Day 4: Mekong Delta


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Asia » Vietnam » Mekong River Delta » Can Tho
October 1st 2009
Published: October 22nd 2009
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Morning rush to reach the Sinh Cafe booking office. Thankfully we can keep part of our luggage here, so we carry one bag with us and leave the rest here. Good airconditioned bus, a nice guide - its comfortable even if both Anu and I hate package tours. 3 hours to Cai Be and the rain god plays with us. We buy very flimsy raincoats - 7 dongs each. On to a boat in Cai Be and on the Cai Be river, passing the Cau Be floating market. The banks of the river are houses, with stilts into the river, and people's lives play out unconcerned about the tourist boats that peep into their homes. Here a girl cleans up her front room - there a mother is feeding a child. All around loading unloading of fruits and vegetables. The water is a reddish murky muddy colour - the rich fertile soil of the delta. Our guide tells us about the 9 provinces as we tour the area in a wooden boat.

Then we get off at a point to watch coconut candy making, rice paper making, rice puffs and rice puff candies. Kept on the table are hot tea for us to have along with a strong coconut liqour. We also try out all the goodies, and most of them - the ginger candies, are quite unique in taste. The rice puffs (we call them khoi in bengali) are like what we have in our home in Bangladesh, and we mix it and bind it with jaggery, the way they do it with coconut milk and sugar to make candies. Watching the rice paper making was quite amazing - from rice milk poured over a very fine cloth.

I hate package tours. The stuff we see are interesting, but I long to run away in the little bye lanes - go walk down between paddy fields outside this stretch of made for tourists package, where real people live and smile. Because no one smiles here. I guess it must be really tiring to have hundreds of tourists come everyday and show them the same thing again and again - dehusdking the coconut, pouring the rice milk over the thin cloth. The people in these shows keep their eyes averted and go on with their job while the guides explain. So unlike all the other vietnamese I have met till now, who long to talk to you, who reach out for Sanaa to pinch her cheeks, who smile and whose eyes dance. Here their eyes are dead. And I hate having to follow a group of people from one thing to the other.

An indifferent lunch, and then some really silly music, again played by old men, who seemed to be playing in their sleep. No smile, no expression, no show of feelings for the music that they play. Its dull and uninteresting. But on the other hand, it IS comfortable, and we have been able to atleast glimpse into some pseudo parts of Mekong life. We dont know the real thing and would probably not know, but the river is majestic, and the lives you can see shadows of are intriguing. Coincides with my reading about the Red River and the horrible war that was played out on this vast flat stretch of river land. If I had a few more days, I would have attempted it on my own...now with a train to Danang waiting to be caught, this was atleast doable.

After we reach our hotel in Can Tho, we on are our own. Which is a relief as then atlast we can go walking down the bustling roads of this fast developing small town turning into a city, leave the roads indicated to us by the guide and walk off to find small restaurants lining the streets filled with locals. Steel tables on the road along with really low and small chairs. The vietnamese are small people and the chairs are not big enough for Arindam. And people around us are eating everything - snails, clams, crabs, chicken...and again no one speaks a word of English. With much negotiation, and pointing at people's tables, we order some stuff and though what comes to our table is not exactly what we ordered (we did not order the chicken feet), there is the hot pot (Lau), with an array of meats and squids and prawns, and there is Mi Cau - noodles with vegetables and all kinds of meat, and Octopus and eels, and again - yes, you guessed it - lots and lots of beer.

As we walk down the street after a killing dinner (all for 187 dongs), we see the whole street is lined up with similar shops - low chairs around steel tables on the road with locals sitting and having lots of beer with all kinds of food. And in the middle of all that - a tiny Buddhist temple, and a little girl sitting on a chair outside lipping the hymns being sung inside, singing along.

Oh and I am getting quite good with the chopsticks. I had a full plate of rice today with it.

Tomorrow we have to be up at the crack of dawn to see the Cai Rang floating market.



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