After several days of the crazy traffic in Hanoi, I was super excited to be venturing out into the Mekong Delta. While it was a fun experience, if I had a do-over I would skip Can Tho and head directly for a homestay somewhere off the beaten track.
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| Riverside Gardening |
The touristy thing to do in Can Tho is take a boat tour to check out the floating market at Cai Rang. I opted for the full monty and spent six hours cruising around with a rather funny chap who spoke absolutely zero English and would utter "whoa, he he he" anytime things got a little crazy. Like the wake of a tanker rocking the boat or a little boy taking a time-out from relieving himself into the river to wave and shout hello as we passed. Yep - it was that kind of adventure!
I'm pretty sure the floating market only exists for the tourists as I didn't witness any transference of goods between locals. Since there wasn't a fruit or vegetable on offer that I hadn't previously tasted, I was mostly there to get a glimpse of life on the delta.
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| Spreading Rice Goo on a Hot Griddle |
After bumping our way through the boats gathered at the market, we took a meander up one of the tributaries to explore a rice noodle factory.
I'm always a fan of seeing a process in action so this was right up my alley. From the huge vats of soaking rice down to the hand-crank noodle machine, it was interesting to watch this little factory turn out their product.
Though I am guessing (hoping?) the noodles we buy packaged at Safeway take a different route. I'm just not so sure about the cleanliness level of this whole operation given at one point my guide grabbed my hand and pressed it into a just-cooled disk to show me how sticky they are!
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| Off the Griddle onto the Drying Rack |
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