Vietnam Day 3 – a relaxing day in Can Tho

Tuesday 25th October 2022

Apparently the Vietnamese like to eat lunch early, around 11-11.30am. So we followed suit, and met K and Alice at Bánh Canh Xưa for an early lunch. That gave us a bit of time in the morning to plan our next stop, Ho Chi Minh, and then have a leisurely walk to the restaurant.

Bánh Canh Xưa is one of these places that basically does one dish, but does it well. In this case, either porridge or a noodle soup. There were a few variations, but we went for the one that includes everything – crab, shrimp, some deep fried porky things, quail egg, and possibly some other delectable ingredients I’ve since forgotten – and picked the noodle soup option. It was delicious, slightly sweet but also slightly spicy.

After lunch, Alice had to leave for work. Pete, K, and I went across the road to Vincom Plaza, a very modern, fancy shopping centre, to top up our water supplies and get Pete some very fetching superman sandals. Pete had only bought trainers with him, and we’d since found out they weren’t the most suitable footwear for Can Tho, a city that floods for about 4 hours each morning and about 4 hours each evening!

K took us for a walk over the Ninh Kieu pedestrian bridge, also known as the Love Bridge, an S-shaped bridge with some lotus flower shaped embellishments.

On the other side of the bridge, we walked along the waterfront until we reached mini beach. Apparently this is usually an actual beach, but as we’re in wet season and the tide was high, it was completely flooded with the water reaching right up to the terraced seating area. We had a couple of drinks here, while enjoying the views out over the river.

K has lessons starting at 5pm, so needed to leave us to go and get ready for work. Pete and I walked back into town, and had a quick look into the Canton Assembly Hall of Can Tho, a Chinese Taoist temple.

By this time the water was rising for the afternoon floods. We took a very convoluted route back to our hostel, to avoid having to wade through water along the way.

We’d had quite a filling lunch, and were also very much missing cooking, so decided to buy some fresh bread and eggs on our way back (the cooking facilities at the hostel were quite limited). We also picked up a couple of cold beers, then continued on our way.

We’d almost made it to the hostel avoiding wet feet, however the road that it’s on was completely underwater. Pete was very glad of his earlier plastic sandals purchase, and changed footwear at the side of the road. A very lovely lady offered me some green plastic flip flops to borrow. My sandals would’ve been ok, but they do have some fabric bits, so I took her up on the offer.

Back at the hostel, we had our scrambled eggs Bahn mi and beer, then to bed early – tomorrow we get picked up for our tour at 5am!