Tan Chau

Thursday was in Tan Chau, which was out last stop before we crossed the border. we toured around partly by boat, partly on foot, and partyly by rickshaw!

A lot of fishing in this area. The Mekong is a vital part of the economy to six countries.

Some of the local boats are damn small. Luckily the crocodiles are now all upstream.

Some of the houses actually float on the river..

This is a fish farm. Incredibly they have around 35,000 fish in this 4 metre deep tank. You feel sorry for the fish. It seems to be the fish equivalent of what Auckland will be like under Len’s long-term plan of housing intensification!

The economics behind the fish farming are interesting. You have to pay the Government to fish on the river, but if you grow an farm your own fish, then there is no tax on it. So hence you get fish farms.

The river can rise two metres at different times of year, so they have to build high enough not to flood.

A local out in his boat.

This kid was running beside the boat as we drew up.

And he happily took the tour sign away from our guide, and became our guide for the next half hour!

A local female villager carrying crops.

A local farmer spraying the ground to prepare it.

The kids from the local school. We were visiting a village of around 500 people. Vietnamese kids are incredibly friendly, and chatty. They especially like doing high fives. I may have corrupted them though as they saw me check in on Four Square on my iPhone and were all excited it showed a map of their area. They all had a play with it, and when they got music to play (Bill Haley), they all wanted one!

Instead what we gave them were pens, pads and rulers for their school. They were pretty happy about that.

This woman crossed the river up to her head, carrying some goods across. Shudder.

While this guy bathed in it. You can see the soap.

We then visited a factory where they first dye the weaves.

Then the machine interleaves them.

And this is what gets produced. They manually decide the colours and patterns, so many different designs.

Finally we travelled by Rickshaw. Was an experience but not overly comfortable. But faster than walking!