The Vietnamese seem to have a love of villages. When we talk to them they talk about their ancestors' villages, or about the fact that certain villages are famous for a speciality craft, or because the village contains a famous building or is where a famous person was born or raised. One of the staff from the hotel, for instance, comes from a village which specialises in haircuts and he talks of this fact with a lot of pride. Today, we went on a tour of several villages to the north west of the city and it was one of the most fascinating days I have had in Vietnam.
We booked through the hotel, which used Flexi Tours to deliver the trip and our guide was a young lady called Phill. She had a fairly difficult day since it was raining for the first time on our trip ( with a resultant pleasant drop in temperature), the bookings of other hotels went awry, one person failed to turn up and couldn't be contacted, another couple went back to bed when they saw the rain, then changed their mind again so we had to wait for them, some roads were closed and the driver got lost. Glad I wasn't in charge of it all!
Bob and I were pretty relaxed because we could people watch and scenery watch in peace.
The first port of call was reached by driving up a back street in Son Dong, a wood working village, until we came to came to logs of Jackfruit wood piled up outside the workshop we were visiting (Jackfruit is good for carving statues but not strong enough for furniture, which uuses something they called Lim wood).
Apparently, because Vietnam has chopped down so many of its forests, the wood is sourced from Laos. The owner of the firm selects the softwood for suitablity and then soaks for about 3 months in dams to get rid of the sap and protect it against termites.
Then it is cut and carved, traditionally by men since they are considered stronger and more connected to the emotional creativity of the work. It was also believed that when women married, they would take the secrets of the trade to their husband's family ( who could be trade rivals) when they got married, so the less women knew, the better.
However, the women paint 6 or 7 coats of black paint on the wood, sand it several times to get a smooth finish, and then do further painting and sanding layers of red, silver and gold.
We were invited to visit the owner's front room where his factory's work is proudly on display, unpainted, to show the craftsmanship in the carving:
Then, we entered the workroom to observe the carvers at work. Apparently, most of the pieces here are destined for pagodas and temples, and large pieces can take 3 months to carve, and end up costing about 600,000,000 dong. Considering the skill involved, these men deserve far more than this!
Our next village was Duong Lam, a traditional rice farming village which is bout 400 years old, valued by UNESC0 for the preservation effort being put in place, and famous for its wonderful wood buildings, and being the birthplace of kings Phung Hung and Ngo Quyen. I loved it here: peeking into courtyards,
(The crop which has been harvested is peanuts)
the smell of pigs - just being in the country.
The people acknowledged us as our guests, most of the visitors seemed to be Vietnamese learning about their own country, and although it is a tourist site, it didn't feel like one. We visited the city gate:
saw how the work was divided up amongst the villagers:
and reviewed the rice paddy mud bricks:
We were welcomed to the local Cathoic church by a very warm man and his little grandson. He was very proud of the fact the church was connected to one of the original gates:
We visited one enchanting establishment where they sold fish sauce
and ran a restaurant surrounding and enchanting courtyard:
We also had a quick look round the security house and the Giang Van Minh Worship House. I would have quite happily spent the whole day here, but maybe we went at the right time. One street was gaily decorated in purple and white and we could see that the wedding celebrations were about to spill into the street on the legs of some very "Happy" men.
Because we were so late in setting off, we we missed doing some of the things on the schedule, like the Mia Pagoda, so we were given an impromptu tour of the Song Tay Citadel where Bob became intrigued by the Chinese helicopter and a Russian Mig21.
I preferred the peaceful gardens and the buildings. We could not enter the main building
or the ancient flag tower (there is another one in Hanoi)
but we could admire the wonderful portals:
Our next introduction was the the Tay Phuong Pagoda, which you have to climb up to, passing village houses with confident little roosters and hens strutting about, being offered souvenirs by some extremely photogenic and persistent old ladies, and, in my case, puffing and panting and trying not to slip on the 238 mossy steps ( not that I was up to counting them!).
The 17th century pagoda is a beautiful example of wood carving and the curving tiled roof is splendid,
but I also enjoyed wandering around the extended village cum caretaker property too. There must be a great view somewhere amongst the shady trees and bushes, but we couldn't see it.
At the foot of the hill was this beautiful structure, some rather glorious geese, and some of the pushiest vendors I have met here. Don't fall for the "Later you look" trap. These ladies are excellent at the guilt trip.
and their cocoons
We saw the old looms with their punched pattern cards and the types of fabric woven
We also saw how the skeins of silk
were transferred onto cones.
Unfortunately, we did not see any of the steps in between, but it was still interesting to see some of the steps in the production of this beautiful, strong yarn..
We didn't really see the rest of the village or the making of the conical hats, but we were getting pretty exhausted and it was getting pretty late, so it was back to the hotel. Another great day!
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