Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 116

Today we decided to go "off the beaten path", so to speak. Our guide met us with our bikes for the morning and we enjoyed a little cycling tour. We rode up along the beach road and then headed in through the countryside to a pottery village. As we went over the first bridge, we stopped and grabbed a couple pictures. In the river, you can see circles of bamboo stalks with something in the middle. These are family fish farms for the people living alongside the river.

We went through side roads and through lots of rice fields.

Tom was doing pretty good taking pictures while riding, even grabbing pictures of Susan and the tour guide, and others on bikes coming the opposite direction.

We asked about these bags in the fields and they mentioned that they kept birds away from eating the rice seeds when they were first planted.

We were going literally through little tiny trails through the middle of the rice fields and we spotted some ducks also making their homes there. Well, perhaps not their home by choice in some cases, since our guide also mentioned that they have goose-farms to raise them for eating.

We then went by the fish market, although it was already mostly gone by that time of the morning. Our guide mentioned that it opens very very early! The fishermen come in at dawn to sell the fish that was caught the night before.

We came across this HUGE red brick building (which looked really out of place here), only to find that it was the start of the Tranh Ha pottery village. In the 16th and 17th century, Thanh Ha was a thriving village, famous for earthenware that was sold in many provinces throughout central Vietnam. Thanh Ha craftmen (and craftwomen) continue with pottery, making almost everything (as you'll see from the pictures).

We stopped at this little store where this little old lady was making pottery with no electricity at all. Her granddaughter using her feet to turn the pottery wheel while she makes the various pieces of pottery. Then Susan got to take her turn, attempting to make the same kind of bowl. Mind you .. doubtful anyone would actually PAY for mine!

They make lots of different things, like this little set of pottery pigs, and pottery pigs of all sizes. Once they are made, they are then fired in these old-style ovens.

They also had sets of kids that seemed to be from an International school nearby (they sounded Australian to me) that were on a school trip and were doing little pottery animals.

Ho Chi Minh is also still popular, with his picture up in alot of stores.

This was an interesting place ... they make replicas of famous buildings when then can be shipped almost anywhere. We saw Notre Dame Cathedral from Paris, Big Ben in London, as well as the Statue of Liberty.

Then we rode back through the town and grabbed a few pictures along the way. We saw several of these little "butcher" shops, which was nothing more than a table topped with cardboard where they set the meat and people would come by and pick up what was needed for the next meal.

And you see what we would call Communist Propaganda here and there as well (which I guess some would not find it too interesting, since Vietnam is a Communist country). As we rode by, Tom grabbed a couple pictures of these billboards along the road.

Next we got to try our hand at the traditional Hoi An silk lanterns. You've seen pictures with lanterns all around the town. We went to a factory and they showed us how the lanterns are made, starting with the stop and bottom pieces, which are wood.

These are basically sanded down (as they explained) by putting them together to form a tube and then rolling them.

The next person marks each one with where the holes should go and then the notches are made based on those markings.

The lantern ribs are then cut and small holes are put in for the guide strings. These ribs are then strung top and bottom onto a small wire to then form a circle.They are then hand-assembled with the top and bottom pieces, the ribs, and a metal piece (hand-formed) which is the hanging piece.

Tom and I then both got to make our own lantern! We got a small lantern assembly and got to pick the color of our silk. Then using glue made from sticky rice, we glue the silk fabric to the individual ribs, smoothing out the fabric as we go and making it tight.

Here is a closeup where you can see the bamboo ribs that get bent to form the lantern and strings in between them. The string ensures that the lantern keeps the proper shape.

You put each piece on with glue, and then using scissors you trim then just to the edge of the rib .. but without cutting that string (which Tom did once and we had to get them to put another string in!) Our guide also got into helping, since Tom was having a few difficulties :-)

And the finished products! We got to pack them up and bring them home, and I think we'll hang them in our screen porch, so any friends that come over can see our handi-work.

From there we ditched the bikes and headed to the Tra Que, which is a little village on the edge of Hoi An. It is named after the sweet scented vegetables that spice up the everyday meals of the Pho Hoi people. In addition to actually raising vegetables and herbs that are sold in local markets, they also have a tour. We got to walk out through the fields and the guide explained how the vegetables are planted and harvested. Since they need to have freshly harvested items almost daily, you end up also needing to plant them quite often. So you will have a set of beds for a single vegetable that each bed will be "ready" basically a week apart.

Then we got to have lunch and a short hands-on cooking class. This is a traditional Hoi An pancake filled with pork and shrimp. In a small cast-iron pan you cook the shrimp and port pieces (with only chopsticks no less!)

Then you pour in the batter on top of the pieces and swirl it around until covered but not too thick. Then add some bean sprouts and cover. Then you flip it in half and enjoy.

Now is Susan's turn! Flipping it over with just chopsticks or a single wood stick was a little challenging, but it all worked out.

And then Tom took his shot at it. Well, he wouldn't let me take any pictures!

Then we put together a little pork and shrimp and mint thing. You take a couple sprigs of fresh mint and add a piece of cooked pork and a little cook shrimp. Then you wrap it together with a cooked piece of I think green onion and tuck it in so that it stays together.

The rest of lunch was prepared for us and included fried spring rolls and more of our Hoi An style pancakes. To actually eat these, you take a thin rice paper (dry) and you put in a piece of the pancake, fresh herbs and vegetables and then roll.

The rice comes in this nice little box made of leaves. They also had sauteed vegetables from the gardens and chunks of fish cooked in a clay pot.

This was kinda cute ... the guy that was serving us takes all of the pieces and starts putting them together into a little shape and you end up with ... he says a turtle (you can see the 4 feet, the tail that is the bean, the head/face that is the fish).

We figured that was it, but then came a bowl of soup followed by deserts and tea. We were absolutely stuffed by the end of it!

We also got a foot massage by members of the family running the farm. This was Toms very first foot massage, since he has avoided them in China for 3 years although I try to get one every couple weeks. As he puts it ... he can take it or leave it. Okay then, more foot massages for ME!

From there we walked out through some fields to the main road to catch our ride back, and grabbed a picture of these two cows chomping down on lunch in the fields.

We added on an optional trip over to My Son, which is a cluster of abandoned and partially ruined Hindu temples dating back to between the 4th and 14th centuries. These were built by the kinds of the Champa empire and were for worshipping the god Shiva. Unfortunately, they didn't do well with the carpet bombing that was done in Vietnam by the US during the war, and many were destroyed. As we walked through, we could still see bomb craters. We took alot of pictures to try to capture the various temples in differing states along with some of the impressive carvings that are still visible.

As we headed back, it was just when the schools were letting out and the streets were filled with students of various ages heading home on various modes of transport, from lots and lots of bicycles to little scooters.

Then back into the Old Town as the sun started to set for dinner.

One of the things that we saw were people buying these little candles in flower-shaped cardboard and then going out on a boat into the river to let them go. They had alot of people selling them, including these little girls.

We went by this store that while the first picture isn't that great, it gives you an interesting view of all of these lights hanging downward from the store and the trees around it. Upon closer inspection, these are made from baby bottles!

And then dinner ... this is called Ly II, or Miss Ly cafe and it has 2 buildings next door to each other joined (they have expanded). This is the same owner as Morning Glory and has some of the same foods.

The white roses were very much like the ones from the other night, but then we had another dumpling type dish with shrimp, tomatoes, and fresh herbs on top of a crispy wafer.

Then a shrimp and papaya salad that you scoop up on rice crackers.

So this is what was LEFT after Tom ate all of the fish cooked in a banana leaf. It was a bit different than the one from Morning Glory although both were very good, as you can tell from what is NOT left :-)

And we finished off with fried bananas drizzed with honey, almost my two favorite foods.

Then back to the hotel and a quick sleep, since our flight was a little after 6am the next morning. Thank goodness the airport was only 15 minutes away from our hotel.