Dawn was breaking as Mum (aka Kate, aka Grandma) and I got up extremely early one morning to meet Toby our guide who had come to take us to the floating market.
We walked through the town at 5.45am down to the river passing groups of exercisers on the park and early morning traders on the streets.
We met with our boat driver Miss Truc (pronouced ‘djuk’). It was a picturesque scene with the rising sun, passing by the water hyacinths floating in the Mekong River during our 40 minute ride to the markets.
Miss Truc created various items for us along the way using natural plant materials and shaping them into grasshopper and flower rings, bracelets and crowns! We’ve managed to send some of them home.
Farmers bring their produce to the markets and live on boats to sell it all, staying until all their goods have been sold. This could be for several months whilst the whole family live on the boats. Their boat is also their market stall.
To advertise what they are selling they put their product on a stick high above the boat – so if there are bananas above the boat then that is what they sell. Often there is more than one item shown, so it looks a little like a kebab sticking up made of sweet potato, pineapple or cabbage etc!
The market is open 24 hours a day but is busiest early in the morning.
There are smaller boats that sail around with items such as rice, coffee, and toiletries for the boat people to buy what they need.
We then sailed down a small canal off the river and Toby took us for a walk alongside the river to a noodle factory. We got to see how the local noodles are made and how colours are added to them (add beetroot to make red noodles, baby jackfruit to make orange, and bamda leaf to make green).
We then went to a local cafe on the canal for a traditional Vietnamese breakfast of pho (it was still only about 8am by this point!).
A very interesting morning!
