Judging by the speed that the local children moved away from this pig when she turned towards them I suspect that she is not as friendly as she looks
Some of the blacksmiths hard at work making farm implements.
The band of kids who accompanied us grew every time we turned a corner in the village
Examples of the village colors and textures that have stolen my heart
Nuyen's family's cafe
I enjoyed the colors of this sun umbrella made from remnants
one of the Vietnamese "unicorn" that took my fancy.
I could quite happily bring this cheeful chap home with me
The grounds of the citadel. A Cham tower can be seen in the distance below
The cows were being taken down to the river for a wash. Elsewhere I saw shiny black buffalo escaping from the searing heat by wallowing in big pools of mud but there are only so many times you can ask for a photo stop when you are with a group of people!
The rice straw stacks continue to draw my eye. I just love the shape of them.
Brick kilns
I thought some of you might enjoy this truck. The vehicles that they manage to cobble together and keep on the road here are amazing
One of the picnic huts at our destination - Ham Ho
Ann and Adeline enjoying a swim - I declined to join them because I had envisaged, encouraged by the colourful pictures in the brochure, a sparkling stream rather than this murky flow.
Annoyed by our refusal to burden his poor little pony with our patronage I don't think this man appreciated me taking the photo
Yesterday a group of us went for an outing to a reserve at Ham Ho. It was a beautiful day, hot with a clear blue sky. On the way we visited a blacksmiths’ village and stopped to watch them work for awhile. In the stifling heat the blacksmiths were pounding away at pieces of iron making farm implements. It was exhausting just watching them! While we made our way around the village we were joined by an increasingly large band of exuberant children. The cynical part of me has always found the images of ‘wealthy’ white travelers descending on a village and interacting with the ‘cute’ village children somewhat distasteful but in reality these children are impossible to resist. These kids are just so darn friendly and engaging. They enthusiastically chatter away, undeterred by my ignorance of their language, laugh uproariously at my attempts to say words and clamor to be photographed and then to look at the image on the camera screen.
While visiting this and another village I was again struck by the beauty of the colors of here. I love the chalky, dusty colors of the houses and continue to mystify the other volunteers and locals by photographing them whenever I get the opportunity.
Our next stop was an old citadel site. Here we saw graves and temples, built by one of the brothers of the famous emperor, over the top of remnants of an earlier Cham site. One of the things that I particularly enjoyed were the statues of elephants and of Vietnamese unicorns (kylin). For us the word ‘unicorn’ conjures up a horse-like animal with a horn but these unicorn look more like a lion crossed with a pekinese dog. Apparently it is a mythical creature that is composed of about nine different animals but I have so far been unable to find out what they all are. In about a month these creatures will feature in an autumn moon festival celebration that includes “lion dances”, apparently somewhat similar to Chinese dragon dances. I am already looking forward to seeing them. The statues were a real pleasure because they are so subtle and expressive.
Fortunately two of the other volunteers are keen photographers too so we were able to persuade the driver to make several stops as we passed interesting sights. The ubiquitous rice stalk stacks continue to appeal to me and were again the subject of a number of photographs as were another group of brick kilns. These ramshackle buildings which belch smoke into the atmosphere are very common in the Tay Son district. I love the shapes of their low pitched roofs, the hand-hewn posts and rafters and the colors of the red bricks and tiles set against the bright green of the paddy fields. Alongside one of these kilns was another making coal briquettes – a very grimy process for the hardworking team of women. The women laborers, in the kilns and on the building sites, work like navies. They toil ceaselessly in the hot sun carrying cumbersome loads and operating weighty pulley systems. It seems to me that the rapid development that is occurring throughout Viet Nam is being done on the backs of these incredible women yet they are still also expected to undertake all of the “women’s work” of running a home, without the benefit of any labor saving appliances, and caring for children and the elderly.
We had an enjoyable stop at a coffee house run by the family of one of our young interpreters, Nuyen, and finally got to Ham Ho at lunch time. After a hot walk, over baking rocks, we were rewarded with a riverside picnic and a swim for those who fancied the brown river water. It was great to be out of the city and away from hoards of people. The only part that I did not enjoy, but the others found hilarious, was when we came to a part where we had to squeeze through a narrow gap between boulders while pulling ourselves upwards. I was convinced that I would be stuck like Winnie the Pooh in the rabbit hole and was laughing so much that I had no strength in my arms and took ages to accomplish the feat but I finally made it without mishap.
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