Floating markets, stilt houses and a plethora of unintentional mantraps

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It was pitch black and starry when we walked to the jetty on the river at the front of the homestay. A boat was to carry us to the floating markets on the Mekong River, and as always, markets start super early in the day, so I'd been up since 4am.

Quite a few locals causally passed us in their boats, carrying wares such as melons, vegetables and fish. One boat was full of live geese which appeared to be loose and enjoying the ride, but I'm sure the reality of it is rather different. Fishermen/women were also abundant.

Daylight eventually decided to put in an appearance as we arrived at a small floating market called Phong Diem. The men and women were busy working and mostly ignored us, passing goods from one boat to the next, standing up but seemingly steady as though they were on land. Many of the boats had motors, but others were powered by long, thin oars. The people rowing the boats did so stood up with perfect balance.

The noodle factory that we were to visit next was closed so instead we were taken to Cairang which is a wholesale floating market and far larger than Phong Diem. At this point we saw a few other tourists in boats (boooo!) but not that many. A couple of the smaller boats pulled up beside us as the people on them offered to sell us fruit and drinks. Glyn and I had cokes, you have to really! It was full fat Coke, I've not seen any diet pop here, not surprisingly, as the majority of folk here are small and thin - but healthy looking except for a few missing teeth in some of the older folk.

I saw Andy at the back of the boat where he'd discovered that he could climb up and take photos over the roof. What a great idea, so I followed him up, not realising that one decking boards was an unintentional seesaw trap. Naturally I stepped on it and had a shock when my foot went through to the outer shell of the boat so that my leg below the thigh ended up below deck. I needed Andy to help pull me out.

We saw a noodle bar on a boat, serving hot food to people on more boats. There were a few clothes for sale, but mostly is was fruit and vegetables.

We returned to the homestay at around 7.30 and had breakfast, after which I met a gorgeous ginger tom cat with glowing amber eyes. Glyn told me off for cuddling it.

When Ho said that there was room for two women on the back of one of the mopeds, Helen and I thought he was joking. He was not. Bearing in mind we both had bags with clothing, cameras and items for an overnight stay to carry, it was rather tight. Going straight was fine, however, taking corners and cruising over huge humps in the road was nerve wracking to the amusement of the lady who was driving us to the van which was parked up at the main road. Glyn and the others were not long behind us on their own chauffeured mopeds and soon after we set off in the minibus towards Chau Doc.

On the way we witnessed our first moped accident, the lady rider had swerved to avoid a child running across the road. The child was ok, but the rider was on the concrete, looking very unhappy. It amazes me that we haven't seen more of this. Everyone seems to be going in all directions at once and appear to look straight ahead. People text whilst driving the mopeds, I kid you not. I've seen all sorts of huge items carried on the bikes: for instance, I saw two men on a moped with a massive mirror wedged between them, sticking out half a metre each side. Like ants, each moped is moving with steady purpose and somehow they are just aware of each other and so they rarely collide. I guess if you practice this dance everyday, you just know what moves the other dancers will make.

After around three hours, we arrived at Chau Doc, a water town on the border with Cambodia. Here many people live on floating houses and also in houses on stilts, this is because of flooding, although apparently there's a lot less of that now because of a reservoir. The bamboo stilts can be up to 6 metres high and there was a stick marking the water heights in previous years.

It was time for another river boat trip, including a stop at a fish farm. Totally not nice if you are a fish - extremely cramped. In truth, it's just a large house floating on the river with the fish kept beneath. I narrowly escaped my second unintentional seesaw trap of the day as I stepped into a room that Ho said I could go into, but then he retracted and called me back. Turns out the flooring is loose and weak, I would have ended up as fish food.

I spotted a Vietnamese newspaper and it dawned on me something that had yet to sink in: they use Roman characters for text and not Chinese style characters as I'd expected. I asked Ho about this and they had once used characters based upon the Chinese until the 20th century, when Roman ones took over. I was about to ask why when the boat pulled off and we couldn't converse over the engine noise. I suspect it has something to do with those pesky French invading.

Later it was time to turn the tables as a Vietnamese guy got to shoot us for our visas to Cambodia. The photography studio was a tiny office with six pieces of A4 paper stuck to a door as a backdrop. The photos came out better than expected, probably because the photographer had a Nikon.

At our hotel we were finally reunited with our luggage, it felt like Christmas! Ho and Hi said their goodbyes as we're are boating up to Cambodia tomorrow. I'm rather disappointed now that I've not spent enough time in Vietnam and I have to come back. There's so much more to see and the atmosphere is awesome. Yes the majority of people are dirt poor, but no one I have seen is totally poverty stricken, not like in some countries where there are neglected and disabled beggars on every corner. Or at least this is the impression I have gotten in my three days here. No one tries to steel you stuff unless you go looking for it. No one is insulted is you don't buy their stuff. People don't need to harass and follow you down the street, treating you like the cash cow you are. There is litter, but no better or worse than home and everyone is clean and in good clothes. And people smile.

Talking of good people, I cannot express too much my gratitude to Helen and Andy. Without them, these first three days would have been awful. Within minutes of knowing us, they helped out. In the two days they have known us, they have lent us clothes, toiletries, Vietnamese money, suncream, mosquito repellant and a travel adaptor. Glyn and I are so grateful.

After Glyn had a few hours kip, we headed out into the hot, dark evening to have a wander around Chau Doc. Now I've mentioned before how scary it is cycling on the road, but i can assure you that walking on it raises your heart rate. I guess you're wondering why I would do something so foolish. Well it's because often there was no pavement and when there was, it was filled with parked mopeds or plastic furniture so that people could eat next to the traffic. The pavements were also chock full of deep and large leg breaking style holes - more unintentional traps. I keep convincing myself its all unintentional don't I but maybe they knew I was coming?

Beside the river we found children having martial arts lessons. The paving became a carpet of crash mats and the kids were donning white with coloured belts. It was really too dark to take photos, so I used a flash... Further up were some kids breakdancing badly, then more martial arts kids in blue. Everyone said hello more than once. Music wafted over from a distant cafe and young women were dancing in the street - no one was watching, they were doing it for themselves. We found another lad running up a lamp post then doing a somersault, plus various people exercising on outdoor machinery. It was amazing and so cool. No one was self conscious, just doing their thing to please themselves and saying hello to the curious tourists - of which we are sparse.

After all the food we've had recently, ice cream was all we needed for tea. The money here is confusing: 33,000 dong equals one British pound, so when Glyn went to pay for the ice cream, he gave too much but the vendor pointed this out by giving some of it back. We stopped at a bar where Glyn got confused with his coffee and I kept it simple with a Tiger beer. Despite being the only whiteys, no one gave us a second look, that was so cool when I imagine what the reaction would be if a Vietnamese couple went for a drink in Wetherspoons up Hanley.

We've only scratched the surface of Vietnam and after the few packed days we have had, I know I'm coming back asap.

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Photos

Stilt house, Chau Doc
Vietnam

Comments

[Treck au vietnam]

Nice picture
Très belle image, la qualité est vraiment très bonne (tout comme le reste du site). Félicitation à tous ceux qui y ont participer ! Le vietnam est vraiment un très pays très beau qu'il faut aller visiter ! Treck au vietnam

[RedPlanetClaire]

Thank you - you must get to Vietnam!