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Published: July 31st 2006
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Like a rabbit out of a hat...
While we wait in Châu Dốc bus station to leave for Cần Thơ, our smuggler friend was removing packets upon packets of cigarettes ouf of her trousers. She saw our surprise and giggled mischeviously every time we caught her eye. There isn't a huge amount to see and do in Châu Đốc. The morning after our arrival, we catch a minibus to Cần Thơ pronounced
c'n-ter), some three hours or so away from Châu Đốc.
Which brings me to another thing...when it comes to trying out new languages I'm usually quite adventurous, but with Vietnamese I think I might as well give up already. As soon as we arrived from the border, the switch from Indian-derived scripts (as in Thai, Lao and Khmer) to Latin alphabet was particularly striking...Even though we couldn't even begin to guess what anything meant, somehow it was comforting to see As, Bs and Cs again, albeit decorated with a thoroughly confusing array of accents and diacritics - squiggles everywhere ! However, when it comes to spoken Vietnamese...the sounds of this language seem completely impossible to pin down. Blank stares greet any attempt to say a few words ! The problem is that I'm expecting the sounds to resemble Thai (especially the vowels) but the fact is that Thai and Vietnamese are completely unrelated. English (and perhaps French) it is then !
Transport in Việt Nam is a bit of a funny one. Unlike in
Sugarcane juice
This man is running fresh sugarcane through a mangle to make "nước mía" or sugarcane juice. Mixed with some lime juice and lots of ice, it's delicious, and not as horrendously sweet as you might have thought. Thailand, there is no network of public buses available for visitors to use. Public buses
do exist, but despite being cheap are cramped, hot, stop everywhere, and - if we're to believe Lonely Planet and even average Vietnamese - crawling with pickpockets and thieves. In many places bus drivers won't even let foreigners on board...the alternative, at least in this much less visited part of the country, is the
minibus, usually an air-con ten or twelve-seater which travels point-to-point between neighbouring towns. Although slightly more expensive, we are told the experience is considerably less hair-rising than the public way.
We make our way to Châu Đốc bus station (my attempts at
Ben Xe Buýt Châu Đốc fail so I resort to repeating "minibus" to the pedicab driver). There we hop onto above-mentioned small van heading to Cần Thơ via Long Xuyên. We move to the back row and wait for the other passengers to arrive. A woman hops on shortly after us - she attracts my attention. She is of, shall we say,
ample proportions, or, as Mma Ramotswe would say, is of
traditional build. Strange in Việt Nam. Except this lady is not curvy but rather cubic.
Sunrise over the Mekong
It's a little after 5.30am and we've just pushed out of the boat dock at Cần Thơ, heading for the floating markets. Thus commences one of the oddest bus journeys I've ever been on.
The lady is indeed cubic. As we wait in the bus station, the lady pulls the window curtains shut after looking around shiftily. What is she up to ? No sooner do I ask myself this question that she whips off her top and trousers to reveal not tens, not even dozens, but
hundreds of packets of cigarettes ties around her waist, arms, thighs and legs with an ingenious system of rubber bands. With the dexterity of somebody who does this every day (I wonder why...) she whips off the packets in rows of 10, like belts of ammunition, and packs them into plastic bags. Now and again she peers through the curtains to check the coast is clear. Yes, we are sharing our bus with a smuggler. Alex and I get the giggles as she pulls strip after strip of cigarette packets out of every nook and cranny of her clothes. She is obviously amused that we find it funny and despite not speaking a word of a common language, we have a good laugh. Does this make us accomplices ? Just when we thought it
Covent-Garden-on-Water
A snapshot of Cai Răng floating market, where hundreds of boats of all sizes moor to one side of the river. Vegetable produce of every imaginable kind changes hands amid loud bargaining. couldn't get any weirder, on walks a young man with a cheeky smile and rather large thighs...
By the time we leave for Cần Thơ, about half the bus' passengers are smugglers, bootlegging (literally !) ciggies across the border from Cambodia. This is our first experience of Vietnamese roads. Oh. My. Goodness. Well, I guess we can't complain transport is slow. The driving here is insane - the bus reaches breakneck speeds, overtakes on blind bends, all to the sound of thumping Vietnamese dance music. Buses here seem to have the horn directly linked to both the accelerator and brake pedals, to save the drivers the trouble of manually honking. Because that's what they do - constantly. Honk, honk, honk. Every two seconds for three hours. Here drivers are masters of The Universal Language Of Honk - "oi !", "slow down !", "hurry up !", "I'm turning left", "I'm turning right"...the horn can be delicately inflected (perhaps this is only possible in those countries with a tonal language ?) to mean almost anything. Quite miraculous.
As soon as we cross the border between An Giang and Cần Thơ Provinces, our smuggler friends start to relax and prepare their
The rambutan stall...
Rambutans are an important export crop for the part of the world. They taste delicious here - because they're fresh. Nothing like the rather tasteless ones that make their way to the UK ! booty for resale, arranging the packets in neat rows in their bags. After the expected three hours, we pull into Cần Thơ bus station - we make our way by pedicab to our chosen hotel. There we book a boat trip for the following morning of Cần Thơ Province's most famous sights - the floating markets.
That following morning we head off from the hotel at 5am. We make our way to the river and set off on a small longtail boat. This trip will take us to the floating markets at Cái Răng and Phong Điền, as well as through the backwaters of Cần Thơ, winding through the tiny canals and rivers. About an hour and a half after leaving the pier in Cần Thơ, we arrive in Cái Răng. Here a veritable flotilla of boats of all sizes and shapes, laden with fruit and vegetables, are moored near the side of the river. A long pole decorated with a dangling papaya, pumpkin or potato advertises the particular kind of produce to be found aboard any particular boat. Small boats sidle up to large wholesale vessels, large pumpkins are tossed, bucket-brigade, from one boat to the other. Produced
...and these are longans.
Another important export crop, this time to China which is a big consumer. Longans have the texture of a lychee and the taste of a melon. This is a stand-up rowing boat. is weighed, haggled over. It's quite amazing - a floating wholesale market.
Phong Điền is quite different. No wholesalers here. This market is simply one huge logjam of tiny vessels, mostly non-motorised, floating restaurants, floating cafes and fruit and vegetable retailers. We squeeze through, get stuck, reverse, get stuck again. But never mind. Alex and I marvel at the ease and agility with which the whole operation unfolds. Surely the people of the Mekong Delta are more at ease on water than they are on land. It is a world so alien to our own - we are transfixed. We spend the next 3 or 4 hours exploring the small canals branching off the main river. Here small villages perch on the edge of the water, small rowing boats navigate the waters, laden with groceries and household goods.
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alternate job for the market people
When I read your description of Phong Dien, I thought of the Cam and how we get a logjam there sometimes. Maybe those commercial punt rentals can offer Vietnamese punters.