A trip in a small boat to the floating markets of Cai Rang on the Mekong Delta was to provide the setting for the next of our adventures in fruit (WOOP! Just realised what I have just written – how cool this trip is!!) .

These markets are incredible. The river was buzzing with life. Hundreds of boats gather piled high with produce from pumpkins and cucumbers to star apples and jackfruit. Each boat has a pole with a sample of the boat’s wares tied up high so it can be seen from afar. We spent some time drifting wide eyed through the boats.

We hired a guide to come with us so we could ask any questions as we were bobbing along. He told us a lot of the people lived on the boats. As we looked we noticed some were set up barge stylee with pot plants and deck chairs.

I’m sure it’s not all quite the jolly boating holiday though. These people have little money and live very simple lives. To me on a visit this traditional way of life that has gone on for hundreds of years seems like a beautiful treasure to cling on to. But it is impossible to know how the people themselves think and feel about it. What might their aspirations be? How happy are they? It would be incredible to be able to spend some real time with the people talking about their lives. But for now we had to make do with floating along with our romantic ideas and Nikon camera.

We stopped off along the way to visit a rice noodle “factory”. This small family run establishment was housed in a coconut leaf roofed barn in a little village by the river. 4 people were working at the various stages of production. Rice powder was mixed with flour and water into a batter that was spread on large heated disks like a crepe. This was peeled of laid out on racks and took outside to dry in the sun. Once dry something like an over sized pasta maker was used to cut the disks into thin strips.

In an amazing use of resources the disk cooking the rice batter was heated by a fire of burning rice husks. The ash from the fire was kept and put back into the land to be used as a fertiliser to grow food. Any “waste” from this process was fed to the pigs who lived in the barn next door.

Further down the river we stopped at an orchard which grew a jumbled mix of fruit trees. Mango, jackfruit, star apple, rose apple, pineapple, coconuts, water coconuts, papaya, bananas, lemons, oranges, limes, lotus flowers all grew together in an area we walked round of about an acre.

As you can imagine the fruit we tasted from the trees was some of the freshest, most amazingly sweet and ripe fruit I’d ever experienced. The jackfruit was a new one on us. I think we’d eaten it before (maybe cooked?) but it was completely different to the fresh version. This huge fruit grows in abundance on trees through out the area. It can sprout from any part of the tree and a tree laden with hundreds of these gigantic monsters (which can weigh up to 36kg!) is quite a sight!

The flesh inside is unlike anything else I have tasted. Yellow fleshy segments are separated from pips and a fibrous inside. They have a mild taste and an almost chewy texture. The flavour? Well I suppose it is just like a jackfruit. Hard to describe. The cooked jackfruit tasted like chicken, this fresh fruit tasted like erm… maybe like a drier version of a mango or pineapple.

Lets hope the roads here don’t “improve” too quickly. Once the way to transport things quickly up and down the whole country is paved the supermarket chains will swoop and all this will be gone. There is a Co-op Mart down the road from where we stayed, we went in for a look around. They were selling cereals and packaged fruit, like they do in Tesco. People were going mad for it.