why shop on land when you can do it on water?

A couple days ago we woke up super early, like 4:30 early, to get to Can Tho in time to see the floating market. This market is in the middle of the Mekong River and is only open in the morning when everyone is buying their food for the day. I don't really understand the reasons behind the floating market, it doesn't seem very logical to me. That probably would have been a good question to ask but who's brain is properly functioning that early in the morning? We didn't actually buy anything but just floated through looking at all the produce. It was so cool– vendors selling drinks would just motor on up to the side of our boat and bug us, just like they do in a regular market.

Some vendors

All those boats are vendors.

People were mainly selling fruits and veggies.

Yummy watermelon!

He is selling ca phe su da & ca phe den da

yummy fruit!

more fruit (qua in Vietnamese, see I am learning!)

little baby vendors trying to sell us bananas. "Hello bananas!" That is what they said.

After going to the market we went to a rice noodle factory. They produce 600 kg of rice paper every day. Then they turn the rice paper into rice noodles. There were lots of puppies running around the place which makes me question how hygienic the whole operation is and what the food processing policies are like in Vietnam. Obviously not strict.

Lots and lots of rice paper

When we finished our boat tour, it was only 10:00 and we had already been up and at it for basically 6 hours. So none of us were really excited about our class at the University of Can Tho in the city of Can Tho. Lucky for us, this class was basically music class. People were playing instruments and singing. Even this wasn't enough to keep me focused and at one point I began writing a letter to a special someone in France (bonjour Jess). During my letter writing the professor who was lecturing began playing a recorder type instrument. It sounded very nice. About a minute into it my friend tapped me, motioning for me to look up. Glad I did since he was playing it with his nose. Yup, he just had the recorded placed in one of his nostrils and was blowing away. It was unbelievable. What a great class.

Just a typical class with Co Thanh breaking out into song.