Since rivers are the main way of transportation, ferries and boats are very popular for traveling and transporting. Gradually, people gathered together at one or some certain places on the river to sell fruits mostly picked from their own gardens. Then they made business by selling foods, goods which had been brought from other places.

What to see and do

A floating market usually starts at 4 or 5 in the morning before dawn and ends when the sun rises high at 9 or 10am. Fruits and vegetables such as pineapple, dragon fruit, water melon, yam, and cabbage are the dominant goods at these floating market. Besides, you can also find garden tools, crafts and Vietnamese breakfast like rice noodle “Bun” or “Hu Tieu”. It is very interesting to try to manage the chopstick and soup bowl while paddling along the river.

Another noticeable feature of the floating market is “Cay Beo”. This is a small pillar which is put in front of every boat. What can be bought from the boat will be hung on the small pillar as a notice sign. Of course they cannot hang on a bowl of noodle; therefore, if you want to eat, you should look for the smoke and the delicious smell.
Nowadays, in Can Tho City, you can visit floating market by a boat tour from Ninh Kieu dock. Usually it takes 5 hours to finish visiting 2 nearest floating markets and for most foreigners; these 5 hours are really worthwhile!

For tourists who travel to Can Tho, metropolis of the south-west, it would be regretful if they could not drop by and purchase something in Cai Rang (6km from Can Tho city), one of the most famous and biggest floating markets in the Mekong Delta.

Colorful market:

From Cai Rang Bridge, the market stretches half kilometre downstream Can Tho River. Hundreds of boats gathering here from the dawn till before noon makes the area extraordinary animated and the water surface colorful with numerous tropical fruits. The large sized anchored boats create meandering lanes for smaller ones to weave through. All create a bustling and joyful atmosphere that can attract any tourist.

Most of the boats here are packed with a lot of farm products and specialties of Cai Rang Town, Chau Thanh district and the nearby areas like vegetables, coconut, banana, watermelon, grapefruit, dragon fruit and so on. Small boats that sell soft drinks, wine and food for breakfast go among the others to serve market-goers and visitors. Other services and products like mending machine, selling gasoline, mobile card, clothes, cosmetic, spicy, etc all are available here, not different from what are sold in common markets on land.

Trading from boats brings excitement to buyers when catching some sample of products that are thrown by sellers from other boats. While shopping on boat, one can also enjoy fresh fruits and see floating house of the locals along the riverside.

Unique advertising tool:

In this bustling floating market, the cries of the sellers seem to be swallowed in the vastness of the river and lost into the noise of boat engines. The disadvantaged condition turns out to facilitate the birth of an unique advertising tool: pole of sample goods.

Every boat has a long upright pole with samples of the goods for sale hung on, so the sellers do not have to cry out what they are selling and buyers can easily see from the distance the goods sold on that boat. Just look up and ones can know exactly which boat selling the products they are seeking for.

Tips:

To catch the liveliest scenery and enjoy the most animated atmosphere of Cai Rang market (often 6 am to 8 am), travelers should stay overnight in Can Tho and come here at the dawn, about 5 a.m.

After enjoying local breakfast and watching the sun rising, one can charter either a motorized boat or a non motorized one to begin a morning shopping in floating market. The area where most of boats for charter are located is along Vo Tanh road. The fee is charged differently based on the kind of chartered boat.

Source: VNA

Can Tho is the fourth largest city in Vietnam, and the largest city in the Mekong Delta, and it is famous for its floating markets with everyday trading, rice paper-making village and picturesque rural canals. There are many things that you may need to remember when traveling here:

How to get there?

Can Tho is connected to the rest of the country by National Route 1A and Can Tho International Airport. The city’s bridge, which is now completed, is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Southeast Asia. Transportation is mainly by waterways, there is also bus stop that is about 2km to the northwest, along Nguyen Trai road. When traveling by your own motorbike, try not to forget your vehicle papers, personal licenses, and run properly within the traffic rules.

When to go?

All the season! However, if you come in the summertime, you will get to sample a wide range of delicious fruit. On the occasion of the full moon in February and April (in lunar calendar), there will be two biggest festivals in Can Tho, which will be held in Binh Thuy: Thuong Dien and Ha Dien festival.

What to eat?

The floating markets of Can Tho, Cai Rang and Phong Dien floating market, are all has long time reputation for its many local products especially tropical fruits like pomelo, longan, jackfruit, mango, durian, and some of which you might have never seen before. There are small boats offering all kinds of snacks and local soups from which you can get your early breakfast. Other than that, try to taste many kinds of cake and noodles that are also famous here such as “Banh Cong” – a Can Tho traditional pie cake made from a mixture of green beans, little shrimp and minced pork, which is steamed and then deep fried in a flour dough; “Nem Nuong” – a healthy street food with pork BBQ rolled up in rice paper with rice noodles, lettuce, thin banana slices, Asian basil, mint, coriander, fresh herbs and leaves…

Where to discover?

Traveling to Can Tho is a fun and educational experiences. Other than floating all day in the markets, you can come to pagoda, temples, riverside, Can Tho quay, Ho Chi Minh Statue, churches, find some spots to eat out, taste Vietnamese coffee, enjoy local ways of life and even have a chance to learn the history of the city during French colonial times through visiting Can Tho’s old prison.

Located in Thot Not district, the sanctuary got its name as in the past, the road to the sanctuary had been planted with many Bang Lang or Queen’s Flower trees. Although there are not many of the trees along the road now, local people and visitors still call it “Bang Lang Stork Sanctuary”.

The area was once rice fields surrounded by bamboo trees, nipa, tamarind and calophyllus. Storks have resided there since 1983. Nguyen Ngoc Thuyen, owner of the sanctuary, and his children then planted more kinds of trees to make a home for the birds. Nine years later, the storks began setting up their nests in the area.

“In the past, we did not care whether the storks stayed or left. However, more and more have come to live here,” said Thuyen. “I told my children that ‘birds nest on good land’ and asked them to protect them. Thanks to the sanctuary, my children and grandchildren have a chance to learn about birds like crows and storks,” he added.

Storks often gather in large numbers between the ninth and twelfth month of the lunar calendar. Over the past three decades, many trees in the sanctuary have died as storks overcrowd them.

Thuyen estimates that more than 300,000 storks of nearly 20 varieties reside in his sanctuary. According to him, a stork lays eggs four times each year and it takes six months for a chick to mature.

When a young bird falls down from its nest, Thuyen brings it home and feed it until it becomes mature. Because the sanctuary is very large and accommodates thousands of nests, if the chick is not returned to its right place, it will be pecked to death by the mother stork in the nest.

According to Thuyen, not all of the storks live in the sanctuary at the same time. Two months after the eggs hatch, mother storks and their young will leave to make room for others.

Visitors can see the storks from a distance or from a bird’s eye-view as storks are sensitive to strangers. However, they consider Thuyen and his family as friends and they are the only persons who can enter the sanctuary.

The sanctuary has attracted many domestic and foreign tourists, who have interesting experiences with different kinds of storks.

Nguyen Ngoc Thuong, a tourist from Ho Chi Minh City, said her family often visits the sanctuary during holidays to relax. Moreover, her children will have a chance to understand more about storks that they previously saw in books.

Marc Jorsgense, a US tourist, said he has visited many bird sanctuaries. However, no place is like this as it gathers many types of storks.

Seeing storks flying in the evening, visitors will drift back to their childhood and mother’s lullabies and the image of storks.

VNA/VOV.VN