Notes on the Geography of Vietnam: HCMC to Cantho

Field trip! Starting in Ho Chi Minh City, we'll head out to Can Tho, in the middle of the Mekong Delta.

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HCMC traffic.

HCMC outskirts.

Bridge.

Stop! Pay toll.

Alternatively, go shop.

"If you lived here, you'd be home now."

Behold the future.

An alternative paradise.

You can breathe now.

What on earth? It's a Cao Dai or "High Place" church at Tien Giang. The church was founded in Vietnam in 1926.

Countryside must be close at hand.

Park the car and follow the path.

Carefully prepared fields; bananas in the background; no shortage of water.

House.

Cheaper model.

Cemetery.

Stand aside.

On the road again: bridge over the Mekong.

Over the railing.

Lane discipline? What's that?

So much for bridges. It's time for a ferry.

Plenty of traffic.

The river is congested.

So are some of the passengers.

You can't hear the ferry horn, so imagine the ferry pilot cursing this hotshot.

Trouble for ferrymen: a cable-stayed bridge under construction.

Can Tho (or Cantho), fronting on a branch of the river.

Waterfront street.

Lots of new construction.

Street market.

Seafood in abundance.

Fruit, too.

Not much evidence of the French regime, but here's a bit.

And another.

This, too.

Maybe this qualifies if you consider the instruments and teh clothes. The sign in the bell says Clarinet and Drum Club, hired here to escort a funeral cortege.

A clean break with the past.

Modern retail has arrived, too, with this Can Tho shopping center.

Check-out heaven.

Top-shelf whiskey.

We've headed to the edge of town, where the land meets the water and where people live in between.

A barge loaded with brick is unloaded the hard way.

Transshipment.

A building site.

Street scene.

Pedestrian bridge.

First glimpse of open land.

Back in town. Was it what you expected to see?