Market Tour Sa Đéc, Vietnam
We boarded the Aqua Mekong (more on that in another post, coming coon) and started cruising along the Mekong River. Our first expedition - of sorts, because is it an expedition when it’s made extremely comfortable by cold lemongrass towels when you start sweating? - was to a market in Sa Đéc, a small town famous mostly because “The Lovers House” or Huynh Thuy Le Ancient House is there, it’s a historic site with a love story that is pretty awkward to retell in 2019, but anyway, we were there for the market.
Chef David Thompson, a Michelin Starred Chef with James Beard accolades, is the Executive Chef of the Aqua Mekong, was onboard with us so we were treated to a tour of the market with David as our guide. This means I got to ask an acclaimed chef (famous for his Thai restaurants, but very familiar with the regional fruits and vegetables as a result of this Aqua Expeditions project) ten million questions. And boy did I take advantage. I didn’t scare David away because we became friends throughout the course of the trip, eating our meals together and talking politics.
So, here’s what surprised me the most about this market: it did not smell. Like, at all. And as you’ll see, it was predominantly a fish market.
I felt like that needed to be in bigger letters for emphasis.
The market was extremely clean. It’s a market where people come from around the area to shop, so there is a lot of turnover, but nonetheless as we walked by women sitting on the floor, squatting and on tiny stools, cleaning shrimp and cutting up frogs, it did not smell.
