When things got out of Hand

We arrived in Can Tho two hours too early—at around 4 am with almost no sleep and the brain activity of overcooked noodles. We took a Grab to Ms Ha Homestay, and even though it was insanely early, we knocked on the door just to try our luck. To our surprise, the woman actually opened up. Without skipping a beat, she asked if we wanted to visit the local floating markets.
We agreed—because we were already awake, and honestly didn’t have a clue what else to do at 5:30 a.m. So off we went, just the two of us and Ms Ha, on a tiny motorboat down on of the Rivers of the Mekong.
Now, Ms Ha is a very cool old lady. But wow—she’s persistent. She INSISTED on taking dozens of pictures of us in every imaginable pose. I’m pretty sure she usually gets the Instagram influencer crowd who live for this stuff. Jasper and I? Not so much. Half the time we were cringing like crazy, and the other half we were laughing so hard we almost fell overboard.
We visited the local market and actually helped her with her weekly shopping. And not like, one or two things—she went full-on grocery mode. It was really cool tho walking around with a local, seeing how people shop, what they buy. She kept buying food for us, and by 8 a.m. we were already three meals deep and in a slight food coma.
Then she brought us to a place where they produce rice noodles. I even got to help out, which was fun! Jasper, however, had to watch from the dry zone because his super slippery sliders were NOT made for wet floors.
We also saw how soy sprouts are grown and walked past some local families. And then, because apparently this is just a thing you can do, Ms Ha walked into a house, picked up a baby, yes, a real human baby, and handed it to me. Just like that. For the next 20 minutes, I was walking around holding this tiny, squishy, silent bundle, sweating and desperately hoping it wouldn’t cry or spontaneously decide to yeet itself out of my arms. But honestly? It was also kind of cute and wholesome. That said, I was definitely relieved when she took it back.
Eventually we returned via boat, completely destroyed by the day. We collapsed for a two-hour nap that felt like five minutes. We also realized our average sleep per night is about 5 hours and 30 minutes, and that every third night we basically sleep like garbage, either on a bus, or by waking up stupidly early for something "fun."
After the nap we forced ourselves to walk around the city, even though we were still so tired we felt like someone had punched us in the stomachs and then played drums on our heads. The city itself? Honestly? Not really giving... anything. Seeing the Mekong was nice, we finally got to see the sunset from a rooftop bar, and we had a solid, gluten-free-safe dinner.
The actual highlight of the day: at the night market, we got T-shirts printed with photos from our trip. Possibly the most touristy thing we've done so far—and we loved it.
Then we fell into bed and prayed to every god that we'd sleep forever.
Well. Guess who’s awake at 6 a.m. again?Baca lagi