour
or so to the next market and the pineapple just hadnt done it for me, but this seemed to be a carb free market where not even bannanas were on the menu. so after looking around at the options in the form of various fruits hangin from poles on each boat so u can see what they sell over the crowd, Captain Jack was pointing over to some fruit and i said why not. so 15p and 2 what turned out to be grapefruits later we made our way through the rest of the market when it started to rain. we docked at one of the shacks (a friend of Captain Jacks....... i forget his real name) and went inside for some hot tea and i ate my other grapefruit, which to my surprise were both not really bitter, as i normally cant stand grapefruit, but they were green?
the rain eased and we set a course for a small canal with villages on either side with vegitation that met at the centre above head and brushed on the canvas roof of the boat. the river itself was almost entirely covered in plant life that we had to carefully navigate
through as to not clog the propellers and after around 45mins we arrived at a little place for some lunch. it turned out that this was the only place to stop and have lunch down this particular canal and their menu prices reflected their monopoly. i attempted (in Vietnemese) to haggle but to no avail and so ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, tofu rice and vegetables, deciding against the snake head soup. we both ate and i read for an hour or so under a canopy in the fruit garden while the rain continued to lash around us. it finally subsided and once again we made our way back down the small canal. pretty soon we were once again pounded by a monsoon type downpour, still we chugged along to the hypnotic sound of the engine, the faint mist of rain that sprayed against my skin and the sparkle of the rain cascading off the boat onto the river below, there was nobody in sight, just me, Captain Jack in his waterproofs behind me and the meandering Mekong canal....... Bliss 😊
we got back to the promonade and i headed back to my guesthouse where i had
a much needed nap for an hour or 2. i spent the rest of the afternoon reading and the eve using the net until around 10pm when i went in search of food. i came across a woman by the little ferry crossing that was cooking some chicken and noodles in some kind of make shift contraption but as she was busy i decided it must be safe and there i sat, squatting with my little green bowl and chopsticks much to the amusement of the locals, it was the best 25p munch i ever ate! soon a guy came over while his friends stood and watched grinning like cheshire cats and proceeded to show me the contents of his porn collection on his moblie (including some horseplay......... literally!) i managed to gather that his intention was to get me worked up and arrange an overpriced hooker for me, as he spoke no English i played dumb and he quickly made an exit without so much as a goodbye, as his young daughter arrived from the ferry. so it was back to the net to do some serious catching up and unblock my skype account before heading to bed.
the next day i booked my coach for Chau Doc and went down to the promonade for some food, there was a reastaurant i had noticed with a nice location next to the Mekong where i ate and pulled up a chair right next to the barrier and sipped green tea watching the boats go by. another stroll to the market to buy some bannanas for the bus journey and a stop off for a coffee in a little typically Vietnemese roadside cafe, where the woman who owned it laughed hysterically as i managed to just remember the Vietnemese for 'hot' and ordered a coffee ( iced coffee it very popular here in case the thought "what other kind is there" occured) 15p plus a free pot of jasmine tea to wash it down (beautiful combo) and it was back to the guesthouse to catch a motorbike to the bus station.
i again was noticed by a guy learning English who sat down next to me and we chatted for the next hour or so teaching and learning as i went, before it was his stop and the ipod went in for the rest of the duration.
this has
been the longest that i have spent without company (of the western variety anyway) so far on this trip and possibly in my life time. however not once have i felt alone, bored, homesick etc. i have instead found myself spending many hours in contemplation, observing both the outside world and my own life. i have discovered the necessity to rest ones brain from the constant onslaught of stimulus that we subject ourselves to, especially in a world of mass commercialism and TV that serves only to clog our heads with irellevant information that we would realistically be better off without. the momentum of these unnecessary thoughts build to the point where we cannot see the wood through the trees and we find ourselves stuck to the only path we feel safe walking down, even though we know it doesnt lead us to to where we really want to go.......... a wise man once said "BREATHE, SMILE, RELAX, STOP EVERYTHING AND ENJOY THE MOMENT" the destination is not paramount, enjoy the journey.
i hope this makes some kind of sense and i will try to limit this type of thing to my journal but i felt it may be of
Fresh fish
so fresh its still swimminsome use to at least someone.
i am back in Saigon 2mora and am hopin my skype will be bk so i'll try make some calls as its the weekend.
Much Love to all
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Steve B
non-member comment
...it's good to spend somtime alone
...hi Dave - it's very rewarding to spend sometime alone -not 'by yourself' type alone, but having distance between you and those around you like the culture or language barrier thing - give's one space to reflect on how one fit's in...it's a bit like putting somthing down for a while that is second nature to you -whatever that might be, like me and drums -just put them down for a while, 'cos when you pick them up again it will be a new experience -you don't loose what you had before you just find somthing else in within it -whatever it might be... ...your words and the pictures carry the peace a long way - thanks for sharring your experience - SB