Vietnam's shrimp farmers fish for fortunes

SOC TRANG, Vietnam - With a flashy gold watch and a chunky matching ring, Tang Van Cuol looks a far cry from the average Vietnamese farmer as he slings back a shot of rice wine and boasts about his projected earnings.

After years scratching a living growing rice and onions or farming ducks, the 54-year-old says his life was transformed in 2000 - by shrimp.

The Mekong Delta, long renowned as the "rice bowl of Vietnam", is now also home to a multibillion-dollar shrimp industry and burgeoning numbers of farmers are building fortunes from the small crustaceans.