Market

Fresher than fresh herbs and greens

Last night I was invited to go to the morning market with Tai's mother.  I am not proud to say it but I think that in all of the times I have lived or traveled in Asia I have rarely woken up at 6:00am to go to these markets.  It is a sin that I have remedied this morning when I visited the Cay Thi market near the house of Tai's family.  As Tai's mother and I walked up quiet side streets and saw families starting their days I realized that these were scenes that I have sadly missed out on.  As we turned the corner you could see the top of the street which plainly looked like chaos.

River Crabs

Dried shrimp

This picture does not do justice to the chaos

Chinese Sausage

Fried Pork

Fresh Tofu

These pictures will not do justice to the cacophony of sounds, smells that encountered.  This is serious business.  These market scenes play out every morning in Southeast Asia and are almost entirely left to the woman.  These pics give you just a bit of a taste of what this place was like.  I think that many of the woman really get a kick out of a foreigner man who is so interested in food.  As our society embraces the man in the kitchen that work here is still divided.  In addition when a male is photographing vegetables and tofu they really think your strange and laugh a lot at you.  Thankfully I have had a lot of practice.  The market should be the first thing you go to when you touch down.   These markets offer an unadulterated look at Vietnamese society and how much better they eat then the rest of us.  I'll leave you with some of these photos.  In the next day or two I am going to try and find some of the places that I ate at when I first came to this wonderful city in 2006, a city I only scratched the surface of.