Floating Markets

Every tourist's goal in Can Tho is to take a boat ride to the floating markets. Like good tourists, ours was too. We were really excited to sit back and watch while someone else did the navigating for a change.

The night we got there a friendly man appeared out of nowhere while we were trying to buy some mystery food wrapped in a banana leaf from a tiny woman who was squatting in an alley (anywhere is a perfect place to sell food in Asia, especially dirty alleys). I hate these friendly men because they just want our money, but Danielle loves a good sales pitch and takes pleasure in bantering with them. Really, she’s a natural born hustler disguised as a naïve white woman (although white is up for debate at this point).

Anyway, Mr. Trei (pronounced - tree) offered us our own private boat for 6 hours for $40 (a complete outrage). After witnessing our shock at his ridiculous price he launched into a grandiose performance utilizing laminated maps and photographs that he kept pulling from various coat pockets. While I slowly ate the contents of the banana leaf package Danielle and Mr. Trei laughed uproariously at each others' counter offers until they reached a stand still.

We decided to leave in search of more food (you wouldn’t believe how much we eat on a daily basis). Not more than 10 minutes later Mr. Trei reappeared from nowhere, tapped Danielle on the shoulder and said happily, “OK, U.S. 21 dollar we both very happy.” She had wanted 20. They sealed the deal and the next morning we took the Mekong by storm on our little boat and saw the most remarkable sights yet.
The floating markets are hard to describe, as they appear from an outside perspective to be complete chaos. But this is true of most of Asia, at least what I have seen. My first impression of everything here is that there’s no order, no rules, no reason. But there’s clearly some order because everyone is busy getting things done from daybreak well into the night. Whether or not they’re getting things done efficiently is another matter, but that’s really beside the point.

Based on no factual information, just observation, the markets look like this: Tons of old wooden boats tethered together each piled with a different product, the pinaple boat, the dragon fruit boat, bananas, coconuts, etc. There are larger boats on which entire families live, their laundry hangs out to dry on the back of the boat, the family dog is tied to a pole on the roof, potted plants line the perimeter of the vessel. Each boat has its specialty item tied to a tall pole as advertising. Then there are smaller boats, mostly operated by women. Bad ass women, who row unbelievable amounts of fruits and vegetables between the larger boats and shore. Maybe this is where the term boat loads originated? These women stand up and row in their conical hats and little matching pajama like outfits. We loved them.

The whole thing seems to operate on a bartering system with the pineapple lady tossing 25 pineapples into the cabbage family's boat while the cabbage family tosses 40 cabbages into the jackfruit lady’s boat. All the while life is happening, people are squatting on the edge of their boats brushing their teeth, women are cooking on little stoves, babies are sleeping in hammocks.

It was fascinating. There were even floating cafes, lottery salesmen and clothing stres. We cruised through with our jaws dropped. Afterward our driver (not Mr. Trei but a small man with smiling eyes who spoke as much English as we spoke Vietnamese) took us on an unexpected adventure through the smallest canals and waterways.

The Vietnamese seem to not get the concept of explaining what’s coming next. We’ve been in so many situations where we’re just expected to blindly follow some guide and we have no clear idea where we’re headed or any indication of a time frame.


In this situation something like this would have been helpful: First you will see two floating markets, then you will be driven down a long and desolate series of canals where you will see no one, Vietnamese nor tourist. After one hour your driver will inexplicably pull over to the side of the canal beside a rice paddy and instruct you with hand motions to get out. This will entail balancing on a boat not much wider than a canoe and climbing a steep and slippery mud bank. There will be nothing around but rice paddies and banana trees. You will then follow your driver down a path and over a hand constructed “bridge”. This bridge will lean heavily to the left and will wobble tremendously instilling great fear in you. You will wonder how deep the muddy canal is beneath you. Your driver will laugh at you while you try to cross this bridge…

I could go on. Our tour lasted forever. It was great fun and fully worth the $21 and forced blind faith.

On our way into the deep unknown we passed a couple from Germany on a boat just like ours and their engine had failed. Their driver was paddling them somewhere and our driver and theirs had a heated conversation for approximately 5 minutes and then we bid them good luck. On our way back out of the deep unknown, after we had had an informative tour of a paddy field, a banana plantation and eaten lunch beside a strange waterway we passed them again. This time the German man was hunched over the engine trying to help the boat operator with his repairs and the girl was in the front near tears. They hadn’t made it to lunch and were desperate for rescue. We helped them into our little boat and headed back to town. This girl was my twin. So now our tiny boat made for 2 had 4 people, two of which were fair skinned, freckled, red haired, lanky girls and this made for some really good stares. We also found out that they had refused to get out of their boat when thier driver pulled up to the paddy field and that they had paid $36 for their tour which confirmed Danielle’s bargaining prowess and made us both happy (sadly, at their expense).