A 5.30am start this morning - ouch! but it was definetly worth it, as we made our way for our 6.15am buffet breakfast. They had everything we could possibly have wanted; eggs done just the way you like them, british cereal, silk worm surprise, noodle dishes, rice dishes, a selection of fruit, bread and jam, pancakes, omlettes, fruit juices, tea, coffee; it really was a wonderful spread! After that enjoyment, which kept us full for hours, we went back to the hotel, where the other people on the trip were having very plain bread and jam!
My socks were still wet from the previous days rain, so I kept in my sandles for the day. We just took our day bags, and had to walk to the boat station where we went off to the floating market. It took a while to get there, and we had to transfer into two rowing boats, with about 13 people on each. Thankfully we were on the one that had slightly lacsidaisical health and safety, so we didn't have to wear the bright orange life jackets! We passed a couple of boats that were trying to sell to the tourists their selection of drinks. I was very tempted by one man, as he had a really gorgeous daughter who was around two years old. I managed to take a photo of her without giving into the temptation of buying a drink!
The rest of the sellers were on huge boats, and were trading with others on similarly huge boats, or on the land. They only sell in 10kg batches or greater, so obviously tourists aren't going to make good buyers. They seemed oblivious to our tourist boats going up and down, and were busy passing over from one ship to another their produce; potatoes, melons, pineapples... To make buyers jobs easier, they hang from their mast, a display of what it is they are selling, for example, a melon. It was quite nice for us to enter the bubble of the locals. We had a toilet break before coming back along the river, and it was at a temple. I wasn't that interested in the temple, the toilet was more appealing to me, although annoyingly it was a crouch toilet. Also there were some really beautiful flowers on the way, so Anja and I, and a few others took a greater interest in them!
On the way back along the floating market, there was a lady selling some small quantities of fruit; we were able to try some too, which was quite nice of her. Then, although we were feeling quite full still, we stopped at a larger boat, where a lady was sitting on the top selling fresh pineapples which she cut up for us. It was so much fun, and at only half a dollar, who can go wrong?! The pineapple was delicious, and as it still had it's stalk on it, we were able to eat it like one would an ice cream! It was quite a novelty! She cut it up in a very loving way with such care and attention to it.
We visited a rice factory, which wasn't working at the time, so it was looking just like a storage unit. We were taught about all the work that goes into producing rice; which is unbelievable; they have to hand plant each grain twice! And then 3-4 months later they are harvested and the tops cut off by hand, and then taken for processing. The soil is then prepared for the next lot of rice; which is in two or three stages; it is ploughed, and flattened, and fertilised; using some of the 'waste' materials from the previous rice stages. It really is a hard job. I'm not sure how much a rice farmer gets paid, but they only sell it for 5,000 dong a kg, or something ridiculously small ($0.25).
We were then given the choice of going to either a rice noodle making production place where we may or may not see something happening, depending if they were working that day or not; or the local market. Surprisingly enough, most people voted for the local market, so we had to go there. I thought it would be quite similar, if not identical to all the other local markets, but this one had a lot more animals in it. It was full of horrible smells, and dead animals that had just been plucked, or had been cut up into bits and pieces, with beaks, eyes, ears, snouts and other such limbs being identifiable. It was like something from a horror movie. There was a snake, that had been skinned, identifiable by the bit of skin left on it's tail, and the fatty deposits on display. There were some frogs, that had been tied together so they couldn't escape their fate, and some somehow headless, skinned frogs, that were still jumping around the place. I wasn't quite sure how they could be in such a way, still alive but without a head, but maybe it was just a result from being skinned that made they look so different. The most shocking things were the way they treated the fish. Still alive, after being left in a small bowl of water, they were taken out, and using some scissors, a girl cut off the fins, and tail, slit the poor fishes throat, and gutted the poor fish. To my horror, the fish, which had been thrashing about during all the above processes, remained alive, and was still able to jump out of the fish bowl, just to be put back in place by the girl. The poor animals. I can't imagine how much suffering they must have gone through, and to be still alive. If that hadn't killed them I'm not sure what does. It seemed worse than the stories told in the book about all the torture technicques used on Cambodian republicans by the Khmer Rouge.
The only thing to lighten up the depressing state of the market, was a really gorgeous little boy, who was taking an interest in me as I was taking the photos. I took a photo of him, and showed it to him, to which he giggled in a really cute way!! Sooo adorable!
Surprisingly enough, after that slightly horrifying ordeal, it was time for lunch. We were given two hours of freedom in the town, and told to be back at our hotel by 2pm. Annoyingly, the tour guide must have been getting a commission from some friends as he led us to a restaurant that waved us in madly and told us to go upstairs, before eventually we managed to get out of the tour guide the instructions about how long we had etc. We headed back along the street we had just walked, and back to the restaurant where I had enjoyed my dinner the night before. We drew a little diagram, describing that we wanted a medium pizza half with Anja's request on, and the other half fulfilling my requests, and then a picture of a glass with what kind of fruits we wanted mixing up in it to make a shake. The local waiter, who was probably the owner thought it was rather cute what we did, and showed it to some local boys, possibly his sons or grandsons, or possibly fellow workers in the restaurant. It entertained them for a bit anyway!
When the pizza arrived, it looked amazing! and tasted amazing too!
Afterwards, we wandered to a small market where I managed to get a 'same same but different' t-shirt for 35,000, and also a football style t-shirt which I thought would be nice and airy! We stocked up on snacks for the following legs of our journey before heading back to the hotel.
At the hotel, we hung around for a bit, waiting for the guides to return, before we had to say our goodbyes. We promised to keep in touch, especially as Anja could possibly come to the UK for a visit, and also we were both quite keen to cycle Land's End -John O Groats as it's a good way to see the UK.
Anja was driven back to Ho Chi Minh City by bus, something which she wasn't looking forward to. And at 3pm, when our tour guide finally arrived, we had to walk with all our gear to the boat station to get on the fast boat to Chau Doc. It was a very long journey, and the latter half was in pitch black! Making it pretty scary. Thankfully I managed to sleep for quite a bit of it. At 7.45pm, we arrived at our floating hotel. It was surprisingly stable, although I felt a bit scared as it looked like something out of the horror movies where people get killed off one by one in a deserted hotel, according to their room numbers. I had some dinner and chatted to some of the french people, and the dashing photographer who liked to surf. Dinner was quite nice, rice and vegetables! before heading to bed.
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