Hai and Hari,our Easy rider, guides were ready for our departure at 8h30 and loaded up the bikes ready for the day ahead. We left the town and Lak Lake just as the masses of kids were cycling to school, all with backpacks and hats on. Taking a turning off the main road we hit a red and dusty dirt track and before long we caught up with the day to day goings on in a rural village. We passed people walking along herding their cows across the paths in between the bright green paddy fields and on to the dirt track, people donning coolie hats squatting in the paddy fields transplanting rice and workers cycling along the dirty track. This was rural rush hour.
Our arrived at the local community village and caused quite a stir. We were armed with bags of sweets and the young children ran across to meet us yelling hello, hello, taking handfuls of and stuffing them in their pockets. We were shown the original style stilted wooden homes these people still decide to live in, with only small modifications for today's lifestyle, all homes in Vietnam have electricity. These are called long houses, as each time a woman joins the family through marriage the house is extended lengthways. This village has communal land for rice, corn and sugarcane and livestock including chickens, dogs, cows, goats and Vietnamese pot bellied pigs all freely roaming around the village, so you can imagine how many offspring from them all were running about too. The young and old women with darkened skin from working in the fields, left their homes and came across to give us a once over and giggled when Yvonne handed over sweets to them too. Everyone smiling and saying hello and thank you either in English or Vietnamese we waved goodbye to the villagers and left them to some peace and quiet.
On the track out we turned a corner where Yvonne let out a shriek to be met face to face with a massive elephant slowly trundling past, apparently making a visit from the jungle, where he is kept, to the village to help with some heavy work there. Just as we overcame the shock of this we were confronted by a large herd of water buffalo being controlled by a thin wiry man with a long bamboo cane which he hit on the ground to keep them on the straight and narrow track. The next obstacle to negotiate on the bikes were several herds of cows with their young calves who were frolicking playfully, completely oblivious to us passing them.
We came to a river and Hari called out for the small wooden ferry to come across to collect us and as we waited, the cows entered the water and struggled to swim across, not being natural swimmers apparently the herdsmen teach them how to swim when they are young. Then the water buffalo caught up with us and started running towards the river and rushed in to swim across confidently, even the youngster kept up. Again if they deviated from the straight line across their herdsman just slapped the shoreline with his bamboo cane and by some miracle they all came back on track. We hopped on the ferry and arrived on the other side just as the buffalo had got out and spotted some fresh green foodstuff which they were legging it towards. Once on the other side we stopped to watch a gang of people spreading out masses of yellow corn kernels to dry in the sun, which is used for cow fodder.
Hopping back on the bikes we had a long journey interspersed with a drink stopover until we stopped at a cocoa plantation in the middle of the countryside. Hari took us into the depths of the field to find a yellow bean which he cracked open and we sucked the tasty chocolate covering from around the seed. Except we both ate the first bean without realising you didn’t eat this and wondered why it was so bitter.
Lunch stop for rice and chicken led nicely to a short drive to a hammock cafe so Glenn could have a nap and here Yvonne discovered how to make the sugar cane drink which is sold everywhere on the roadside. Stripping the outer cane using a special knife and feeding it through a mangle to extract the juice all under the supervision of the roadside kiosk owner gave Hari quite a laugh. You’re paying to make your own drink he laughed.
Refreshed and back on the bikes we headed to a country park affair where Hari took us on a walk to see one of two waterfalls in the region. This one was the “Husband” waterfall, which even in the dry season, looked attractive. He then took us further up river and we all popped in for a riverside swim to cool down from the heat of the day. For a couple of hours we enjoyed the cooling waters and discussed all the things you do to put the world to rights along with enabling Hari to practise his english and learn a few new words.
Our last stop was the hotel about an hour away, stopping off at the local market in the town under guidance from Hari to pick up some unusual fruits for our dessert tonight. When we arrived at one of the stalls the owner was nowhere to be found but after chatting with the neighbours we noticed a large plastic sack in which she was hiding. Evidently something about us had frightened her! Back on the bikes for a brief ride into town and battling with a very strong headwind, the guys took us to the restaurant for some great food all ordered by Hai. Along came a plate of chips. We were uncertain if he’d ordered them especially for us or just because they enjoyed them, but we could easily pick them up with our chopsticks so at least that gave us half a chance to tuck in to them.
 |
| The village with its long houses |
 |
| Hai waits for a pig and her litter to cross the road |
 |
| Pulling over to let the elephant pass |
 |
| The water buffalo begin their swim |
 |
| Drying the corn as the buffalo pass |
 |
| Yvonne tries a cacao seed |
 |
| Preparing the sugar cane for drinking |
 |
| Swimming in the river |
 |
| The husband waterfall |
No comments:
Post a Comment