I'm Back!

It's almost been a months since I've posted anything. This is not due to me not having anything interesting to talk about, far from it. I have been doing quite a bit of traveling in the past month or so.

A good place to start would be my Bat Trang, a ceramics village to the west of Hanoi. A co-worker, Anh,  invited myself and Nathan to join her and her sister in a trip to visit Bat Trang, and so one Saturday morning the four of us piled into a bus and drove for over an hour to get there. Bat Trang is only about 30 Km away, which gives you an idea of how bad the road was. Because there were so many people on the bus we had to stand, which was sort of fun, but not for as long as we had to do it. The village itself was very quiet, and the ceramics they made there were actually pretty nice looking. We opted to go to a shop where we had an opporutinity to make our own ceramics. At first we were able to make some cool stuff, but over time it seemed like our skills waned and by the end we were awful. By the end Anh managed to convince her husband to come picks us up so that we wouldn't have to take the bus back.

Freshly made pottery, awaiting decorating and glazing

In the following weeks I went out of town occasionally with my host family, first to my host-father's home village, and then to the countryside for a wedding reception. Both were interesting due to the fact that they were places where I really stood out. The reception was quite fun as it involved a big dinner, people doing karaoke and meeting lots of interesting people. It was quite the party.



Last weekend I was at Mai Chau, a Thai minority village to the south of Hanoi in the mountains. This was a trip that was organized by a group at the church that I attend here. To get there I had two options: first was to go by bus and the second was to go by motorbike. I am very, very glad I opted for the second choice as driving through the mountains was one of the most fun things I have ever done. There were 8 bikes in total that went and we stuck together as a group. To get to the mountains was a pain, first driving a 125cc motorbike on a highway (I was surprised by the fact that I could coax the bike to about 75 km/h), and then a section of road that made Hanoi streets look calm. It was tough trying to keep up with everyone and weave through trucks and cars. Eventually we took a side-road that took us up into mountains that looked very much like something from a Chinese landscape painting. It was gorgeous, but we were in a hurry to get to Mai Chau, so there was never a time for pictures. The road was fairly quiet and it was a lot of up and down. Eventually we got to Mai Chau itself and had a very relaxing time. It was really nice to be away from Hanoi and be in a place that was quiet and had clean air. The drive home was almost exactly the same, albeit in reverse and for half the trip I had a passenger.

Rice was just harvested, leaving the fields looking like this

Water Buffalo grazing in the harvested fields

Notice the satellite dish? I guess cable tv hasn't made it out here yet

Finally, yesterday I went out into the countryside to look at a project that MCC is involved in. The one we looked at involved providing lunches for preschool children in an effort to get more to attend. It was a nice trip for me, due to the fact that I was chosen to do administrative and tech work at the MCC office. Nathan drew the straw that involves writing stories about the people that we meet on trips like this. So I got to spend the morning taking pictures and relaxing while Nathan interviewed people.

In the coming weeks I think I will be going on a couple more MCC trips, and during Christmas and New Years I will be spending time in Cambodia, visiting some of my fellow SALTers, enjoying the beach, and visiting Ankor Wat.