Day 10b Visiting a local village

Recycling in Vietnam.

Finally, we end up at a local village.  Wow!  We met two very old ladies, both with great stories.  The first, who is 88, is quite the entrepreneur and hostess.  The good, she welcomed us to her home with a gift of bananas and showed us how she makes fans from bamboo and brooms from rice stalks.  The bad, she chews betel nut.   (See my blog on Yap to refamiliarize yourself on betel nut).  Hint, we have pulled hundreds of teeth destroyed by betel nut.)

But, what a sweet lady.  I bought one of her brooms for a dollar.

Next, as we were walking by a very nice home, we got invited into the courtyard to look around.

Thinh told us this probably cost around $100,000 with a nice all mahogany area in front to assist you in worshiping your ancestors!  The gal is a widow, her husband was killed in the Vietnam/American war, but her two sons have been very successful.  One works for the government, the other 'works in Germany'.  They are taking good care of mom.  Both these very nice ladies have seen a lot of history.....

Finally, this village is known for their glass noodles!  Briefly, you take rice, pound it into sheets, mechanically turn it into microscopic threads, dry it on bamboo, chop it up and wallah, you get rice vermicelli!  A few pictures.

Rice drying all over town

Removing the rice noodles from the bamboo drying racks, rolling them up to
take them out to the restaurants where they chop them up.  The gals are paid
one dollar per kilo of feather-light noodles.