We cruised to My Tho on the northern arm of the Mekong. After transferring to a small barge (maybe 30 feet long and 9 feet wide? With a motor, chairs, life vests and a driver) we traveled down the canals to the city. A small bus met us at the docking point and we traveled to the Vinh Trang Pagoda – a Buddhist pagoda. Surrounded by enormous statues of the Buddha, the pagoda itself is beautiful and we followed Thuyen, our Road Scholar tour leader, through the temple and grounds hearing about Buddhism and the architecture.
Off to the Cai Dai temple next. Perhaps you’ve never heard of the Cai Dai religion? I hadn’t either. It is a mixture to be sure! Buddha, Lao Tze, Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Confucius, Sun Yat Sen and, oddly, Victor Hugo and Shakespeare are important figures, even saints. The founders cherry-picked the best parts of all these religions and wordsmithery and made a new one – there are levels to be attained and many followers here.
Next stop, a small, family rice noodle factory – not an olfactory treat due to giant vats of fermenting rice starch, but the results are chewy and delicious.
Afternoon took us through a floating market, again on the small barge. This market is just a collection of boats and is for locals, not tourists. Each boat ties a bit of whatever it has for sale to a long pole or mast and sets it up as its advertising. We saw rice, bananas, cocoanuts, something like sweet potatoes.
Our little barge continued on a much smaller canal, past schools, houses, and finally to a plant nursery – filled with exotic (to us, anyway – a coconut palm isn’t unusual here!) plants and trees. We had a chance to try some fruits and lotus seed tea.
Today’s last stop was a brick/pottery kiln, also a family business. The fuel is almost all rice husks – which are of course easily available here! After returning to the Toam Tuev, we cruised to our overnight anchorage (mid-river)
journeys 