Can Tho, Vietnam – As daybreak breaks over Can Tho, the town’s river is crammed with the roaring engines of tour boats.
Within the distance, conventional picket houseboats emerge by means of the dim mild because the Cai Rang Floating Market comes into view.
Cai Rang, and different markets prefer it, had been as soon as among the many most recognisable cultural icons of southern Vietnam, with a historical past courting again to the early twentieth Century.
Earlier than the event of roads and bridges, the myriad waterways of the delta area had been the first technique of commerce and transport, resulting in the event of floating markets the place channels converged.
However over the past 20 years, the markets have dwindled in measurement in tandem with Vietnam’s fast financial growth – first step by step, then immediately – and solely two of the area’s 10 main markets retain any vital presence.
“After I first visited [Cai Rang] market in 2011, it was a lot bigger,” Linh, an area information, advised Al Jazeera.
“Now it’s a couple of third of that measurement,” stated Linh, who led each day excursions to the market up till a number of years in the past.
Immediately, Cai Rang contains about 200 vessels, fewer than half as many as throughout its peak within the Nineties.
Close by Phong Dien market has shrunk to fewer than a dozen boats and has largely disappeared from vacationer itineraries.
Cai Be, a once-thriving market in neighbouring Ben Tre province, is amongst people who have vanished fully, closing for good in 2021.
Traditionally the most important of the delta’s markets, Cai Rang nonetheless resembles a decent-sized meeting of boats – a minimum of from afar.
On nearer inspection, the market seems extra sparse. These days, tour boats make up a good portion of the site visitors on the water.
Nonetheless, the market features a lot because it all the time has, as sampans are loaded up with produce from bigger “wholesalers”, which is then introduced again to markets on land.
For a lot of sellers, the boats double as houses.
Day by day life is on full show because the boat dwellers wash dishes with water from the river, cook dinner meals over small stoves, or calm down in hammocks – usually with kids and pet canines in tow.
But behind the photogenic attraction, anxieties linger.
“Enterprise just isn’t good,” Phuc, who works on the market promoting pineapples to vacationers, advised Al Jazeera.
Typically she sells simply 10 pineapples a day at 20,000 Vietnamese dong ($0.78) every.
“Solely within the excessive season is it attainable to make sufficient cash. The remainder of the time, we’re barely surviving.”
Till two years in the past, Phuc and her husband labored as wholesalers promoting yams.
Each week for the earlier 25 years, they’d journey to Lengthy An province, close to Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, to restock their boat – a course of that took a number of days there and again.
However as highway infrastructure has improved within the final decade, land-based commerce has grow to be quicker and more cost effective, supplanting the necessity for river-based commerce.
“The one individuals who proceed to work listed below are those that can’t afford to purchase a van or a giant automobile [to deliver produce],” her husband, Thanh, advised Al Jazeera.
Tuyen, who works as a wholesaler promoting onions, garlic and candy potatoes, can also be downbeat.
“Ten years in the past, I used to earn good cash doing this, however now it’s simply sufficient to get by,” she advised Al Jazeera, whereas getting ready a breakfast of fish soup on her boat. “Every little thing is tougher now.”
Tuyen stated the COVID-19 pandemic was a turning level, after which many sellers, unable to make ends meet, switched to engaged on land.
Requested why she didn’t be part of them, she pointed to the rental charges for a market spot – about 5 million Vietnamese dong ($195).
On the boat, she has no lease to pay.
“I’d want to remain on land – it’s extra snug and handy – however I don’t have the cash,” she stated.
Whereas improved roads are sometimes cited as the rationale for the markets’ decline, different elements have performed an element.
Many smaller markets have struggled to recuperate from momentary closures through the pandemic, as well being and security rules prompted a shift to land-based markets.
Poor planning has additional exacerbated the scenario.
To deal with the annual flooding of the Mekong Delta, the authorities have lately constructed flood prevention partitions alongside the banks of the Can Tho river, one in every of its many waterways.
Whereas these partitions have helped scale back flooding and erosion, the absence of piers has made it tougher for river-based commerce to proceed.
Broader cultural shifts additionally solid a cloud over the way forward for the floating market.
As Vietnam modernises, youthful generations are turning their backs on their dad and mom’ commerce, looking for higher training and profession alternatives.
“My daughter doesn’t need to work right here,” Phuc stated. “She prefers to work on her personal phrases for an organization and put money into shares. She’s not like us – she doesn’t like this life.”
Although distributors might fear concerning the future, Cai Rang’s survival seems to be of little consequence to the typical resident of the close by metropolis of Can Tho.
Lately, most individuals store in supermarkets and procuring malls and have little motive to go to Cai Rang.
“For me, it’s nothing particular,” a resort receptionist, who has visited the market solely as soon as, advised Al Jazeera, asking to not be named.
But tourism contributes roughly 6 % to the town’s economic system, with Cai Rang Floating Market the principle draw.
In 2017, the town welcomed 7.5 million vacationers, in keeping with official figures.
Whereas arrivals hit 5.9 million in 2023 after dropping off to virtually nothing through the pandemic, the numbers stay considerably beneath their peak.
A lot of that is because of the penalties of the pandemic and a diminished variety of flights from different components of Vietnam, in keeping with Son Ca Huynh, who runs a tour firm in Can Tho.
If the floating market ought to shut, efforts to revive tourism are prone to grow to be tougher nonetheless.
Huynh, who’s branching out into cooking lessons and off-the-beaten-track canal boat excursions, stated efforts to protect the market might deal with its attraction to vacationers, citing the floating markets of Bangkok for example, slightly than its business perform.
“On the Bangkok markets, they promote many various issues,” Huynh advised Al Jazeera. “Right here, we promote largely fruit and greens.”
However to take action, she stated, the federal government would want to do extra to encourage merchants to remain, together with setting up new piers for offloading items and serving to them elevate their earnings – which she believes is unlikely given the associated fee concerned.
In any case, Huynh stated, the market would lose its authenticity and its cultural worth.
“In my thoughts, it might not be the identical,” she stated.
By 8am, the day’s commerce has ended at Cai Rang.
The solar has risen excessive above the palm-lined riverbanks, and distributors are enjoyable on their houseboats. However Linh, the tour information, doubts the serenity will final and expects Cai Rang to shut inside a number of years.
“Then I’ll must search for a brand new job,” she stated.
