While everyone is still in a deep sleep, from 3:00 am at Long Hai fishing port (Long Hai, Long Dien town, Ba Ria province- Viet Nam ) a day like every day as the bustle of festival, the people here have worked from early morning with gifts from the sea for their performance.
Long Hai fishing port is one of the oldest and largest fishing ports in Ba Ria province and very large productivity compared to other fishing ports.
From early morning, boats of fishermen return to mainland after sailing one day with hundreds of tons of seafood to supply to wholesale markets in HCM city and neighboring provinces. Not like in the old days, now traders have done business directly with big boats on the sea (do not wait for coming back to mainland). When the boats are a few dozen meters far away from the shore, the men are hired to move seafood to the shore by handmade wooden carts. Women of all ages carry or classify seafood. Then the owners check weight and allow workers to put on the truck to move to wholesale markets. Everything went quickly and smoothly in order that local markets have seafood to sell before sun-up.
The work of people here went very orderly and smoothly. Everyone is very hard-working. Pulling and pushing carts of seafood need 5-6 men work together to push heavy carts moving in water and sand. The workers still talk and laugh together in disregard of the hard of their work.
When the sun rises, about 8:00 am, the work seems to subside. Everyone stops work and has breakfast, drinks coffee, smokes and then completes their remaining work. To invest in stable development, to get standards of goods, some big dealers set up factory just over 100 meters far from the shore to classify and process seafood. Then processed seafood is transported to everywhere quickly.
Although the business belongs to the boat owners and dealers, Long Hai fishing port has resolved jobs for many people in this region, estimated that 300 women and 200 men of all ages have worked at this fishing port every day.
Long Hai fishing port is not only a place of potential economy, but also as a tourist destination for everyone coming there to find out the living in fishing village and understand the value of food in each meal.
Story and Photos: Nguyen Vu Phuoc.
More info: nguyenvuphuoc.com
Long Hai fishing port (Long Hai, Long Dien town, Ba Ria province- Viet Nam
