The South of Vietnam is known for its agriculture because of its connection with the Mekong river. The river is the big flow through of how it can be used to provide for its land when the rain is not reaching it.
The agricultural parts of the land provide trading and business ofcourse. Originally this selling of the products coming from the land was done by boats on the rivers. Nowadays with better general infrastructure the selling of the products is also done over land since roads and trucks are making eveything a lot easier.
Ofcourse you have the local smaller markets on the water, but there is also a market known for their whole sale of their products by bulk.
This is one of the last floating markets in Vietnam that is actually still functional and not only there for tourism.
Welcome to the Cai Rang floating market!
This market has been here for years and again it is used to buy and sell in bulk. This is done merchants from the land selling to for for instance small supermarkets.
Mostly every boat only sells only 1 product. You can see what kind of product this is because it is showcased on a stick in the front of the boat which rises high above the water.
This boat for instance sells a sort of veggie. The minimum to buy of it was 20 kilograms.
This other boat for instance was only selling pineapples. Yummy!! The scent coming this boat was so sweet and I would have loved it to be able to just buy a pineapple from there. But yeah...20 kgs...nehhhh
Ow yeah. Most of the merchants actually live of their boats as well. That also means that these boats are also decorated most of the times and also have all kinds of living stuff on there.
What about having some chicken on board on the boat? Doesn’t that feel like home? I also saw a boat yhst was having live fish swimming through the boat through the river as well. Kind of weird but actually not crazy at all.
These boats are often decorated with eyes on the front to show the public which they are going but also for prosperity and to drive the bad spirits away.
Cool paintings right!
Since the merchants live on their boats, they sometimes also need to buy some stuff themselves. I guess this is a little bit for the tourists as well though, but okay fine.
The floating market is only in mornings. That means that this Pho soup was a decent breakfast.it was made on the boat by 1 dude in the tinyest of kitchens as you can see.
I'm really a big fan of soup in the morning and especially since it was rainy and a bit cold this was just a really decent breakfast.
I really have to invest some time to learn how to make this myself. Good stock is essential as well as good herbs. Or is it the setting on a boat that makes it taste so good?
The floating market was something cool to once see. You can see that the market has had its glorious years already and is shrinking by the year since the modernisation has set in.
I wonder how many years it will still be functional or entirely turn into something just for tourists...
