Floating veg, snake wine and a sobering memorial.. (more than 50km, less than 90km)
After crashing into bed last night at 10.10pm (late night!), we were up very early at 5.45am, ready to leave the hotel to vist the floating market of Cai Rai. The market is the biggest floating market in Vietnam and was fascinating, colourful and bustling with hoards of rickety wooden boats selling great big piles of fruit and vegetables. As we puttered through the market, little refreshment boats would pull up beside us and offer us drinks and refreshments – very cool! I had a hot, sweet coffee from one boat and it was delicious! We also stopped later on in the trip for some fresh pineapple, eaten whilst sitting on the roof of our tourist boat, looking across the whole market in front of us. With the market boats, you could tell what they were selling as they hang a sample from a pole in front of the boat – very simple and very effective!! We spent about an hour bobbing around the market taking lots of pics before heading back to Cai Rang, docking, having a final look round another small covered market before then jumping on to our bikes and heading off. Today’s ride was taking us through the province of Can Tho and Long Xuyen – another area full of verdant rice paddies, water palms and banana plants. Riding along the river, we’d only cycled for about ten mins before we stopped – this time to see firsthand the production of the ubiqituous rice noodles. It’s like every day is pancake day!! They take the rice grains, grind them up and mix them with water into a gloopy opaque white paste, before ladling the mixture out onto a round hotplate to form a very thin pancake. This is then covered for a couple of mins by a conical lid, before being hoiked out onto a large long rectangular bamboo mat to cool. When the mat is covered full with the fresh pancakes, its then taken out to dry in the sun where, once dry, it’s fed through a machine which chops it into the different size noodles (rather like a pasta maker). I now know the full history, from field to plate of the rice noodle!

After about 10mins we got back on the bike and rode again – the next time stopping to see a man with some snakes and terrapins in a bucket. The reason for the snakes is to make snake wine- basically snakes steeped in alcohol for at least a year. The snake wine made from cobras is the most highly prized of all, reputed to make you very strong – however, you’ve got to leave it for at least a year or it will kill you! So, of course, I had to try some and – I’m pleased to say – a) I’m still here so it was obviously aged correctly and b) it wasn’t as disgusting as you might think. Certainly more palatable than the tapeworm sushi I “enjoyed” in Saigon! After that plus a light spot of terrapin racing, it was time to get a bit of distance in (we’re supposed to bike 90km today – eek!) and we cycled through some beautiful countryside again. For the most part, the roads were really good, making for a more relaxing ride than yesterday, although there was one part where it was very rocky (a new road was being put in) which was quite hard work on the hands and shoulders. I think, all in all, I’m actually holding up pretty well – the legs are fine although thank God for Vaseline!

After about 30m, we reached our rest stop, where the bikes were loaded on to the van ready for the 1hr transfer to the killing fields of Ba Chuc where the Khmer Rouge massacred 3,000 Vietnamese in 1978. It was a pretty sobering visit, so we didn’t stay long – enough, though, to see the memorial built with the thousands of skulls and human bones recovered from the killing fields plus an extremely disturbing exhibit of some of the gruesome photos taken at the time.

After stopping for lunch, it was time to hop back on the bikes and start to cycle the remaining 56km to Chau Doc. I was feeling pretty knackered today, so I did about 30km then hopped on the bus to rest whilst the others slogged away. I met up with the rest of the group at the base of Sam mountain, the top of which afforded stunning panoramic views of the local countryside. I chose to walk up the steps to the top – the more adventurous souls rode up by bike. Am glad I did as there was a beautiful monastery at the top – took my tripod up and tried to get some decent sunset pictures. There was also this rather bizarre cave with giant snakes (and live bats!) inside, leading to another shrine of the Buddha, so I’ll have to ask and find out what that was all about! On arriving at the hotel and meeting up with the rest of the group, I was very glad I’d chosen to walk up – the hill was EXTREMELY steep and, even though I’m sure the views were magnificent, there’s no way I’dve wanted to have been coming down that in the dark!! So, another good day – now its time to relax, recharge a little and shower before dinner!