Mekong Delta, Vietnam

This scene is an original illustration set in Mekong Delta, Vietnam. It lies in equatorial latitudes, where the climate is tropical savanna — a pronounced dry season.

Wooden boats are packed gunwale to gunwale, heaped with pineapples, watermelons and green coconuts. Tall poles rise from several boats with a single fruit tied at the top. Vendors in conical hats work from the decks. Palms and low stilted buildings line the bank behind, and shadows sit short beneath the hulls.

Why is a single fruit hoisted on a pole above the boat?

The pole with one fruit lashed to it is a floating shop sign — you advertise what you sell by hoisting a sample, because a written sign cannot be read from across the water. A market that happens on boats rather than beside them means the waterways are the roads, which happens where a great river breaks into a low, flat delta. The fruit itself is tropical, and the near-overhead sun agrees.

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