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Monday, July 04, 2016

MENU goes East - A Vietnamese village; a visit to a home and supper with a family

Our Vietnamese Odyssey came to its close with a family meal in the country. We finished the day in the village, visiting an historic house and then enjoyed a delicious meal, which we helped to make. A lovely experience

Next, we were taken to the oldest house in the village. It is completely original and gave us a chance to see how people have lived for the last couple of hundred years

The front of the house is made from teak and other hardwoods and is open to the air. We were welcomed with a pot of cold tea

This was served by the owner of the house, the last surviving child of a large family. It was very refreshing. Through our guide who translated, she told us of her life with her family

Next to the old house is a modern villa which her father built

The centre of the old house is a shrine to their ancestors. At either end are the living quarters

She showed us their family tree and explained their relationship to Ho Chi Minh

The shrine is full of embellished ornaments, joss sticks, fruit offerings and pictures of the deceased members of the family

A blessing bowl

Then it was time to go and help cook supper. We were to learn how to make the green pawpaw salad. These are the implements they used. Lynne did find some of the vegetable shredders in a Hanoi supermarket; they were very cheap and she finds using them very good to use. They shred vegetables and fruit into long thin strands. And using the other, crimped, end, there are a vegetable peeler, a grater, a small mandolin cutter and a chip cutter. They cost about R10. Also on the table were lemongrass, garlic, chilli and herbs, fish sauce and carrot to use with the green pawpaws. We needed plastic gloves

We set to peeling the pawpaw

Shredding it. Everyone took turns

The pawpaw goes into boiling water for 2 minutes and is stirred well with chopsticks

Some grated carrot is add at the last minute; it is strained and returned to the bowl

Sugar is added, a rather alarming amount, about 15 teaspoons and the vegetables are mixed well until all the sugar melts

It is then squeezed dry, fish sauce and the other ingredient are added and it is ready to eat

We began our meal with chicken soup with vegetables

Fried rice paper rolls and the green pawpaw salad

washed down with Ha Long beer

You can see from our faces that is was very hot, but we had a lovely family style meal together with David Bjarnason and his family from Iceland

Small skewers of meat from the barbecue

The small kitchen

Pandanus leaf wrapped prawns

Deep fried fish. Was it from the fish pond?

Morning glory braised in a pot. It tasted rather like sprouting broccoli, but needed a lot of chewing

For dessert we had small fat bananas and other fruit

Time to bid goodbye and give warm thanks to our hosts for a really lovely country meal

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MENU goes East - Leaving Ha Long Bay, a visit to a Vietnamese village

On our way back to Hanoi, we were taken to a village to see the traditional Water Puppets. We also opted to take another tour to see how people of the village live and farm. It's a small village, quite middle class and very clean, especially when compared with the streets of Hanoi. We finished the day with a meal which we helped to make. A lovely experience

Back in port, we leave Dragon Legend. The crew waves us goodbye from the after deck

The happy band of relaxed passengers on the tender, all sad that the cruise has come to an end

Into our luxury vehicle, off to the day's first attraction, the water puppets

Across the bridge in searing midday heat

A cheery welcome

Some complimentary fruit and treats

The band played along to some recorded music

And the puppets appeared

We were told folk tales

About planting rice

and mystical birds

The ceiling of the grandstand, decorated with dried palm fronds

One of the tourists had this great shirt on

And another story

And finally the puppeteers appear in their fishing long johns and take a bow. To be honest, it was long and rather excruciating in the heat . It is apparently a very ancient art and they are justly proud of it. It is good that they have preserved the art

Then we climbed back into the bus and arrived at our typical village. The young folk were given bikes to ride. This family of lovely people came from Iceland. They are well travelled and the children were a delight to be with on the trip. The slightly older, us, were allowed to ride in a golf cart. The road was a bit bumpy, hence the rather unfocussed photograph

We passed orchids and beautiful flowers in the memorial garden

This is a shrine to guerrilla fighters (all from the three local villages) who were killed hiding from the French during the occupation. Most of them were killed as they were trapped in the cave behind this memorial

The memorial plaque tells the story. This happened on the 13th of December 1950

As we drove on, we drove past newly harvested rice which was put on the concrete road to dry out

Past the ripening rice paddies

The rice hanging heavy on the stems

It grows very tall here, almost to the shoulders of the people in the paddy

At the farm, we saw an ancient winnowing machine

Take a look at the rice chaff and grains

This machine separates them

Any volunteers for separating the chaff from the rice?

He is an expert

Then we saw the very primitive mill that beats the rice and separates the bran from it. It is operated by one man using the long pole as a seesaw with his feet. He stands on the cross bar. At the same time another risks his hands by pushing the rice in the mortar back under the pestle