After approximately 27 hours of travel from Hoi An, to the train station in Da Nang, on a 22 hour train ride to Ho Chi Minh City, to a taxi to take us to the bus station for the 3 hour bus ride to Can Tho, we finally arrived in Southern Vietnam and the Mekong Delta. The Mekong is a massive river that supplies life to southern Vietnam, and is used for transportation as well as a place to sell the produce grown in the region at the infamous floating markets.

We were excited to explore the Mekong by boat the next morning; this was our main purpose for wanting to go to Can Tho. So after a short night of sleep in a wonderfully clean and cheap hotel, we got up at 5am and went on a relatively inexpensive tour of the Mekong. We were picked up by motorbikes and taken to the pier, where we met our friendly tour guide who bought us coffee (thank goodness, we didn’t think it was included!) and bread and bananas. We set off at first light in her traditional boat, just the two of us and her, and headed towards the floating markets.  

 
The floating markets are a place for moving large amounts of fruits and veggies from the people who grow them to the sellers in smaller village shops. Each boat sells a few different kinds of produce, which they have raised on a tall pole at one end of their boat, so that smaller boats shopping around can see what is for sale. There are also people selling drinks, snacks, and meals on smaller boats to the shoppers and sellers at the market. 

   
 
   
 
After making our way through the floating market (and trying to take pictures in the pre-dawn light), we headed toward the rice noodle factory, a local business that makes rice noodles. To make rice noodles, first the rice is mashed with water and I believe another ingredient to make this mush:

  
Then it is poured on a heated silicone(?) membrane to cook it briefly:

  
Then it is taken off the membrane carefully and allowed to dry flat:

   
 
Then once it is dry, it is sliced into noodles:

 
The rice noodle factory had a nice property with lots of plants, like lemongrass, 

   
Dragonfruit,
  Jackfruit,

  
and a silly monkey bridge they like to take pictures of tourists on.

  
We got a delicious snack of some sort of steamed banana custard with condensed milk on top at the rice noodle factory:

  
Then we headed off on our little boat back towards the market.  

   
Luckily we went through the market a second time, which was nice because the sun was up so my pictures look a little better now 🙂 Though it meant it was definitely time for hats. 

   
    
    
    
    
 
After going trough the market a second time, we went on a little tour of the small canals that feed into the larger branch of the river and offer a chance to see the local ways of living off the river. 

   
 
  
    
   
After exploring the small canals, we headed back toward the pier and ended our tour. We explored the market on shore briefly before heading back toward our hotel to get some rest in the air conditioning away from the afternoon heat. In the evening we ventured out for food, though I don’t even remember what it was so it must have been unremarkable. The next day we headed back to Ho Chi Minh City, the last stop in our tour of Vietnam. 

I am not even going to bother with writing a blog post about Ho Chi Minh City. It was huge, hot, dirty, and I got food poisoning so we didn’t do a whole lot during our time there. Mostly just try to eat, heal, and get ready for the bus ride to Cambodia!