February 15, 2015
Today’s focus was on the lifestyle of people in the Mekong Delta area. Sa Dec is a quaint agricultural and industrial trading town [about 100,000 people], in the central part of the Mekong Delta. We visited two markets – the first was on the riverbank. All goods are delivered to vendors [mostly street vendors with assigned space] by boat. It’s a crazy, bustling scene, as we dodge scooters, carts, and customers. We were told to move along at a brisk pace, past the vendors – no loitering. The vendors get upset if real buyers get blocked from seeing and buying their goods. It didn’t seem to discourage the walking souvenir vendors, from hawking books, T-Shirts, visors, hats, sunglasses, and cut-out cards – $1 each – too much? Ok, TWO for $1. They were very tenacious. At each of our tour stops, we began to recognize the same set of vendors. It seems they knew our schedule. As soon as we board the van, bus, or boat, they jump on their scooters and head to our next stop, ready to resume their hard sell….OK, THREE for $1.
Town market
Very busy market
Seafood
Rat
All varieties of rice
Anything you want is available. Most of the seafood is live, since they don’t have ice to keep it cold. When you buy a fish, they will kill it, clean it, and cut it the way you want. You want rat? It’s here. Want snake? It’s here. Want a freshly plucked duck? It’s here. You want dog? Nope – no dogs….this part of the region does not eat doggies.
Snakehead fish
Taking a lunch break
Produce being delivered
Sa Dec is also the place where the French writer Marguerite Duras lived and fell in love with a Chinese man in 1928. The man’s family could not accept this mixed race relationship, so they were not permitted to marry. She wrote a novel about the affair – The Lover. A movie based on this book was released last year – it probably doesn’t measure up to Fifty Shades of Gray, but may still be interesting.
“Lovers” house
This afternoon we boarded a local boat for Cai Be to see the floating market where buyers maneuver their boats thru hundreds of other boats, selling whatever they produced. All transactions are conducted on water. A seller hoists whatever he’s trying to sell, up on a long pole near the front of his boat. If you’re looking for watermelon, just look for boats that display a watermelon on their pole. The shopper motors over next to the seller and negotiates the price, the sale is completed, and the shopper moves on, looking for the next thing on his shopping list.
Making Rice Crackers
Cobra Venom Sake
Next we walked to a rice paper mill, a coconut candy shop, popped rice [similar to our popcorn], and most importantly a sake brewery. We all had a taste of this rice based wine – delicious. This is all pretty mild. The unique variation is to produce an aged, medicinal concoction that supposedly is a cure-all for bundle of different ailments. It may also be used as an alternative for Viagra. They claim to have supporting evidence. When the men have a party night, drink a lot of this brew and get drunk, magically their spouses deliver a baby nine months later. Therefore, they say, it works. HOWEVER, the real interesting thing about this concoction is the list of ingredients: Start out with a very large jar of sake, then take a live cobra snake, tightly squeeze the tail-half of the snake, then immediately drop it into the sake. The snake then spits out its venom into the sake. The snake drowns. All sort of herbs are added. The jar is sealed [with the snake in it] and aged for 1-2 years. Then it’s ready. I tasted a sake cup of this brew. It tasted like sake with herbs. I don’t know yet if it cured any of my ailments. I’ll just have to wait until my next physical.
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