There’s something about a wander around a market that’s very appealing and back home we take part in some great food & craft markets, so even though it was only a small part of our day in Lantau, one of the Hong Kong islands, I really enjoyed the walk round the local market

Dried or so fresh they are still swimming all your fish needs were covered

And everything was pretty much prepared on site from net to plate

There’s obviously not the same food hygiene controls as home as it was fine to sell your fish on the ground

And the kumquats dried in the sun

This guy was fixing bikes at the back, selling decorated shells at the front of his tiny stall, I had to laugh as propped among the shells was a find us on Facebook sign!

They say you can buy pretty much anything in Hong Kong so if you need some Rickshaws here’s your man!

And even at night, after a sail on a traditional Junk and a light show we were still able to shop, I bought a little wire bicycle from this guy for Keith

Stanley was one of the prettiest towns we visited and there was a good market there as well, more your usual bags, clothes, souvenirs type stalls, one chap complained that just a few years ago there had been lots of great men’s tailors & good silk ties, these had disappeared but we were soon to learn Hoi An in Vietnam was the new tailoring capital of the Far East

In Hoi An some of the market stalls came to us

The stalls had every sort of fruit & veg imaginable, but again some sold straight off the ground

Here was dumpling preparation in full swing in the outdoor kitchen. It’s probably because we sell food that I particularly noticed these things

Hoi An certainly had the prettiest stalls & shops I’d seen, and to be honest it was one of the prettiest places we visited

In South Vietnam there appeared to be only 3 types of shop, Marble shop, Motorbike shop & cafe/bar, well of course we had to try one or two of those out…

And in Ho Chi Min (Saigon) cafes were also the order of the day, this one ran by monks. I learned that hardly anyone has the facilities to cook at home, most eat out, hence the huge number of cafes

There were of course some unusually named products – Yvonne assured me her bottle of sweat was very refreshing!

Note the absence of wipe clean walls, or any walls in the candy factory. I joined the workforce for a while, hair nets, aprons, gloves all surplus to requirements…

Somewhere along the road between Ho Chi Min & the Mekong Delta I bought these very delicious dried banana chips for just a few pence

More interesting fruit & some chocolate and Cocoa on the stalls at the Mekong Delta

I didn’t make it to a market in Thailand, but this was on the way to and at the entrance of the shopping centre I walked down to

The market in the botanical gardens in Singapore was a welcome treat, unsurprisingly selling lots of flowers but also a version of baked Alaska on a stick – well I had to try it

While Chinatown & Little India produced a wonderful selection of stalls at good prices. I treated myself to some new paintbrushes here

The only other Markets I visited was in Shanghai we did pass a local market in Manila but decided to stay in the taxi, so that’s pretty much the end of the post as we start thinking about booking our own markets for this year