Today we go by local boat to the shore of the village Tan Chau. We each climb onto a bicycle rickshaw for a ride to a silk weaving workshop. The rickshaw is fun, the road is busy busy and narrow children come from the houses to say hello or call out from the back of their parents motor bike. Our first stop is to see the silk thread being woven into fabric using these huge antiquated looms. They are powered by electricity but can also operate manually in the case of a power blackout. After hearing about the process we walk through the house of the family to the workshop out the back. There are no less than 10 machines operating at once and the noise is deafening. The workers don't wear any protective ear plugs because they rely on the sound of the machine to know that it is working properly and up until now no one has been identified with a hearing problem! There is shopping time in the sales area and it's all very cheap but we are yet to make a purchase.
Back on our rickshaws we go for another 10 minutes to a grass weaving workshop. Once again it's attached to a house. The Vietnamese people don't sleep on mattresses as its too hot. They sleep either on a hammock or these woven grass mats on the floor. The mats are made of reeds that are grown in the river. The reeds are stripped to individual strands and dried in the sun. There are the natural colour ones but also red and green. The reeds once dried are boiled in a solution of colour and water for up to an hour and then rinsed and dried in the sun again. The looms for weaving the mats appear quite complicated but as much as the weaving is mechanical, the feeding of the reeds into the machine and creating the pattern is very manual.
Once the mat is woven it is put through a big press to flatten it, then the edges are trimmed with a bid guillotine and machine edged with a binding.
These are mostly family run businesses, the workers are extended family members or neighbors.
We walk through a dirt path past some houses all built on stilts because in a month or so the river will flood and where we walk today will be underwater and the men will be fishing through the floor of the house. Past the rice paddies and back to the river, our local boat is waiting for us and we take a short ride to a floating fish farm. The colour of the water of the Mekong is simply brown. The fish are bred in wire nets attached to the bottom of the house and they are fed commercially purchased pellets. Tinh our guide throws in some pellets and a few fish surface after awhile to feed. There are pink ones he says are perch and there are Basa and carp all of which they export.
While we are there one of the fishermen dives in the water with just a breathing hose to 'check the nets'. It has to all be done by feel as the visibility would not be great down there.
On our way back to our boat we pass many of these floating houses and fish farms. There are adults, children and dogs all living on the water and from our observations, not much sanitation!
Back on the boat we have a refreshing dip in the pool on the sun deck before going down for lunch.
The food on board is always freshly prepared and the variety and range is amazing. Main course today is Ostrich with rice and a Vietnamese sauce. It didn't taste like chicken in fact it was not like poultry at all. It was a dark meat and very tender. There is always a variety of different salads, a choice of soups an 'action station' where the chef prepares and dishes up a traditional dish and then of course there is dessert and fruit.
After a bit of free time for a rest or snooze we have an information session with our local guide about Viet Nam followed by tastings of local fruits, all but one was nice and I had not tasted before.
Dinner tonight is at 7pm as usual and then we are to watch a movie that relates to the town we will be in tomorrow.
The movie called The Lover was written by and about Marguerite Duras a French girl who had an affair with a rich Chinese man. We are all given a DVD to watch in our cabins due to some of the risque content????