The man who lives next door to the home stay.
Buying bread along the highway
Traffic--the biggest gets the right-of-way
Stopping for toll
Seen along the highway...
These motorbikes will carry anything!!!
Freshly made soy sauce - we stopped to get some for supper.
Arriving at Jesse & Joy's Orphanage
- which we learned was actually an asylum
The Gate of the Orphanage/Asylum
Jesse, Joy, and James in front of the Director's office
There were 2 babies - one blind and one Down Syndrome
The Director (on right)
Pics from John's camera while the kids
handed out the candy & clothes
This woman specifically asked to get her picture taken
and then stood just like this until John took it.
This is the girl who followed us to the van,
waving goodbye and then cried as we left.
Back on the road --
Unlike Americans, Vietnamese women do not like to get sun!
We liked the stop lights out on the highway...
they showed how many seconds to wait until the light changed.
Stopping for lunch along the street
in a small village.
in a small village.
It was quite large inside...pull up a small plastic chair & enjoy!
They ha coke in the old glass bottles and it tasted
like my mom remembered it tasting years ago.
Main menu: Beef Pho
(same soup we had for breakfast)
Add any desired limes, hot or soy sauces to it
Perfume
I learned a new way to eat noodles as I watched Perfume's daughter wrap the noodles around the chopsticks before eating them. I was excited to learn this method until Perfume informed me that only children eat their noodles this way. Bummer!
Driving on...
they make some beautiful designs along the highway
in the middle unused space from the exits.
We barely got stopped VERY close to the back of a truck!
Off the highway and down some backroads.
Tour of an old pottery/ceramic
factory that is still in use.
A very little kitten
Jesse at the old powder grinder
Various views of the huge kilns
There were 5 kilns altogether
Doorway to a kiln
Looking through to the other side...
and, yes, we all walked through!
Multitudes of pottery inside the kiln into which pieces were placed to be fired.
Can you spy Joy's hand??
Potty Break
~ the sink bowls were beautiful!
The bathrooms were a different story!!
The Japanese tourists would not use them, even
though they even have squattie-potties in Japan.
For demonstration purposes only!!! Lol
Joy is showing how to use the bricks. You must provide your own toilet paper, toss it
in the trash can behind you, and then if needed, spray down the area for the next person.
Back to the ceramics...
Ready to be fired
Absolutely beautiful finished pieces!!!
Kids having fun practicing with clay
The adults sitting on--you got it--small stools, as they watch the kids
Clean-up!
Back on the road again...
Evening time, and people buying groceries for supper
School out and school-children in their uniforms.
Perfume bought us some snacks to eat on our way back.
First was sugar cane, where you chew & suck the juice out and then spit out the dry fibers.
For as sweet as sugar is, the sugar cane is really not that sweet at all.
We were not even finished eating the sugar cane when Perfume
stopped again and bought a bag of guava from these ladies.
As we drove along in the coming dusk,
we saw sheep being herded along the road
Fishermen along the river
After arriving back at the home stay, we went to our rooms to freshen up before supper.
I happened to look up and saw this:
Family Supper at the Homestay
We had the largest group we ever had for supper that night. An American brother & sister who live in VietNam, along with their Vietnamese friends joined us. Also, a twin brother/sister (Anton & Aiasha--at the far right of the pic) who were from around London & were also staying at the home stay for a few days, were back from a HaLong Bay tour and were with us for supper. Plus, Neil, an Australian, (the one in the blue at the end of the table) was usually with us for suppers. He is staying in VietNam for 3 months total. He has another 3 weeks at the home stay before he goes back home. Then too, Perfume and her family, plus Coc (the cook) also squeezed in around the 2 tables.
Pic showing how we were eating right next to the street--literally!
The Americans are standing on the street to the left.
We waiting and talked for quite awhile before supper was actually ready. I kept taking pictures of the food because I thought each dish was the last one, but new dishes kept coming out. This is the final pic I took. Table manners are a lot like we experienced in S. Korea--everyone has a small bowl, and then simply reaching toward anywhere on the table for your desired foods. If it's too far to reach, just ask someone and they'll reach with their own chopsticks and plop it in your bowl!
We were impressed with how they cut watermelon for easy holding onto with chopsticks.
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