Xin Chao!
Our “only Vietnamese expression” – Hello!
The staff of the Silk Path Hotel booked us a taxi to transfer us to the cruise pick-up point, the Pan Pacific Hotel. Because we are in a traffic-free zone, they walked us and our luggage to the end of the street. The first taxi didn’t appear, so another was booked and we have to trundle another block south. The 10 minute taxi ride took 25 minutes because of traffic and, for three of us, it cost a staggering 49,000 dong, about £1.50!
There are 20 of us on this trip, we discover. Sixteen made the pick up time at the Pan Pacific Hotel. Two Swedes are arriving direct to the boat later that day and two Irish are stuck in Dublin with visa problems!
Tifo, is to be our guide for the next ten days.
… and Angkor Pandaw our home for the duration.
… and this is our communist party official who will be with us for the first two days to make sure we all behave!
First stop – a temple – or is it a pagoda? We are going to have to understand the difference. Anyway, steps are always in sets of 3, 5 or 7. All to do with symbolism. More to learn and understand. We heard about traditions of leaving offerings inside the temple (this one is definitely a temple – The Hung Temple) and the burning incense and pretend money outside. Here Tifo is piling bundles of, hopefully fake, US $100 notes onto the fire.
We learnt about the fable of the stork and tortoise. In extreme summary, (and I later discover there are lots of alternative plots) the stork rescued the tortoise by flying him quickly out of danger. The tortoise then allowed the stork to stand on his back when the water was too deep. Hence the statues seen all over the place… Another version is that two storks carried their friend away from a dried out river. The tortoise gripped a stick in his mouth. The two birds held the stick between them and flew him to a better place. But on the way, the tortoise got angry with people mocking him in his predicament. He opened is mouth to shout back – and fell to earth. The moral of this version is: “Saying words of anger can cause a lot of trouble”.
Either way, all temples hereabouts have at least two of the statues!
Here is Myo, the ship’s purser, praying at one of the “altars”…
Some ladies like big hats. This one would double as a shopping basket in Tesco!
At night we tangled with thousands of barges. All with related tasks. There were numerous large dredgers hauling mucky sand from the bottom of the Red River. Alongside them, others were focused on rinsing and cleaning the sand. Then there were the loading barges each with a large long-reach diggers or cranes with buckets. Finally, there were the transport barges. They come in high out of the water and leave with water lapping at the gunwhales. Then off down stream with their valuable cargo of building sand.
During our time on the river, we almost never had no barges in sight. Usually seven or eight. Empty upstream and full down towards Hanoi and onward. And, while in European waters ships pass port to port (left side to left side), here we find a different system. As ships approach each other, they indicate their intended passing sides with light signals on the front of the vessels. We just have to hope both parties can agree before they collide!
Day two dawns equally murky and even a bit wet. Not ideal. But today it’s another temple. The Hung Lo Temple. Not a million miles from yesterday’s visit. But first, a walk through the local market. Fruit and veg, fish, crabs, prawns and meat.
To be fair, most markets are not too exciting. We don’t need to buy fresh produce, we can’t communicate with the vendors, we are none too thrilled at the general ambience and also “quite” worried about the levels of hygiene. But some of our fellow travellers seem to revel in them. Everyone’s different! Fortunately!
Moving on, we discovered that this town specialises in the manufacture of rice noodles!
Just mix rice flour with water, add salt and boil. The gloupy mixture is then extruded under gravity through what looks like a watering can rose. It’s then just a matter of cutting off in standard lengths and hanging over rails to dry.
Noodles are big business in this town. Everyone seems to be involved. Apart, that is, from an entrepreneur we pass. He’s running a local recycling and cannibalistic centre. ” I know I’ve got something suitable for your job here – somewhere!” …
Anyway, we arrived at our second temple of the tour …
After inspecting the snazzy, colourful altars complete with storks, the singing and dancing started.
Traditional welcome songs with much chanting and bashing of the drum ended with an “invitation” to join in …
Finally, we got to sample the local sticky rice wine – hooch, basically. And as we left, the performers paraded past us on their motorbikes in everyday clothes as they all went back to normal everyday village life! Sureal!
After lunch on board, we head to Ly Nhan, a traditional blacksmith village. And the thing about these specialist villages is that EVERYBODY in town is part of the same activity. Here it’s blacksmithery. It was rice noodlerey this morning. The whole village reverberated to the sound of heavy hammering and grindstone sharpening. Pieces of iron are melded with steel and converted to knives and scythes of all sizes and dimensions.
By hand or by huge, powered, mechanical “hammers”.
The finished product on the scythe “production line”.
The lack of health and safety here is stunning. No eye protection, no ear defenders, no face masks. The workers are wearing minimal footwear, there are countless trip hazards and there are hot and/or sharp things all over the place. Then they let visitors close to the action!
The village faces a problem in that competition from automated, industrial-scale production will become increasingly hard to out-do. These cottage industry activities are threatened. The livelihoods of everyone in the village is at risk. Probably.
More temples, villages and activities to report on. Later!
Our second “only Vietnamese expression” is Good Bye!
Tam Biet!!
Enjoy the rest of your cruise.