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You are here: Home / Archives for market

Photo: Transporting Cabbage

September 5, 2011 By Jillian

In Southern Vietnam, the Mekong Delta is a tangled web of waterways.  People, live work and travel on the water, it is literally the lifeblood of the delta.  We took a boat trip out to one of these floating markets, where every day shopkeepers, farmers, families and wholesalers come to sell their wares.  Sellers attach their produce to a large stick at the bow of their boat, a billboard of sorts for what they’re selling that day.  Most farmers come for a few days at a time in the hopes that they’ll sell it all before having to return home.

The river is alive with boats of all sizes bobbing back and forth, small motorboats and rowboats zipping between the cargo vessels, and even people poling from boat to boat.  The cacophony of a marketplace echoes across the river, the noise so loud you can hardly hear yourself think.   This is their supermarket.

Like so many other boats in the market, this boat was overladen with vegetables.  I hope no single family was subjected to that much cabbage.

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

Vietnamese Floating Market, Mekong Delta

If You Go: Two and three day Mekong Delta tours are easy and affordable and easy to book in Ho Chi Minh City. You can get around the region independently but it is time consuming. Be prepared for an onslaught of souvenir shops. Mekong Delta tours are a popular way to cross into Cambodia. If you do cross the border, you will have no choice but to pay a $1 stamping fee(bribe)to the immigration officials. Visas for Cambodia can be arranged at the border,but if you do the tour in reverse,you’ll need your Vietnamese visa in advance.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: market, river

Photo Tuesday: Spice of the Rock

October 12, 2010 By Jillian

We spent our afternoon in Jerusalem wandering through the market in the old city.  After spending several weeks in Arab speaking countries it was no surprise that we felt “at home” in the muslim market area.  Passing through a less touristy part of the old city market (not a souvenir in sight!) we stopped at a busy spice stall to marvel at the “spice of the rock” in front of us.  Made completely out of spices, although the shop keeper admits to a non-spice base and mosque, the creativity blew our minds.  I love the cashew on top.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: islam, israel, jerusalem, market, religion, spices, temple mount

Nairobi: A small series of unfortunate events….

April 14, 2010 By Jillian

After too few days in Lamu, we returned to Nairobi to drop Nikki off for her return to the US. Nairobi is the opposite of Lamu. Loud, chaotic and cosmopolitan we were immediately caught in the middle of the biggest city in East Africa. Awful traffic, drizzling weather and finding a place to stay well after dark, our initial impressions of Nairobi were awful. Nairobbery it’s often called, and on that first night we were on guard against everyone and everything.

Things are always better the next morning, especially in a city where there’s the opportunity for some retail therapy. You may remember in Zimbabwe we purchased some beautiful stone sculptures. Shipping them home, we were devastated to find out that not only had they broken but in fact they were “pulverized.” Unable to console ourselves, we’ve made it our mission to figure out how to get back to Zimbabwe on this trip and purchase more- suggestions are always welcome! In the mean time, we’ve looked for similar art everywhere and although it’s mostly copycat stuff made from soapstone here in East Africa, we took a chance and headed to the City Market in Nairobi to have a look around.

If you hate hard bargaining, stay away from this place. Seriously. It was a nightmare of pushy salesmen, vendors and hawkers who not only shouted at you, but also tried to physically pull you into their stores. Prices started at nearly 10 times a reasonable price and after just an hour we could hardly stand it anymore. Fortunately a year of practice has given us the ability to sniff out a fair deal and a genuine tradesman, so although it was a harrowing experience, we came out loaded with crafts, paintings and even a stone sculpture or two. Thankfully we had a very willing courier and a very large plastic duffel bag to transport everything safely home.

Feeling better about Nairobi and a series of small unfortunate events that have been plaguing us the last few weeks, we put Nikki on her plane and returned to the city. Only to find our room key missing. Astonishingly, this is the first time in more than a year of travel that we’ve lost a room key. Unable to find a working spare, we spent the night in another room and waiting to break in until the morning. The hostel people were wonderful about the key, and had a working spare made for us so we didn’t have to destroy anything to get to our toothbrushes. Twenty minutes later we realized that we had made a costly mistake in our travel planning- Ethiopia does not give visas at its land borders. Gathering our passports, we rushed to the Ethiopian embassy to try and get our visas processed before the weekend. Of course, they were closed for an extended weekend…until Tuesday which meant we’d have to wait at least five more days in Nairobbery.

It seems as though everyone comes through Nairobi, so although we were stuck for five days waiting for the embassy to open, we had plans nearly every day with other travelers, ex-pats, friends of friends and colleagues who happened to be in Nairobi the same time. It’s weird to realize that we’re nearly half way around the world and we know a bevy of people here. On top of that we have half decent internet here for the first time since leaving a continent with the word “America” in it and have enjoyed walking around town a bit.

The manager of the hostel we’re at told Danny that he’s been here for 23 years and that 10 years ago travelers like us were mugged on a daily basis. Now however, he hasn’t had a single mugging amongst his clientèle in the last 8 years. Maybe Nairobi is getting better after all.

Filed Under: Africa, Headline, Kenya Tagged With: cities, crafts, market, shopping, travel

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