Can Tho

Dawn on the Mekong smells of diesel, durian and caramelised pork. The produce boats are already jostling, bows piled with pineapple, watermelon and dragon fruit, while a woman steers with her foot and ladles hu tieu from a pot balanced on a charcoal stove. The broth is dangerously hot. The transaction takes fifteen seconds.

Can Tho is the Mekong Delta's largest city and the base for Cai Rang, the region's storied floating wholesale market, working the Hau River since early last century. Vendors still hoist a sample of their cargo on a tall bẹo pole at the bow so buyers can read a boat from a distance; the trade is quieter than in its heyday — roads have taken much of it — but the dawn water still fills with fruit boats and breakfast sellers before thinning by mid-morning. Beyond the market, narrow canals thread coconut palms, orchards and stilt houses; the delta grows roughly half of Vietnam's rice; and river-island homestays offer orchard cycling, net fishing and dinners in wooden houses built over the water.