Cần Thơ
— — the river that opens before sunrise.
Not only on a wall.
“The largest city in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, set along the Hau, the southern branch of the Mekong as it nears the South China Sea. Just before dawn, boats gather at Cai Rang for the floating market: pineapples on long poles, bowls of bun rieu passed boat to boat. The fruit barges leave before the heat.
Cần Thơ, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Cần Thơ is the largest city in the Mekong Delta and a directly-controlled municipality of Vietnam, with a metropolitan population around one and a half million. It sits on the south bank of the Hau River, the principal southern branch of the Mekong, about one hundred and seventy kilometres downstream from Ho Chi Minh City. The Cần Thơ Bridge, opened in 2010, links the city to Vĩnh Long Province across the river; the Cần Thơ International Airport handles regional flights and some seasonal international routes from the eastern edge of town.
The Hau, locally Sông Hậu, is one of two main distributaries of the Mekong in Vietnam, carrying roughly half of the river's flow toward the South China Sea. The water runs warm and sediment-heavy, the colour of weak tea after the monsoon. Cần Thơ's network of arroyos and canals, navigable by sampan, threads through orchards of rambutan, longan, and durian on either bank. The Cai Rang floating market, a few kilometres downstream of the city wharf, has worked the river since the early twentieth century, though daily traffic has thinned in recent years.
Boat tours to Cai Rang leave from the Ninh Kieu wharf between four and five in the morning to reach the market before traffic peaks at sunrise. A private sampan costs roughly four hundred thousand dong for two passengers; shared group boats run cheaper per seat. The day market in central Cần Thơ runs from early morning, and the riverside walk along Hai Bà Trưng is lit through the evening. Most international visitors connect by road from Ho Chi Minh City; the drive takes about four hours by car or sleeper bus.