Mekong Delta, Can Tho, 9/11 - 9/13

(9/11) After an afternoon briefing and lecture on the changing class system in Vietnam, we departed for Can Tho, deep in the Mekong Delta. Our trip included a stop for dinner at the Vietnamese equivalent of a rest stop, and a ferry crossing of the west branch of the Mekong.


On Friday morning, our first stop was at the Hoa An Research Center. Dr. Ni gave us a good briefing on the goals and projects of the center. Here is is showing us artificial logs for burning made out of rice husks. To the right you can see baskets of shredded water hyacinths, which they are composting and using for raising earth worms. They are also making enough methane from pig waste to power the center. When the pigs are big enough, they are sold to help support the center. The center works with local farmers to promote organic crop production. It remains to be seen if many of the ideas will be adopted by the agricultural industry of Vietnam, as the center is not government supported, and there are other uses for some of the raw materials. Water hyacinths are dried and used to make baskets, and rice husks are used as a fuel in other industries, as you will see later.

The picture to the left shows another good project undertaken by the center. Much of this area was defoliated and bombed during the American conflict. Here you see a stand of Eucalyptus used as an initial cover for damaged land. Later other trees and plants will be added to rejuvenate the biodiversity of the forest.

We had lunch at the center, then bussed back to Can Tho (about an hour) for a walking tour of the city.

We visited two Buddhist temples on the way. The first was a Chinese temple, and had this interesting statue of Buddha in the entrance that is used as a donation receptacle. Notice the hole where his belly button should be.

The second was a Khmer temple, which showed a marked Cambodian influence. Our guide took a group picture of us on the top steps. The tour ended up at the downtown supermarket, which is the biggest I have seen in Vietnam, and very westernized. I thought it was a strange place to finish up, but the students thought it was great, and several did some shopping.


Early Saturday morning we boarded boats to visit the floating market in Cai Rang, the largest in the Delta.

Below is a picture of our CET assistant in Ho Chi Minh City, Phat, taken in route to the market. He did an excellent job for us for the three weeks of our stay there, and will meet us in Hanoi for a few days to brief the new CET assistant up there, Ngoc.

Since so much of the transportation in the Delta is by boat on the canals and waterways, it makes prefect sense that they would have a floating market place. Once we got to the market, there were all sorts of vendors, including small boats acting as convenience stores for the market boats, or refreshment stands for the tourists. Children are often used to entice the tourists, but the adults pedal to the locals.

Boats are often rafted together, and a sample of the goods available is hung on the staff to let others know. Many of the families live on the boats, thus you see kids and dogs running around, as well as the occasional rooster, and clothes drying on the back.

The picture below gives you some idea of how big the market was. It went back probably 30 boat depths.

Some of the local vendors used much smaller boats.

The front of our boat was a good place to take pictures from, and a good place to get pictures taken of you!




After a thorough tour of the market, we returned to the north side of the river where we met our bus. It had already crossed on the ferry.

My next posting will discuss the rest of our Mekong Delta trip.