Vietnam>Weather and floods

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Vietnam is a country of contrasts. Today we saw the evidence of the flooding from a few days and weeks ago everywhere. The watermarks were above our heads in some places. The people go about there business as usual, accepting the inevitable flooding in stride. This was the 5th time this year they had floods in this region. I must say that it effected me in that they considered the flooding as part of their life.

We watched them getting back to normal. The army was helping out in some cases where the elderly cannot cope. It sounds like I am reporting from CNN. LOL.

We visited the old part of Hoi An, temples and museums of pottery etc. Just on the outskirts of Hoi An we also visited a village called Marble Village. This village is famous for marble carvings which is evidenced everywhere. If you look up at the marble mountains, there are carvings to be seen as well as pagodas and temples all over the hillside. On the streets of this village are statues everywhere. People are carving up the stone and shipping it out all over the world. It was a surreal and beautiful area. I wished we stayed longer.

We took a River boat ride down one of the rivers. The water was brown from the river surge of days past.

When we arrived at our hotel there was no king size bed, only twin. Well, that wouldn't do........ So , we were polite and asked that we get the kingsize bed asap. 1 hour later we got a call saying there was a cancelllation and for 40 USD per night we could have the bed. Lol
Not me. I already paid for the LARGE bed. I called up the tour operator and we were upgraded no charge and had a bottle of champagne waiting for us in the room.. I promptly opened it and we sat on the balcony watching these magical lighted lanterns floating down the river randomly everywhere. As we sat there, watching the beautiful glowing lanterns I felt the contrast again. Its weird, because at night you had the beauty of the lanterns, but during the day sitting on the same balcony you saw an ugly flooded river.

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Photos

Need a Boat to Sit on This Seat
The water was up actually 3 metres higher than this 3 days before

Marble Village
Sculpturers were everywhere sculpting out marble. These each take about 3 months to carve. It is amazing how much finished statues there are.

The Magic Lanterns
We were able to sit on our balcony and watch these lanterns float down the river