Vietnam North to South – Day 17: Returning from Cần Thơ

We started the day very early, waking up at 4:30 because we were told that the Cai Rang floating market would die down soon after sunrise. We got to the river at around 5:15. The first sign that things were a little off was the sight of a cruise boat full of local tourists zooming past us. As the next few minutes unfolded, more and more cruise boats filled the river, and it became evident that the floating market had been completely hollowed out by overtourism. Instead of locals buying and selling goods on little peaceful boats, the heavily outnumbered salespeople steered their boats to the vessels full of tourists and cruised alongside them while offering fruits and breakfast foods.

Occasionally, we caught a few glimpses of authentic life on the river: a floating house with clothes drying in the front or a woman doing laundry in a boat. By and large, however, all experiences were commodified and geared towards the tourists. After eating a rather questionable breakfast of allegedly vegetarian noodles and a piece of pineapple, we returned to the hotel and packed our bags.

Since we had finished part of our agenda for today during our drive to Cần Thơ, our guide and driver helpfully came up with a few extra things to see. Knowing we are interested in the local religious culture and history, they took us to a few temples, the most interesting of which was the first: Bình Thủy Temple. Combining European and Asian influences, the nineteenth-century place of worship combines a pastel yellow façade and Greek-style columns with fully Chinese decorations and a Sinitic interior. One of the buildings honours the Tiger Deity, keeping two taxidermised specimens and several stuffed animals.

Across the river from Bình Thủy Temple stands the Buddhist Nam Nhã Pagoda, which has a similar fusionist style. The pagoda leads onto a street overlooking the river, with several steps leading directly down into the water. As we were approaching, we noticed a woman bring a bag with a giant live fish to the river, which she released into the water after making a short prayer. Such releases of animals back into the wild are commonly practiced in East Asia to gain spiritual merit, and it is quite common in Vietnam to see vendors selling birds for this purpose. Leaving the temple, we saw another woman approach with a whole bag of fish, some of which seemed more dead than alive.

Somewhat less interesting was the bombastic Trúc Lâm Phương Nam Zen Monastery with its replicas of other religious buildings around Vietnam. The complex was clearly a modern one, lacking a soul but abounding in tourists. On the way back to Saigon, we also stopped by another new temple with a massive buddha, but I did not catch its name and cannot find it on a map. From what I remember, it was somewhere around Vĩnh Long.

We returned to Saigon around three o’clock, which meant we still had an afternoon to kill before flying off on the 27^th. We journeyed up to the Thích Quảng Đức Monument, a statue honouring the monk who immolated himself in protest of President Diem’s crackdown on Buddhism. The monument creatively incorporates the image of fire while portraying the monk as stoically as he appears in the photographs. Behind him is a mural in bas relief portraying the scene, including Thích Quảng Đức’s car and a crowd of onlooking monks.

Our last stop of the day was the War Remnants Museum, which concentrates on the American War but also touches on the war of liberation against France. Some of the exhibits are particularly harrowing, especially those showing pictures of napalm victims and survivors. The museum does a good job of telling moving stories, such as those of lost journalists or tortured prisoners of war (including a man whose legs were progressively amputated by his captors in an effort to extract information). Outside the main building are multiple tanks and aircraft captured from the Americans, as well as a few replicas of jail cells used by the French and Americans to break the spirit of the resistance fighters.