28 September 2015 –
It's 2pm and we just arrived at Yen Duc. A lady, named Na, dressed in a purple shirt and black pants greeted us and led us to our home-stay location:
This will be our home tonight. Mr. San is the home owner. Na acted as a translator as Mr. San doesn't speak English. She told us that normally his wife would be present and welcome us to their home but she was away helping her daughter take care of her new grandchildren. That meant that Mr. San was on his own. He served us tea while we got settled in and checked out our two rooms while Na went and dug up bikes for us all to ride around the village.
A rice paddy for you:
Rice close up:
Na said that our first destination is the local pagoda:
Check out the giant bell…and do you see all the Chinese writing? Apparently in the VERY old days the Vietnamese shared the same writing as the Chinese.
The original pagoda was destroyed either in the French War or the American War but it's being rebuilt:
Do you remember what these are????
Dragonfruit!
Here's a kitchen for the monks living at the pagoda:
A stack of coal burners located in the kitchen:
Here's the community well:
Na explained that in the old days that the well held significant value in Vietnamese culture as it was the one place where all the villagers would meet and discuss daily events. In recent years, the well had fallen into disuse but the villagers wanted to retain their heritage so they've protected with a net for future generations:
We walked around the pagoda and Na showed us this "house". Na told us a story that fairies had come down from the mountains and decided to build a house:
A poet lived in this house….
Reading carvings (Chinese writing):
There's the well:
Walking around the pagoda…
Beautiful wood carvings:
Here's a temple of 10,000 hands and eyes woman….she sees and knows everything:
After the pagoda we rode our bikes to a special mountain in the village.
A plague commemorating this special mountain:
And here's a plague with all the names of those from the neighboring villages (including Yen Duc) that lost their lives due to the French and American wars. During the French war, many Vietnamese fighters (from the area) hid out in the big cave in this mountain. The French discovered this, and covered up the entrance making it so that none of the fighters could escape. All the men inside that mountain died. They then dumped the bodies in the pond located next to the mountain. (Doesn't that sound like the stuff nightmares are made of?) Many years after the wars they tried to exhume the bodies but as decomposition was so bad they were unable to identify them. If I remember correctly, Na said they left the bodies there. That's not a nice thought.
Here's Na, our purple-shirt-black-pants-wearing hostess, showing us names on this special reminder:
Na said she lost family members during the French war.
The wars are thought of as invaders coming on to their land – which is true. Both the French and the Americans did invade Vietnam. I had to ask Na – "how do the Vietnamese feel about the Americans today?". You see, I've been nervous telling people that we're Americans. However, Na quickly dispelled any fears I had stating that while the wars were horrible the Vietnamese people don't harbor any ill will towards their former invaders. I think the USA has spent a considerable amount of money in helping the Vietnamese people get back on their feet. Again, I'm not a history professor so I might have gotten that all wrong. Maybe I should go check out my "facts"!
One thing I can definitely tell you- all the Vietnamese people that we have thus far encountered have all been very kind and helpful. So whatever their history may have been, they set a wonderful example (a good example that their neighbors to the north should take note of and emulate!!!)
After our stop at the gloomy and introspective visit to the mountain, Na took us to see how rice grains are separated from the shaft. We've seen something similar to this on our first visit to Thailand (Phuket):
Ava is working this surprisingly heavy and difficult machine that separates the rice grain from the shaft (using a stone grinding action):
Ava needed a little help to keep it going:
Annika's turn! She didn't need any help:
Here's Mark:
And there's me giving it a go. It looks much easier to maneuver but it's fairly stubborn and requires a pulling and pushing action:
This woman is using giant sieves (it looks like she's using a basket in the photo below it's actually a sieve) to separate the rice grains from the shaft.
Here's the second machine that she put the separated grains into. I honestly can't remember its function. The end result though produced clean rice.
To operate this simple machine: using your feet to push down on the wooden lever and then let it drop. The dropping action crushed the rice:
Final separation using more baskets and flipping it into the air (the rice shafts blow away and the rice kernels stay):
Here's the final product:
See that swamp???
What are we dressed up in??? Are those waders and gloves we're wearing???
Sadly there are no photos of this next event because we didn't know it was coming. I'm honestly glad that Na didn't warn us about it as I might have shied away and refused to participate and that would have been sad. See that swamp/pond below? It's filled with carp (that's a type of fish that people like to eat). We dressed up in waders and using bell-shaped baskets that had a hole in them we got to try first hand trying to catch fish with baskets!
The bottom of the pond was muddy and difficult to walk through. Every step I took I thought I was going to lose my footing and fall into the water! So, how do you catch fish with baskets? Holding the basket in one hand, with each step you take you firmly place the basket into the pond (making sure it touches the slimy, muddy ground beneath). You then reach in through the hole with other, gloved hand and feel around to see if you've trapped a fish. You walk around the entire pond: stepping, plonking down the basket, reaching in & checking. Na and another helper also had baskets to show us what to do and where the fish liked to hang out – either around the edges of the pond or in the vegetation. I actually got one! Ah, and what to do once you've got a fish? Well, you reach in and grab it while someone else grabs a small plastic tub filled with a little bit of the pond water…then you gently place the fish into the tub (carefully so as to not accidentally let go of it or dump over the tub of fish you've worked hard at collecting!). I managed to catch a fish on my own!!! In the end, Ava's waders proved to be too big for her and she had a hard time walking around in them – one of the helpers lifted her out of the pond to keep her from falling in. While we got cleaned up, one of the ladies cleaned our fish…we actually got to eat our catch for dinner!!!
Biking back to our home-away-from-home. I truly loved biking around the village:
We're back at Mr. San's house. Do you see that giant opening? The living quarters are completely open to the outside:
Here is the living room which opens directly to the front entrance (I don't remember there being a door):
Na, Mr. San, and Mark drinking tea:
This is Mr. San's room and it also houses his family's worship center (where they worship their ancestors):
Here you can see how the living room is open to the outside elements. During this little green tea-time break we asked Na all sorts of questions about her life. Now, if I haven't mentioned this yet I should tell you that Na was one of the friendliest, sweetest people we've met.
Mr. San pouring us more green tea.
Here is our super-friendly guide, Na:
Another lady (similarly dressed as Na but this is not Na) came and cooked our dinner for us. Na explained that normally Mr. San's wife would have cooked for us but since she's not here (looking after her new grand babies!) a woman hired by the same company that manages the home-stay (which was affiliated with the cruise vendor we used) cooked our meal:
Hmmm….I think this was a pumpkin soup. What I do remember was that it was really, really good!
Mr. San is serving rice alcohol (made from sticky rice). Mark asked Na many questions about the alcohol and it turns out there is someone in the village that produces it. Na said she'd see if we could visit this person tomorrow:
Dinner time with lots of yummy dishes!
I ate till I was FULL! Sadly I don't remember all the dishes but they were all quite yummy! Oh wait! I actually wrote down the dishes, let's see- there was pork skewered with basil, banana flower salad, steamed morning glory (stem part, not the flower), and fried spring rolls.
After dinner Na told us that we were going to make "donuts".
The "donuts" consisted of a base of sticky rice flour mixed with water to make a stiff dough. You pull off a chunk of the dough, roll it into a ball and flatten it into a disk. You place a small piece of the brown, raw sugar cane and the seed of the green bean (so, not the green bean but the seeds that are inside the green bean) and then seal up the filling inside the ball. Dip one side of the ball into sesame seeds and roll it again in your hand until smooth and completely sealed. Boil the "donuts" until the float. Serve the donuts with a sauce made of coconut milk, ginger, water, sugar and some sticky rice flour (that last ingredient acts as a thickener). Yummy!!!
We made lots of "donuts":
Ready to be boiled:
The boiled "donuts" with the sauce:
Oh goodness, these are SO SO SO SO GOOD! The girls couldn't stop eating them. Annika asked if they could save the remaining donuts and eat them for breakfast.
The girls are ready for bed…it's been a fun and very full day!