What's on the agenda for today?
Na explains to us at breakfast that today we'll first bicycle over to the local village fruit and vegetable market, then head over to see a very old and original wooden house, meet the rice alcohol maker, and watch a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show …all before driving back to Hanoi tonight.
That's a huge list!
Better eat up your breakfast so you'll have the energy to keep going….
Here's a different kind of noodle and tofu soup:
Along with fried eggs on French bread. Yummy!
Short bike ride later>>>>
And we're now at an open-air market. Honestly, it's so similar to many of the markets we've been to in China.
Argh! I wish I could remember what Na said these things (in photo below) are:
Walking around the market:
Lady selling bamboo baskets and brooms (made from different materials). I bought a bamboo basket- the one with the red edging:
Why, Hello there Ms. Chicken!
The Vietnamese have a custom similar to the Chinese (perhaps it's Buddhist??? I'm not sure). They also burn various fake items so that their ancestors in the after-life will have the things they need or want. It's very important that your ancestors are happy and provided for in their after-life! Such as…
Fake money:
And horses and TV sets:
And clothing and slippers:
I think these packets are similar to the zongzi:
Ava wanted one of these traditional hats. Na said they're great for keeping the sun off of you and they're also handy for keeping you safe when mines explode. Huh? Well, that's what I think she said (the conical shape of the hat, the hardness of it, and the fact that it covers quite a bit of the head and part of the neck are supposed to help protect you).
Cutie-pie Ava with her very stylish hat!
We did ask Na to help us find and purchase Vietnamese coffee filters – they're the aluminum filters that sit on top of a mug that you fill with coffee grounds, pour boiling water over, and wait for it to drip into your mug. 🙂
Lots of kitchen tools here!
A little bit of the countryside:
Different kinds of veggies:
Na called the stuff in the buckets below a kind of kim chee. However, she said it was not like the Korean version. Sadly, we didn't try it to see for ourselves:
This is a bucket of tiny, live crabs!
Na said they cook with crabs by smashing them whole to smithereens and making a paste out of them. Hmmm..
Chicken? Or duck?
More meat for sale:
Awwww…watching this seller rock her baby to sleep. How sweet!
After the market we biked over to see a 183-year old wooden house. The wooden house is now used as the family's worship center.
Lots of interesting artifacts inside this building:
Here the owner is showing and telling us a little bit about his family's history (can't remember the details but I do recall that he came from a large family):
The photo below has a group photo with a family members posing with Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. Wow!
More artifacts:
The very elaborate family tree. I can't even guess what their family reunions must be like (and yes, they do have family reunions)!!!:
A closer look at the family's worship center (alter):
The fruit and candies are offerings to different gods. There are burnt out essence sticks behind the fruit (the curly, wire-y looking things sitting in two blue and white pots).
Na also explained to us that in Vietnamese culture they have four important animals that represent different qualities:
dragon, phoenix, unicorn (which does not in any way resemble what Americans think of as unicorns), and turtle. At the moment I'm unable to recall the qualities they represent (I think the turtle is for long life). I'll have to look it up!
Outside the beautiful wooden structure, drinking hot tea and chatting:
Not only is there a beautiful wooden house but the man also attends this beautiful garden. His wife joked by saying that his garden (and the house) were like a second wife…they take up a lot of his time. LOL!
Biking back to our next destination:
Next stop: to visit a man making local rice wine alcohol. He's currently making several liters (edited: 100L to be exact) of sticky rice alcohol for an upcoming wedding celebration.
Cooling the cooked sticky rice to get it started on fermentation:
Here is still:
Huge brown jugs filled with fermenting rice (which, once fermentation is finished will be run through the still):
A better view of the still (which is heated via charcoal burners):
The distillate collection vessel. Dirty on the outside…clean on the inside:
Ava is amused with the pigs:
Here is the packet of enzymes (not yeast!) which is used to start the rice wine fermentation process:
See the hat below? I've noticed many of the local men in this area wear these. (to me they look like a safari hat).
Another bike ride….where to???
Now we're learning how to make brooms out of rice (the grassy part, not the grains):
You take small bundles of the dried rice grass/straw and tie them together using a piece of the straw from the bundle…twisting, turning, wrapping tightly around the bunches. You keep adding more bundles of straw by wrapping them with pieces of straw.
It's quite time consuming ….but also fun!
Time to bike back to the house:
Time for another beautiful meal (lunch!):
Annika eating a juicy persimmon:
Saying good bye and thank you to Mr. San:
Before we go, Na said we're going to watch a water puppet show. Water puppet shows are an important part of Vietnamese culture.
The water puppet theater:
The show consisted of the water puppet performers telling several different stories about Vietnamese life and culture:
Time to say good bye to Na. Many thanks for the wonderful two days. We had a lot of fun- and we appreciated getting to try new things.
And now time to head back to Hanoi!
Here's a closer look at the inside of Ava's hat:
Back in Hanoi…. look at all these narrow buildings.
One after the other…tall, narrow buildings:
Ava's cute pig tails (she did her own hair):
Back in the Old Quarter in Hanoi:
Anybody hungry? Let's go for a walk and find a restaurant. This one, called New DAY, came recommended by the hotel staff and tripadvisor. The sign might need to be fixed! 😉
Somebody might be tired….
We might be tired but these fresh spring rolls are yummy:
Yummy!!!!
With tummies full of yummy food it's time for bed. We're off to Sapa Valley early tomorrow morning!!!