You can just never do too much by boat. There is no such thing as boating around is for sure the most chill form of transportion. Especially when travelling around in areas where there is almost more water life going on than land life, boating is just the place to be.
If you ask me, it beats traffic any time and is just one big chill out session. Especially when boating at weird times of day, and when willing to learn,...there is just a lot to see.
As I was on my way early in the morning at the break of dawn heading towards the floating market in the Can Tho region in Vietnam, for me it was just super early. For others on the other hand, this was already the natural start of day time. And I get it. It just becomes super hot in the day time in Southern Vietnam, so it really makes sense to do more in the early mornings.
As I was boating on in one of the canals, there was this fisherman on a small boat with just a gigantic net trying to catch his food for the day, or maybe even to sell it on the market. Who knows.
Looks cool right! What a sight to pass by!
Greens in the water
One of the things that I had not realized of these waters is where all of the greens come from in the river. Initially I thought it was all garbage, but when I looked closer, I was able to see all of these vegetations floating by in groups, getting bigger and bigger the further you get more downstream.
These are actually plants that travel the whole Mekong rivers (and its small side canals) downstream and grow along the way. Origination in China even these bushes have a long travel.
They have a more thick part on the lower end of the bush which contains air inside and that makes the bush float, but it has an entire rootsystem just hanging in the water with it.
You are able to eat parts of this plant when you stir fry it good. I guess if you are fond of this there is a crazy amount of free food floating in the river then. So much that it is sometimes even difficult to pass these floating plant patches.
Maybe eating more of them would be a good idea even?
So eventually these plants end up in the seas as the river ends up in the sea and they break down because of the salt water coming in. That is why you never see these kinds of patches in the sea, but only close to the shore line.
Living amongst the river
You do see a fair amount of houses next to these canals where people also live. The majority of these houses is built on poles which half stand in the river. I initially thought this was because of the tide changing, which also has something to do with it.
But most of all it has something to do with that you only have to pay property tax over the house over the part that is connected to land. So most people want to have the smallest part of the house connected to land and most of the part hanging over the river, because then it is for free. Cheeky!
And ofcourse that is also the perfect place to store the boat aka prime transport!!
Nowadays there are also a lot of roads in this region, although the quaility of them is not always the best and when the river gets high and flooding is here (which happens a lot) that means the roads are blocked and water is the prime water road again.
(What I did notice...was the amount of trash of the river which totally sucks. Also boating by a lot of peoples houses you could just see that people were literally actively tossing their garbage into the river like it was the most normal thing in the world. I guess here it is....no bueno)
The tide is high
As mentioned before, there is a tremendous tide in these canals and river going on. As in..when the tide in the ocean goes up, water in the rivers heads back inland again. And then when the tide in the ocean drops again, water is actively being sucked out of the rivers towards the sea making the current fast and the water levels low.
Here on the picture you can see all of these roots sticking out of the water which when I had passed by there before, you weren't able to see any of this.
Nice one crashing in the boat into when the water is starting to drop and the bottom touches these roots. Oopsie!
Taking everything together, just boating around in this region was actually a really nice thing to do. And even though it was raining nearly the entire time, that doesn't even matter because the temperatures are so high. Hypothermia is not a thing is this region haha.
Nature is the big winner in this region. Everything grows to good because of the presence of the river which is ofcourse used a lot. But also these natural vegetations alongside of the river...That is something that I could just look at any given day.
How different the landscape is when the road is a watercourse, hehe. I like how you described what you were discovering on the way, it really happens that paying attention to our surroundings presents us wonders. How good to pay only for the piece of house stuck to the ground haha, although I liked the ugly part of the waste in the river much less... Thank you for discovering this place for us.
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It's really really cool, what a beautiful view ❤️
Wow, these are some really interesting pictures.
Wow!
What a fantastic journey you're taking us on!
Beautiful post!