Exploring the byways of the Mekong

Cycling adventures mean early mornings, get the riding in whilst it's not too hot.

So it does mean I get to see the sun rise.  The stillness at this time is quite magical.

But soon it's time to be busy, work in the organic veg garden outside my cottage is in full swing by the time I walk to breakfast.

Love the shadow play on huge stralitzia leaves this morning.

Today we went round in circles....from the hotel the bikes were piled on board a boat and we set off into the Mekong.

A big problem is the water hyacinth which despite being harvested, still clogs the water ways,

So we switch to a much smaller craft, and for the authentic experience, with traditional paddle power,

so it was quiet wandering through the smaller byways and mangrove forests.

Under little bridges, I've been over a fair few of these already.

The smaller canals were much busier than now, but they're still used for local travel and taking goods to market.

All the dwellings which line the canals have a boat or two tied up.

The banks are strengthened with wooden stakes or less attractively plastic bags stacked high with sand.  Here, as in many other parts of the world, plastic bags and bottles are a huge environment problem.

Time to rejoin the larger boat and thank the local lady

Like most women she makes sure she's covered up, 33C and she has gloves on, full length sleeves and trousers and socks - look, even special ones for wearing with flipflops! Why? Well they want to keep their skin white as it's more desirable.

Out on the main river there's many craft, large and small plying their trade.

Nothing is wasted, this boat is piled high with rice husk.  Off to be made into brickets to burn for cooking fuel.  We see many boats piled with the stuff, but then the Vietnamese do eat a lot of rice!

Most dwellings extend into the river on long stilts.

Further down stream we see the floating wholesale market again.

See what's tied on the mast? These boats have tapioca for sale,

and someone has stocked up on pineapples ready to sell at the market.

Even in ramshackle boats there's still a sense of beauty to be found in the colours and faded paint work.

This lady has a good sense of balance, even if she has to hold onto her hat...

perhaps she's in a hurry to get to the fruit stall.  This boat was piled high with coconuts, pineapples, Jack fruits and plenty more.

Bambo is widely used in construction and here freshly cut poles are kept in water so they don't dry out.

Looking at these stilts it's a wonder how they manage to support the buildings !  But this is where we get off and go exploring on the bikes.

First stop is a small covered market area.  This lady is busy batch baking tapioca and coconut waffles to be packaged up ready for the market. Wafer thin they had a delicate flavour.

Her little grandson wasn't so sure about this woman dressed so strangely, despite encouragement from grandad. However once I showed him his photograph he was all smiles!

As a child did you every have multi coloured sweet popped rice, it used to come in huge cellophane cones?  Now I know how it's made, but no weird colours here, just sugar syrup and nuts to bind it all together.  Over tiny cups of green tea we got to sample some, with preserved ginger  slices and peanut brittle.  Oh boy that was addictive ...

This is the wooden mould that is used to shape the brittle and guide the knife as it is cut into pieces for sale.

See what's being used as fuel? Rice husks, light as a feather but burns very well.

Next stop, coconut candy making.  All done by hand, that guy is so fast with the huge knife chopping the canes into precise squares that even 3 women working non-stop can wrap them fast enough.  Fancy doing that all day, every day?  No I didn't think you would.  Better study hard at school then!

I love a bit of rust, but  I think Tan is a bit surprised when I stop to photograph 

everything vaguely ramshackled.

Still these school children are really happy to shout hello and wave to me as they cross the river on the way home from school.

Although I felt huge when asked by these High School girls to pose for a photograph.  Apparently my white skin, blue eyes and long ( that 'Shaw' nose!!) nose are all very attractive and desirable features.  Well, there you go!

I never like to miss a market opportunity.  This one was quite crowded, so we pushed the bikes along which made taking photographs tricky, but as you can see, not impossible.

Last stop to visit an ' Ancient House', this one was well over a 100 years old and is one of the oldest in the Mekong having belonged to the same family for 6 generations.  We had tea and tropical fruits in a shady courtyard.

Whilst this little fellow tormented his mum and kept hiding under my chair.

Along side of the byways you see neat lines of kindling and coconut husks drying in the sun, ready for fuelling the cooking stove.

It was really hot by the time we reached the hotel again, so I was glad of a cooling swim as the sun went down.  Tiny birds / bats? Skimmed across the pool surface hunting for their dinner, so at that point I decided it was time to leave them to it.  As I walked back to my cottage a slither of a new moon could just be seen rising into the night sky.