Advertisement
Published: August 9th 2010
Edit Blog Post
We joined Pascal and An and two Australians for a bicycle tour of the islands in the delta of the Thu Bon river around Hoi An. Nine kilometres in the heat of the morning: mad dogs and... After collecting our bikes from the Heaven and Earth office (see www.vietnam-bicycle.com ), and some chilled water, we set off in convoy, shepherded by a watchful An, through the Hoi An traffic. We crossed the Cam Nan bridge and followed a riverside path, past fishermen at work on the water, others dredging the sands for snails to turn into lime for building. We took a small ferry to the next island with a group of Vietnamese passengers who sat around smoking and laughing, while we admired the view. Disembarking, we followed sandy paths past fresh water pools, groves of water coconut and rice paddies.There was a jumble of buildings here as well, several ruined by floods and others looking deserted. The path brought us to our first "surprise": a bamboo slat bridge slung precariously across the river. We watched a local on her scooter bumping across and decided to walk our bikes over. It felt very precarious and Pascal explained that the bridge has
to be re-built each year as the floods wash it away in the spring.
This island was less wild, with more established habitation and agriculture. In a small hamlet, we stopped at the ice factory, a family business that supplies most of the ice for Hoi An. Tourist ice, however, comes from elsewhere. Metal cannisters (two metres or so in length and a metre square in width) of filtered fresh water are submerged into a saline solution and a mechanism rather like a large fridge heat exchange unit chugged away to reduce everything to subzero. Chips off an old block provided refreshment for cyclists on a very warm morning in the sun.
Pascal and An kept up a flow of information about the sites we passed and their lives in Hoi An. They took us to a selection of the local industries, all small family concerns, where virtually everything is done by hand and involves physical exertion: a boat building and repair yard; a centre for carving mother of pearl into intricate patterns to be inlaid in desks, panels, lamps, etc; a brick building factory (especially gruelling work done almost exclusively by women). In between all this, we
cycled past quiet houses and fields, often greeted with friendly hellos, especially from the children. On the roadside, reeds had been left out to dry; we had seen these growing and we now stopped at a house to see the reeds being sliced in half length ways with a fearsomely sharp blade in preparation for this drying stage. They are then dyed bright colours, especially red and yellow, before being woven into sleeping mats. We saw the weaving process in a different house on a very simple loom. Two weavers will spend about fours hours creating one mat, to make only 10,000 dong profit each. (about 30 pence)
Loud music up ahead indicated some excitement to come and we cycled past a large open-sided communal hall where a boisterous wedding feast was in progress, with fetching photos of the bride and groom outside. An said her wedding had been just like that; Pascal explained that the parents of the bride and groom come on the honeymoon as well. We moved on as the karaoke began, with, presumably, the groom singing enthusiastically to loud (and I suspect ironic) acclaim.
From here we turned right to encounter another bamboo bridge,
this time a floating one; it was just as bumpy and uneven, so again we all opted to walk across. This bridge is a little more permanent: when the floods come, the three families who manage it simply cut the rope at one end and then wait until the end of the season before re-fixing it. The families collect a small toll from travellers, each taking one day in turn to man the bridge, working in their fields on the other days.
The final island seemed to be the most settled, with beautiful small one or two storey houses, each with its plot of land and tall trees casting shade. It was quiet and, if not cool, at least out of the fierce sun. Some houses were of traditional wood and thatch; others were more modern, brick and plaster with tile roofs. After zig-zagging through, we turned into the house of Pascal's Vietnamese family, meeting his mother-in-law and several close relatives. This was a beautiful wooden house of a very simple kind. We sat in the shade of the mango tree eating the lunch Pascal's wife had prepared for us: steamed fish with a tomato salsa-style sauce, rice and
morning glory stirred fried with garlic. Pascal showed us the height of the most recent floods, a watermark about two metres high. When the waters come, they simply hoist everything into the eaves and wait for it all to subside.
After lunch and a stroll, we caught the ferry for the 45 minute journey back to Hoi An. The fishermen were all busy, some hauling in nets from the shore, others hoisting the catch in with pulleys. We, meanwhile, sat quietly and reflected.
With time to spare on our return, we decided just to check out the tailors' shops. An hour or so later we emerged from An Dong Silk measured up for four shirts and one dress. We will return for the first fitting tomorrow!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0266s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Jess
non-member comment
Hi
Sounds like an amazing time - very jealous. Some amazing photos. Alice took her first two steps today! The fell flat on her face... See you next week jxx