Mekong Day 3 - New Years in Can Tho 🇻🇳🏍

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New Years Eve in Can Tho.

Taking a day off from travelling, I decided on staying here in Can Tho for another day. As it’s a decent size city and they were putting on a fireworks display to welcome the new year, who doesn't like a firework display!

One thing Can Tho is famous for, is the floating market. A traditional market that sells everything from lotto tickets to fresh fruit, veg, flowers, food, drinks and a floating coffee shop! People make a day trip from Saigon to Can Tho just for the market!

Early rise for the floating market


Booking a boat the previous evening was easy, the hotel arranged the trip for 320k VND ($14), I had a wake-up call for 5.30. This was the best time apparently to see the market.

I was the only one to board the boat which was nice as I was still sleeping haha. It wasn't long, and I was soon wide awake! as the driver powered down the river in the darkness, the cold fresh air soon woke me up! As we sailed down the river, we passed by other tourists doing the same thing.

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I wasn’t t sure how long I’d have to travel before getting to the market.

As you sail down the river, there are many photo opportunities, so I was kept busy. So many homes on the banks of the river. One thing that I just can't get over is the amount of plastic rubbish piled up on the shoreline and at the back of the houses. I watched a woman throw a full plastic bag straight into the river! I just don't get this! I don't know if it's a lack of education or there is not a good system in place to remover the trash from peoples homes.

About 30-40mins into the journey, I started to see a bit of commerce on the river, the first was a guy slowly floating along selling lotto tickets. Then a woman with a boat full of bright yellow flowers.

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And that was about it, other than a floating souvenir shop that had about 4-5 tourist boats parked up. The driver asked if I wanted to go in. I said no, as I was expecting something a little different, like the photos I'd seen in the past with 100's of boats floating around.

I'd made a schoolboy error 🤫


It was Tet holiday, the only days of the year people will take time off work. I chose that day 😂

The driver then turned to me, said something in Vietnamese. I got the jist of what he meant. Let's go back!

That was it, over! I just laughed. Nothing I could do, just another travel story haha.

I since told a friend about my boat trip, and she is from Can Tho. She burst out laughing when I told her like I was some kinda idiot 😂

Lesson learned. Tet shut downs everything!

It always works out!


Like everything, with the bad comes the good. So getting up mega early, well at least 5.30 is early for me! Has its benefits. Getting off the boat I had two options. Go back to the hotel, get some rest bla bla bla. OR go for a wander!

I chose the wander, camera in hand I started to walk around and get a much better feel for the street life in Can Tho. It was different from the night before. So much quieter, no tourists on the street, no massive crowds taking selfies with flowers, just people going about their day. Buying fresh food, drinking coffee and doing final preparations for Tet.

Here is a selection of some street photos that morning.

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New Years Eve Celebrations


It appears my hotel was a good choice as it was only a few minutes walk from the fireworks location.

I had stayed in the hotel until around 9.30pm before leaving. I thought I could maybe grab a drink or just see what was happening.

To my surprise, the street was soooo busy. With many people making there way to the riverside.

Here are some photos of the area before the celebrations.

I found a cafe that was on the banks of the river, prime position for the fireworks. They were charging 150k VND ($6.50) that included a drink and snack. I sat down with my smoothie and chips and waited. I'm not gonna lie, it was boring sitting there on my own. I wished I had waited or met up with others.

Finally, the time came for the fireworks. I don't think I've experienced a longer display! It went on for almost 20 minutes! Impressive all the same ☺️

Afterwards, everyone started making there way home. I waited a little bit for the crowd to die down, but there were 100's of thousands of people!

Walking through the crowd, I was hit! Some clown drove his bike into the back of my heel! Turning around I gave him some choice words and quickly calmed down. He had four people on the bike including children. I was lucky no real damage was done. Just a bit sore, so I shrugged it off and got back to my hotel.

Another day passed and into a New Year. Tomorrow I will share my trip to Ha Tien from Can Tho.

Until the next time, enjoy the journey!

Keep it real
Derek

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Dang, I thought I had commented on this already. I had to take this post over to busy.org to see the images in full screen. Top notch photos, as usual! The candid photos of the people are my favorite, I can almost hear and smell the streets.

I’ve had that happen too. Normally over on Busy it hangs for me. Thanks for the compliments, I love taking candid photos. Shows the real Vietnam I know and love.

Very well street photography here by @derekcowan I just liked all of the photography here.

Hope Next time more nice photo you will post on your blog

Those are some great shots Derek.
These are my top 3 favorites.
#3
#2
#1

These really show life.

Thanks mate, those are some of my favs too.

this is my No.1 though!

How do you travel? By your motorbike? :)

Yeah by motorbike 🏍. Saigon to Ha Tien

That sounds interesting!

Lessons learnt hahaha holidays, even the vendors need holidays! Still you got to wander around and take some lovely photos. Good on you, Derek! Also, well constructed post. Really liked it. Need to look into doing some GIF videos like you did with the boat trip :)

Yeah, I wasn’t thinking haha. Really enjoyed taking photos here thanks. I’m out and about, but I’ll send a link later to the site I used to convert. Or you can just google mp4 to gif. I’ll be using them more in future posts, I feel it adds a bit more realism to the post without faffin about with creating videos.

Cool we'll have a look around, but when you have the time send over the link. It would be nice to try it out on one of our future posts. We've been busy over the weekend with the wedding, but it feels like ages since we wrote a post on Steemit. Back at it tomorrow :)

https://ezgif.com/video-to-gif there ya go :)
Ahhhh how did the wedding go??? I know what you mean, I felt like a stranger posting today! Back to normal this week, so looking forward to writing a post a day. Slowly catching up on everyone's​ posts.

Thank you Derek for the link!

The wedding was absolutely amazing, maybe some hiccups with the rain that came in unexpectedly therefore an outside wedding arrangement had to come inside, which was quite a tight arrangement and delayed the wedding somewhat. Yet, you can't plan for these things and have to make due with what you have. Still beautiful wedding!
Yesterday was a write-off for doing anything involving too much thinking. ;)

Lessons learnt hahaha holidays, even the vendors need holidays! Still you got to wander around and take some lovely photos. Good on you, Derek! Also, well constructed post. Really liked it. Need to look into doing some GIF videos like you did with the boat trip thanks for sharing such beautiful picture

Thanks but this looks familiar 🤔 Is there a glitch in the matrix or did you copy and paste @travelling-two reply.

Maybe just maybe...we think alike, but we very much doubt it. Nice try @sharolyn and well spotted Derek.

Yeah, I was like... I'm sure I've read this already haha

You have great photos.I like this photo, Can Tho looks ancient like Hanoi old town so!

Thanks @thor1122 I like this too, so much going on in the shot, typical Vietnam.

yes, You make me proud to be Vietnamese. Vietnam has many interesting things waiting for you!

It's a beautiful country, with amazing people.

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Great Post Here. I hope you win Photo Contest if you take chance