Wholesale on the river

The Cai Rang floating market is the biggest floating market in Vietnam. The market is mostly for wholesale purposes. The traders go and buy fruit and vegetables from the farmers and then transport the good on their boat via the river to the market.

Once at the market they have to try and sell everything within a week before it goes bad. They sell minimum quality of 100kg in any transaction. Main land restaurants and shops will come and buy their fruits and vegetables here.

As our guide explained: "big boat seller, small boat buyer". He probably repeated this phrase a dozen times along with: "chicken on boat", "dog on boat" (some boats actually have chickens and dogs on the boat, for pets or to eat I guess), "on bamboo pole what they sell" (one can identify what each boat sales by what they hang on the bamboo poles on the front of the boat) and "family of 5 live on boat" (yeah they actually have whole families on those boats). All great information but as we are use to the US, Aus and Europe where the basically bombard you with information, this tour is quite different.

I can't even imagine this lifestyle!

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