What a great day! The weather cooperated - sunny skies and 37 degrees Celsius (about 98.6 degrees farenheit!!) and yes, I have a sunburn after all my precautions! We had an uneventful, but beautiful, 3-hour trip down to the Mekong Delta region of Vinh Long Province.
The Mekong Delta is considered to be the "rice bowl" of Vietnam! The rice grown in this area alone will feed all of Vietnam - with a surplus. Most of the fruits and vegetables eaten in the south and north, are grown in this area also. There are about 17 million people living in the Mekong Delta area - with farming (crops or fish) as the major industry. Every possible hectare is used for farming!
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| Going over the Mekong River. |
This is one of the many fields planted to sweet potatoes. The people hand harvest and under each of the tents you see, the women are grading (sorting) the sweet potatoes.
Felix had to go help! The workers are raking to expose the sweet potatoes for other workers to gather up into baskets. About 60 workers were at this location.
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| The heat is very intense yet these women bundle up to protect their skin! |
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| Felix and I are standing under the tent to keep the intensely, hot sun off! |
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| Our mode of transportation to each field. |
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| You can imagine how hot that helmet is!! |
We road off-road on motorbikes to get to the fields...and crossed a few irrigation canals....
The top two pictures show people "gleaning" using different methods, after harvesting. The farmers allow the poor people to come in and take what they need after the harvesting of each area is completed!
The Binh Tan District of Vinh Long Province was created only four years ago...the Binh Minh District was divided into two districts in 2008. Binh Tan is comprised of poorer farmers located mostly where the Mekong divides into two rivers..the upper and lower Mekong and because of this geographic location, their farms and businesses are subject to flooding.
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