As we headed down south along the Mekong River, we stopped a few places to see how people live and work in the river communities in Vietnam.

We first stopped at Tan Chau.  They had to build up the banks because the Mekong is washing away many towns in Vietnam.

It certainly is challenging for many as the river floods ever year during the rainy season…and many homes become essentially fish traps until the dry season comes back around.

It was interesting to ride a rickshaw around the town and see everyone putting their rice out in front in the morning to dry out…

I am not sure about the cooked rice on the street though…

And we stopped at checked out a silk factory. It was fascinating to see these 100 year old machines (looms) running away to produce silk fabric in bulk sheets.

We also stopped and saw how another family worked on weaving straw mats. It was mind numbing to see how tedious this work was and how many in the community desired this work to just have some income.

We also visited an “island” community in the middle of the Mekong Delta.  This is one example of a traditional “home”.

Many in the community raised, chickens, ducks, cows and even snails and eels.  No thanks on the latter.

The people are definitely very poor and the average worker only makes $150 a month. We brought one family a soccer ball for our gratitude for enabling us to visit them. We were told than less than 40% of the children in these villages will ever graduate high school. Many families just do not see the value of education.