An encounter with indigo in Hanoi and forcing Bob out of his comfort zone

Didn't think that  things could get any better but they have.  Yesterday we drove past villages which varied in their speciality from being devoted to rice to coffins ,  from garden bonsai to lacquered wood.  In Hanoi's Old District, streets become mini villages, each with their specialities, but I also felt the touch of the village in my experiences today

Today I went for a indigo tie dyeing workshop at the Indigo Store Hanoi,  at 33a Van Mieu street, DongDa, Hanoi and encourage anyone who has about 2 hours and $7 US  free to take a class with them.  I had a one on one class with Tho'

who really was a brilliant teacher - both as an ambassadress for her country, and on a technique of tying the tie dye knots that I had never learned before.

On the first floor of the store, I  chose the technique that I wanted to learn and she gave me a hemmed cotton handkerchief.   First, she showed me how to fold it

Then, she showed me how to mark where I would put the knots at 1 cm intervals. ( In my usual fashion, I failed to stick to the plan, but it didn't really spoil the effect)

Next, she showed me her method for tying the cotton yarn which would block out the colour  tightly, yet be easy to undo after dyeing.   The trick is to leave a tail of about 10 com and tightly wind the cotton three times round the fabric:

After that, make a loop and put it round the fabric:

Pull it tight and cut the cotton leaving a short end.

 

When the fabric is dyed, you tug on the longer end and the thread miraculously drops off!

 This took up most of the time, and this is where we chatted and compared cultures and I learned about the village she grew up in.

When I had finished, we went upstairs to where staff were sewing some of the beautiful clothing and artefacts which are on sale in the store.  There, she rinsed the knotted handkerchief and then got me to dunk it in the vat of fermenting indigo and  squeeze it to absorb the dye into the fabric.

 

 After a while, I took it out of the vat as a pale green colour to drain on a pole, where it turned a pale bluish colour.

 

Then, I immersed and squeezed it again for a while.

When I took it out the second time, it was a darker, greener blue and it went bluer in the air.

The fabric was then rinsed in a mix of ash water

 

  and limes to set the colour.

We then tugged on the longer threads to magically undo the knots  ( though my mistakes meant she had to occasionally use scissors).

Again, the fabric was soaked in the ash water and lime

 and at last, I got to see the finished piece.  I was so pleased with it.  Not exactly like the example I had been shown, but my own creation!  I am over the moon!  I also learned that I needed to keep the fabric out of the sun when I washed it. 

Not only did I get to learn something new, but I get a warm glow from supporting a store that represents over 120 producers and over 7 ethnic minorities.  Plus, it started the Hemp project in Ta Phin village in the Sapa Prefecture and is working with the Ban Ho village and Lao Chai villages to develop their indigo dyeing technology and women's centre.  ( if you are interested in this store, as a consumer, dyer, embroiderer,  or business, you can find them here: sapaindigo@yahoo.com , http//:indigo-store.com , or on Facebook).

I came back to show off my work to Bob and found him looking rather sheepish on the footpath in plastic slippers while his runners were being polished.  This from the man who expressed horror at paying someone else to clean his shoes and looked hounded any time someone asked to clean them.

Nice shiny runners later, we set of to see if we could find a view of the river and the Long Bien bridge, which the US kept trying to destroy during the "American War" and which the Vietnamese kept rebuilding.  Unfortunately, the map we had didn't name all the streets or even show all the streets  so we had to improvise and go on gut instinct.

The first task was to cross a dual carriageway, but we found a walkway over it so didn't have to play chicken, even though this was the quiet time of day.

 Once across the dual carriageway, we found ourselves in an area where I am quite sure no other tourist has never been seen before, which is when Bob started getting a slightly hounded look.  We wondered down alley ways with dogs which either looked like they had a fair bit of dingo in them or like they were a red-brown cross between a chihuahua and a miniature pins her, and I tried to refrain from thinking about rabies as we walked.  We also saw lots of the bantam chickens we have become very fond of,

people airing their songbirds

 as well as some rather large, gamely looking chickens which looked a lot looked half plucked turkey's.  Past a pig being dissected in the street, I found a narrow alley and persuaded Bob it was a great idea to try to find the river.

What we found was the back of houses and some makeshift vegetable gardens

 and chicken coops.  By this point, Bob was beginning to feel seriously challenged by the situation, but every one seems to me to be quite accepting if bemused by our presence, so I preached at him about getting out of his comfort zone.  After a while, I to became clear, even to me, that we were never going to get near the river or the bridge, so we found a way out of the maze of alleys and back to the dual carriageway, where Bob challenged me to getting out of my comfort zone by crossing it  rather than going overt.  Touché!  We went over and back for a rest at the hotel.

In the evening, we emerged to discover a pall of smoke over the city.  Honestly, someone needs to do something about the appalling pollution.  My eyes are constantly red, my nose blocked and my throat sore, and I have seriously considered buying and wearing a face mask.  Apparently,Vietnam is now the now in the top 10 most polluted countries in the world.  I certainly have noticed it increasing each time I visit.  Unfortunately, I read in the local paper, Vietnam Nam News, that  Professor Nguyen Le Ninh, a member of the Advisory Board dealing with this, believes that it is impossible to limit the CO2 concentrations in the exhaust fumes of the growing number of vehicles, and feels the only solution is to increase the number of plants, turn  captured CO2 into fuel, support bio fuels and reduce the number of vehicles in the cities.  Since this all seems pretty unlikely, I would say that the situation will worsen.  Still, the haze does convey a rather romantic, mystical aura to photographs, so we decided to stroll around the lake with the locals admiring the lights shimmering on the water

and came across more brides and grooms posing for photographs.  I have never seen so many brides and grooms in my life!  And they all pose for photos so well.    I really need some lessons on romance from these people.  My posing skills and abilities to look romantically feminine are really lacking.

I took Bob past all the art galleries and bookshops on Lee Thanh Tong street to see the opera house

and the stock exchange

 

before we had dinner and collapsed.