Cai Rang Land Market, Mekong Delta

After we had been through the floating markets a couple of times, we pulled up alongside the land market. Kim, our host then guided us through the markets, explaining things as we went and purchasing foods for us to try.

Kim explained that these pre-prepared salad items were to help the women be good house wives. 

Mia was horrified by these frogs still moving, even though they were skinless and headless.

So many kinds of rice. 

Dried Fish

After a break at the shack, we went on our cycle tour of the local village. Because a/we were cycling and b/ it rained quite a lot, we have very few photos of the cycle tour.

We stopped at the local doctor. This is the herb cabinet where the remedies come from. The doctor piles up big trays of herbs and bark etc and then bags it up for you, you boil everything in a large amount of water for 24 hours then drink the water. A typical treatment is a number of days, so going to the doctor means quite the parcel of medicines to take home with you.

We visited the local Buddist pagoda, it is one of the few pagodas run by women. They are also an orphanage. It's very disgraceful in Vietnam to get pregnant outside of wedlock, so orphanages are common. At this pagoda, each child in the orphanage has a "mother" who is one of the monks. The children are incredibly lucky to get the one on one upbringing they do, pagodas are apparently no longer allowed to take in orphans which is sad. While we were at the pagoda, the heavens opened and we stayed about an hour waiting for the torrential rain, hail, thunder and lightening to stop. 

We visited the local rice factory, quite the eye opener, I'll never not wash my rice again!  Our other stop was the village school, although it was closed for the summer holidays we saw a lot of children on our cycle trip as they were all playing at home.

After the cycle trip, I came down with my first dose of travel belly so I confined myself to the room for most of the evening. Richard took a ride into Can Tho for some supplies.