Day 7 - Hanoi

Day 7 - Hanoi and Tho Ha Village

Today we took a trip to Tho Ha village. To get to the village one takes a cement hulled ferry. The village is famous for rice wine but more recently makes all of the rice paper in Viet Nam.

On the way to the village we stopped at a local cemetary

The dead are buried twice, initially in a mound like this

And then, two years later the bones are put in a ceramic vessel and reburied in a more substantial grave.

These women are irrigating the rice fields from the water source

Here a woman is making concrete tiles, first the concrete is put in a mold and then paint is put in using a type of stencil. More concrete is added, the whole thing is pressed and the tile is done. Imagine doing this by hand all day long! Note the OSHA approved dust protection.

Now onto the ferry boat, it is really made of reinforced concrete

As we walked down the street an old man invited us in for a short concert. Note the poster on the wall.

This is the open air family shower

Next to watch how rice paper is made. The buckets are full of rice, water and salt in a secret recipe known only to the villagers. The mixture is cooked and the picked up with a roller and set out to dry.