Life on the floating market

At five in the morning, the river at Cai Rang is already crowded. Wooden boats lie side by side, each with a long pole standing up from the deck. Hanging from the pole are the things for sale: a pineapple, a sweet potato, a bunch of dragon fruit. Buyers can see what a boat sells from far away, so nobody needs to shout.

Nguyen Thi Lan, sixty-one, has sold fruit here since she was a teenager. Her boat is also her home. She sleeps on it, cooks on it and keeps her cat there. "My mother did this, and her mother too," she says, pouring tea from a small kettle. "When I was young, you could hardly cross the river without touching another boat."

Today the river is quieter. Better roads and new bridges mean that farmers can take their fruit to the city by truck. Wholesale buyers go straight to the farms, and many shoppers prefer supermarkets and delivery apps. Several of Lan's neighbours have sold their boats and found jobs in factories on land. Tourists have helped, but they can't replace the old trade.

Tourism is a mixed blessing. Visitors pay to take a boat trip at sunrise, and some sellers now earn more from coffee and noodles than from fruit. Lan doesn't mind the cameras. What she dislikes is that few customers buy a whole sack of pineapples any more, which used to be her main income. "Tourists buy one slice," she laughs. "It's fun, but you can't feed a family on slices."

Local officials say they want to protect the market, and there are plans to promote it as part of the region's heritage. Lan has heard such promises before. She isn't waiting for them. Her grandson has set up a social media page and takes orders for fruit boxes, which she packs on the boat.

By nine o'clock the buyers have gone, and the river is calmer. Lan ties her boat to a post and sits down to rest. Her future is uncertain, but she doesn't talk about giving up. "As long as there's a river," she says, "there'll be someone who wants to buy from a boat."