Bai Guia

There will be an official hiatus in this blog. I'm going on vacation until 25/8 and don't expect to be near the net much.

Bai Guia is a sandbank in the middle of the Red River. Now that the water level is controlled by the Da River dam, I'm not sure how much of it is flooded during the wet season. It seems to me to have been getting larger over time, but that could be my imagination, so perhaps it isn't flooded over so much any more. Anyway, for as long as I can recall, people have been growing stuff on it during the dry season. They come down river from provinces further up, like Phu Tho. But that's on higher ground - a few more metres above the dry-season water line. Here, we're on the beach at the northwestern tip, not far from the Thang Long bridge.

Gathering chi gong

It has a different name here, but it's the same concept of mind over matter. This kid was about to undergo a piercing of the skin on his back with a very large nail. He apparently felt no pain and there was no blood from the wound, indeed there was no wound at all after the procedure was over. Others, also children, had concrete blocks placed on their legs or stomachs that were smashed by karate chops. Another pulled a Landcruiser along by a rope held between his teeth. I found this performance both impressive and very disturbing. It is part of the 'traditional' cultural revival going on all over the country, but although this performance was being filmed by VTV, it isn't approved of by the government and I can see why. A crowd of spectators gathered to be entertained, but what's it for really? Just people, mostly children, doing freaky things for the sake of being freaky? The claim is to have some spiritual power, but what do they use it for? I suppose I'm too secular and materialist, but after watching a couple of these demonstrations I wanted to escape to somewhere more down-to-earth and less gruesome.

Making noodles 1

This is hot work - standing over an oven in tropical heat. The mixture is spread over a cloth membrane stretched over a giant wok. One (upside-down) fan keeps the fire going, another cools the cook. It takes a couple of minutes to cook the mixture to into a chewy, stretchy consistency which is then rolled up and stretched over a rectangular open-weave bamboo frame and put out in the open air to dry. There were two women working at this - one cooking and one rolling up and stretching. They worked in perfect synchronisation: by the time the second woman had finished stretching and set up a new frame, the cook had completed the next batch. I've no idea how many hours a day they did that - 10 minutes was long enough to watch it.

Village archway

Only a few of the many alleys leading off the main street in Cu Da had grand entryways like this. Perhaps they once led to a grand house. They're all badly in need of renovation. If anyone viewing this can read the characters, I'd love to know what they say.

Coming back from the fields

As I mentioned before, most Vietnamese like to dress up for photos. This woman was trying to wave my camera away with her hat, but laughing in the process, so I don't feel too bad about posting her picture in work clothes on the internet! The other person with her back to the camera is one of my work colleagues. We were on a lunch-time ramble around the village and surrounding fields.