Pond netting with a sideshow.

Uncle Dung phoned this morning at 7.30 to let us know he was going to empty a pond and there are some big fish in it. He said we should go along, so I put a rocket under Dung and an hour and a half later we were there. It is 10 minutes from home. Dung wasn’t sure where it is, so she phoned Uncle Dung when we were near his house and he said call in and pick up his wife and she would show us the way, so we called in and she had a shower and then we left, 3 up on the moto. I am getting used to it now, but there is a lot of dry gravel on the track, which always makes me wary and go slow, not a bad thing I suppose.

We got there and the fish were already being transported into the back of the wagon filled with water. When Dung peered in the back her eyes nearly popped out of her head. The ca yo, a fish called yo, are bigger than she has seen before. We went over to the pond, Dung easily, me stumbling through the long grass, but we got there. The ca yo coming out of this pond are between 5 and 10 kilos, big fish like the bloke who owns the pond. He is perched on a little crocket and I felt sorry for the crocket, but I am glad I never said anything, more of that later.

The owner's and the buyer's wives.

The lads who empty the pond work hard. I have no idea how they get from the pond to the top of the bank. It is slippery mud and not flat. I would be like a mud wrestler within 5 minutes. The pond level is down too making the ascent even more difficult. The pond gets partially drained to make the netting easier. This pond is a serious concern. I was given a tour. They have breeding pools where they bring on some kind of turtle for eating, mind you, why else would anyone keep anything in Vietnam, eating is a priority. They have some other big tanks for fish, which may get transferred to the pond at a later date. They have a generator for the times when the dodgy electricity goes dodgy and a mincer for all the chopped off bits they buy from the market and feed to the fish. There are large feeding platforms for this food and some boats made from halved plastic barrels lashed together used for feeding the fish. I found out why I was given the tour, the owner is selling the land and wants me to buy it. I think the Vietnamese vision of westerners is that they all have money to burn. The owner’s wife tells me they will sell it me cheap and all I have to do is hold onto it and sell it in a few years to make a few bob. When the Vietnamese say cheap, some bells start to ring in my head. We have already been offered land cheap, because we are family, only to find out later that it wasn’t so cheap. So much for family.

The silverback and his daughter.

The lad who owns the land used to do pond netting for a living, so is giving the lads some grief, because they are too slow, but I think this is a grumpy old man recollection of how things were always bigger, better, faster when he was younger. 

The owners are from HCMC and moved here a couple of years ago to try and make some money, but the husband wants to move back now. He is a big lad, like a sumo wrestler, with a big gold, Del Boy chain around his neck. A young lass scuttles around from the other side of the pond with a big bowl of chao for him, which fair enough, he shared with his wife, then she scuttled around again with a ca phe da and some cigarettes. It is no mean feat for me to get around, but she scuttles back and forth no problem. She noticed the scales were a bit sticky, so off she went again and came back with a little shot glass of oil to sort them out with the wife, who I now find out, is  her Mam and the big lad is her Dad. She cleans the scales front too, with a ripped off piece of banana leaf. The banana leaf seems to be the staple supply of tissue around here. The lads netting the pond must have netted a snake, because one of them handed it to the daughter to take away for cooking, but she is not keen, so rips of another piece of kitchen roll banana leaf and holds it with that. It is dead, but she is still not keen. One time she didn’t scuttle, but ran. I struggled to stumble, but the Vietnamese have great balance in any kind, or no kind of footwear, in any kind of terrain. She is a good daughter, very attentive to her parents, nothing seems too much trouble to her. She is the one with the red sun hat in the photos, if I remember to add them.

2 ca yo

Here is why I am glad I never mentioned being sorry for the crocket. A young bloke turns up and nonchalantly walks into the pond area. He asks Uncle Dung to sell him some fish, apparently his attitude is that he expects to be given them, so Uncle Dung tells him it is not his pond and that he should ask the owner. “Who is the owner of this pond?” he asked generally, but the owners say nothing. “I can eat an elephant easily, so why am I having so much trouble getting a few fish to eat?”. A big mistake. This young bloke is some low level, local, police and is trying to extort some fish using his authority. The big lad and owner has had enough now and tells the whippersnapper that he should show more respect when he is on his land and to leave now, or there will be trouble. The young lad tried to throw his virtual, authoritative weight around. Mistake number 2. The big lad takes off his Del Boy chain and shirt and goes nose to nose with the young lad. The fire he was breathing from his nostrils should have been a good give away to our policeman, but he must be a thick Mr Plod, because he pushed his luck and then, despite the efforts of the others to keep them apart, the owner barrels through to him and starts to nudge the local bobby off his land at a great rate of knots through the undergrowth. There is no way I would have said anything once the owner had stood at the beginning and said his piece. He looked a very mild mannered man and was until the wrong buttons were pressed, then he transformed and so did his face. His eyes bulged and he looked very much the king silverback gorilla part. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t have gotten in the ring with his wife. She backed her husband up with equal fury. This is my first sight of hassle in Vietnam. It was very entertaining and a good aside to the fishing.  The young lad still didn’t learn his lesson. He tried to intimidate the owner by phoning someone, but the owner gave him another blast. I hope the policeman has learned his lesson. Alas, I think there are quite a few more around who would benefit from a similar lesson. He tried to come back and make his peace, saying he didn’t say some of the things he had, but the silverback sent him off with a flea in his ear.

Before the sideshow turned up, Dung the “ever on the look out for food” got a plastic bag from somewhere. I enquired why. She has spotted some flowers on the trees circling the pond and her Mam likes these in a soup. She misses nothing as far as food is concerned. We were in Tan An yesterday, we pulled up at some traffic lights and she spotted a bloke selling something. STOP, STOP, STOP Gil. Luckily the lights went onto red. She was off the moto and over checking it out. The lights went to green, so I pulled up onto the path and waited. Not a problem here.  They were freshwater mussels. Some bloke pulled up at the lights and enquired what they were that the white man and the well dressed lady were buying. Keep me out of this. When he was told, he beat a hasty exit stage left, but this didn’t deter Dung. They were cheap, but this didn’t deter Dung. When we got home she told her auntie about them. She told her that they are rubbish, that’s why they are cheap, but this didn’t deter Dung. She cooked them, ate one and then took them to her cousin to see if he was daft enough to eat them, but she never made it there. Here daft enough auntie stopped her and said she liked them.

The failed mussel saga was quickly cleared out of Dung’s memory today at the fish netting. She decided to buy one of the ca yo and got it very cheap. 6 kilos for 100,000 dong, about £3. Enthused by this bargain, she took some ca fe and ca tuong, a fish called fe and another called tuong, again a bargain at 100,000 dong. A real catch, half the price of the market. At home we don’t have a barrel big enough for the ca yo, but this is only a little marring of the coup. I was told to put my foot down on the way home, in case the fish in the hessian sack died. It didn’t matter if we were killed on the way, so long as the fish survived, at least until eating time arrived. I told you food is a priority in Vietnam and fresh food is the number one priority. We made it though and so did the fish, only for one of the ca tuong to die later. The funeral will be in ca lau tonight, a kind of fish fondue, but in a bigger way. Off to another dam do now. Another remembrance of someone dead, in this case a husband who died 100 days ago.

A bit on some of the kids I have met, or nearly in some cases.

 Over the last couple of  weeks, the weather has been heating up, so the water levels have been going down in the ponds and streams and the odours of hot Vietnam have been going up, only in odd places though. It was red  hot the other day, so we had the obligatory afternoon nap and afterwards I thought I’d go out and do a bit of pottering as it cooled down. It started to spit a bit, so I carried on pottering from the shelter of what is left of the nha la kitchen. I thought it would blow over, with the same meteorological expertise as when Michael Fish had thought it wouldn’t snow. It started to lash down. A hole I had dug soon overflowed and the down pipes from the roof were spewing out rainwater and as if by magic, 3 kids turned up, one still in school uniform. I know 2 of them are sisters, but I think they had hijacked someone’s young son. They were jumping in and out of the pond in the garden, which is used to dump any little bits of garden refuse. the ducks and geese just dump in there, full stop. The kids didn’t care. The 2 lasses were dunking the young lad under one of the down spouts and then they were sitting in the out flow, like taking a shower. They were having so much fun, I must have been smiling for 5 minutes watching them, before I moved indoors, as the nha la started to spring more leaks. 

This photo is acutally from last year, but definitley shows the same spirit of fun.

 The eldest of the 2 lasses is rarely without her little sister. They often come passed on their bike and give me a shout and a laugh. I don’t know what their home life is like, but whenever they are out and about, it is nearly always with a smile to accompany them. The kids out here wander around, mostly barefoot, making use of any old piece of junk to have fun with.  They wander in and out of each other’s houses, whether the parents are home or not, there seems to be no malevolence in them, no doubt I am seeing it through rosy glasses, but only slightly rosy, I reckon.

When I made my break for house from the nha la, tripping on the way, the kids seemed to disappear, as they had appeared. When I looked out the window; no more kids. 

It rained pretty solid for a couple of hours. We were meant to go to the market to pick up some vegetables for the tea, but I thought that would go by the board, so I hit the shower. Afterwards, I asked Dung what we were going to do about the market. “I’ve been.” She told me. She didn’t even look wet, but the vegetables were there. She just donned a cape and off she went. The shopping is done from the moto. No getting off, just pull up to the stall and order, then it is passed out, with an exchange of notes of course.

Now that the streams and ponds had dropped a good bit, the water from the rain soon dispersed and the road was dry by the morning. We had  just washed the moto, that is like putting out the washing in the UK, it seems to bring on the rain. The water might disperse quickly, but the mud still manages to appear on the moto.  One day, the government may tarmac this road. Down the dirt track and across a few paddy fields, there are a few factories springing up , so the paddy is being swapped for housing, which may well be rooms to rent for the workers that will move in to take up the work from the factories. I hear there are plans to build a university there too and other amenities to make the area self sustainable with regards to the employment requirements for the factories.

The government has plans to buy up land around us, so they can make the development complete. The compulsory purchase stops at the stream on the edge of our home. This is a good thing, because it is a good home. The money paid by the government is good, so we could probably up sticks and settle elsewhere, but that is irrelevant as we aren’t being bought out. I am  not sure what it will be like around here once the development really kicks into full swing. At the moment there is a great swathe of land, with a few roads and less factories and other buildings such as hotel, restaurant, places to entertain prospective investors. In the future, I suspect it will be like living in a new town.

I took a wander down to Co Ba’s with Dung last night to pick up some chickens that Dung has bought from her. Kai went off to catch them, so we sat around the hammocks chatting, or listening to it and not understanding it, in my case. Bao Thi came out whilst we were sat, she is a 3 year old, who lives across from Co Ba. She is afraid of me, as are many Vietnamese kids, at least initially. She shouts Duong Hai Gil, my Vietnamese name and “Hello, xin chao”, but never gets too close. Anyway she stepped out onto the veranda and she must have seen The Full Monty sometime, because she took of her shorts, stood on the edge of the veranda and peed over the side, stood up. Everyone laughed, but her, when her Mam came out and gave her an ear full. She has a very cheeky, loveable face and is reputed to have the worst temper down the lane. She certainly makes everyone laugh.

This is Co Tu number 2 and her grandson in the hammpocks at the bottom of Co Ba's garden. A very poopular meeting place for chat, coffee, or just a relax. The hammocks are rarely empty.

The mozzies started feasting on my legs, so I picked up the chicken cage, a wire dome to keep them in until they learn to stay in their new home. I left Dung to pick up the chickens. I thought there were 3, but she came home with 5 and had to borrow another cage from Bee, her cousin next door. One of the chickens, a cockerel, only lasted a day. He was chao ga this evening and very tasty. Dung has been trying to take over the slaughtering duties from her Mam, as she thinks every time her Mam kills one, it is a black mark in her book of life for when she goes to meet her maker, but Dung sits for about 30 minutes with the chicken building up the courage, then her Mam takes pity on her and does the dirty deed. I haven’t plucked up the nerve to have a go yet. I think if it was just a case of necking it, then perhaps I may have, but the neck is trimmed of feathers and then slit and the blood caught in a bowl for cooking, so it is a slow happening.

Kiki, another cousin, has started taking her first steps. She is bad tempered too, if she doesn’t get what she wants. She’d get it if she was mine, a clip when needed. Parents seem to be the same the world over. I thought the Vietnamese would be strict with their kids, but the kids seem to often rule the roost, as is usually the case in the UK nowadays, or at least this grumpy old man thinks so. The respect is going out of the current generation of kids in Vietnam, just as in the UK. I suppose it is human progression, or regression in grumpy old men’s eyes. It can be seen in the way the previous generation show respect to their elders and the way the current want their own way, regardless.

Kiki toddling to uncle Meo. The girls from the pond in the background.

Departing from the grumpy old man tattle. The kids aren’t coming around so much during this visit. I haven’t worked out why yet, but I used to enjoy sitting on the veranda with them, passing the evening away. They are a couple of years older, so they will have changed some. I am keeping busier this time too. I do like the Vietnamese kids in general, they only want a smile and a quick exchange of words and they are happy. I don’t see many of them in grumpy moods, but I guess that could just be the way kids are. No. I am wrong, there are definitely grumpy kids in the UK. Even when they have all the latest, all singing, all dancing whatever the latest thing is. WHOOPS, that Grumpy bloke is back. I had better call it a day for now.

Until the next time. Gap lai sao. (I think anyway).

Some little things that make Vietnam for me.

Wandering around since we have been back, some things I see make me think “This is Vietnam” and give me a happy glow, mostly for no reason I can think of.

The 3^rd day we were back, we wandered up to town, via the dirt track, that is one of the memories, or 2 really, the dirt track to and from our house, you would never guess there are factories springing up all around us and the pho bo is a dish that says Vietnam to me, but these memories and characteristics weren’t in my mind when I started this piece of waffle.

Whilst sitting eating I heard the familiar high revving of some distinctive motos and knew it was the cigarette smugglers heading our way. These lads all seem tall and skinny, but I need to verify that with a bit more research. They come flying past with boxes of cigarette cartons stacked up behind them, they have so many that the smugglers are perched on the very front of the seat. I thought they covered them in hessian to hide what they are carrying, but they have the cartons stacked in front of them too and uncovered, so I was wrong with that assumption and anyway it is pretty obvious who they are and they tend to come in convoy too, any number up to 10 of them. They can’t really be called smugglers either. There is nothing discreet about them, they may as well have a banner flying. I guess cigarette runners would be a better name. The cigarettes are picked up at the Cambodian border then whizzed at a great rate of knots to various destinations, a lot of them around HCMC. The lads whistle along weaving in and out of the traffic, beeping their horns and building their reputation and some popularity amongst the Vietnamese, at least that is how I feel about them. I fancy having a go, but my moto handling skills are not up to it. I think I would be a one run a week man.

Dung told me they tune up their motos and the police can’t catch them, but that is not the case. Another day we were up town for Dung to change some pounds into dong, another Vietnamese characteristic is how long it takes to do anything concerned with the banks, unless you are one of their preferred customers, then I have noticed queue jumping is encouraged by the staff. Anyway, I knew Dung was going to be a while, so I perched on a bench outside. The police had setup a checkpoint, just down from the bank. They were pulling in odd motos and checking paperwork. They held onto a couple of motos whilst I sat and watched. The biggest and tallest of the police had just pulled a lad over and was checking his documents when I heard that high revving sound again, the bobby gave the lad his keys back, much to the lads relief, I suspect he wasn’t completely legal, due to the haste in which he left. The bobby jumped onto his big motorbike and was off like a shot, he soon caught up the last of the fag runners, but let him go. I have no idea what went on. Dung told me sometimes the police just warn them, but sometimes they confiscate their motos and contraband. She says the out of HCMC, police are a lot more friendly than those of the big city. The speed with which the bobby caught the runner blew away the myth about the runners souped up motos, but enhanced the police’s reputation in my eyes. I believe a lot, probably the majority of them are corrupt, but at least they let this runner get on with earning a living. Dung was surprised the runners hadn’t been warned off coming this route through Duc Hoa, that usually happens to these lads who are building up their folklore fame when there is a temporary checkpoint setup

.

Another of the sites I love to see in Vietnam is the kids coming out of school. It is like a bee swarm, although the school rush hour here is more hectic than in the UK. I hadn’t seen this until our return, hoards of motos and bikes waiting outside the schools to pick up the kids. I was surprised to see it. The part I like is the secondary girls in their traditional white ao di uniform and their wide brim sun hats, most of them pedalling home on their bikes, they look really elegant, even the kids from lower years look good in their uniforms and wide brim hats, the lads usually have baseball hats on. If they are riding 2 up, the only combination of pedalling and steering I haven’t seen is the person on the carrier rack behind steering and the one up front pedalling. I have seen both pedalling, both pedals, each pedalling one, front steering back pedalling, it always makes me smile and the flock of white ao di heading for home is a great site. Kids of all ages pedal off home and go 3 abreast at times, some even 4, nattering away with not a care in the world about the traffic queuing up behind them and beeping at them. It is a dual carriageway through town, so it is not a big deal, the Vietnamese just like to beep.

Another site that distinctively says Vietnam is the ladies on cho Duc Hoa, Duc Hoa market, beavering away, or sitting waiting for customers in their non la’s, conical hats. This site will always say Vietnam to me. It may be possible to see it elsewhere, but I haven’t been there yet. The non la adds character and beauty to some faces that don’t look like they could bear much more character. Dung certainly looks even more beautiful in a non la. Cho Duc Hoa is a good place to wander, in fact most of the markets I have visited are good places to wander and some do some good cheap food too, all of them do delicious fresh fruit.

We don’t go into HCMC a great deal nowadays. The road is a nightmare and it is hot and dusty, but it is another good memory. I haven’t been to any other city in Vietnam that has the same feel or look. Hanoi is completely different, it is more easy paced and seems poorer, older, more what the Americans would like to see, quaint I suppose they would say, but I am not sure about that.

HCMC is high speed moto drag racing, or it seems like that at times. The streets are mostly packed together houses and shops, with the odd boulevard. Most of the streets look the same to me, but they still ooze Vietnamese character in my eyes. Most shops have their address above the front, street name and number, district and city names, so if you have a good map, you need never be lost in HCMC, so long as you are heading in the right direction. HCMC just feels like HCMC, which I guess makes it unique. Like London, I like to visit it, but would hate to work or live there for any length of time.

Just a few postcards of Vietnam to be going on with. I thought I had some photos, but can’t find them.

Applying for a new visa and visiting Auntie Thuong.

It is visa renewal time, that came around quick. I decided to get a month visa when we were in the UK, it is more expensive to get them in the UK, about £40 quid for one month, compared with $10 in Vietnam, so I thought I’d get a six month one when we got here. As usual I have cocked up, not much runs smoothly when a different country is involved. It is not such a big cock up. I can renew my visa as many times as we wish, because I am living in Vietnam at a residential address, but only for a month at a time, as I have a month visa, that is all I can get. If I had a 6 month visa then I could have had a 6 month visa renewal. There must be some logic there, but it escapes me. There is thousands of kilometres of red tape in Vietnamese government, local and national and woe betide anyone who tries to circumvent the rules, unless of course some palms are greased, at least that is my impression for all those lawyers reading this blog ready to sue me. The form for the visa is obtained from Tan An, formerly Long An before the Viet Cong takeover and more recently, formerly in my blog, I wouldn’t mind betting. Tan An is about 40 kilometres away, it is an adventure getting there, picking out the sporadic pieces of flat road amongst all the potholes. It’s not that bad, but you have to keep your eyes firmly fixed on the road, as the potholes appear out of the blue, quite often for no reason, although I have twigged that if there is a factory by the road, the main road outside the gates and a few metres either side are not in good shape. The frequent bridges are a lottery too, a flat run onto the bridge can quite often lull you into a false sense of ease and then throw an Evil Knevil drop at the exit from the bridge, or a few metres after the easy way off the bridge a few tarmac moguls are thrown in, extra points are awarded by the customers at nearby cafes for any somersaults or wiggles as you soar. Anyway, when you get to Tan An for the form, it can’t be filled in and handed in for a visa extension stamp, it has to be taken to your town of residence to get the local council to stamp it and our local town is Duc Hoa, 40 Km away and it is an adventure getting there, picking out .......... Oops I’ve done that bit. We were lucky this time, Auntie Thuong was coming for a visit last week and guess where she lives near to? 10/10/ Tan An, so she brought us a form. We can pick another up each time the visa is renewed, so no sweat. We forgot to take the form to be stamped on Friday, but Dung reckons the Council office is open until 11.30 on Saturdays, so we went along at about 11.10 and there were 2 blokes in, one was a kid with his head down on the desk, he was waiting to be taken to the police offices, a bad boy. The other was a council officer who was not best pleased to see us, he is supposed to close at 11.00, but it isn’t our fault he is still there, it’s the giang ho lad who is having a kip, but we took the scowls and the stamp he gave us on the form, no palm greasing required, which may be why he scowled. With our stamped document we set off early for Tan An on the Tuesday, we had a long day on the Sunday, so had a lie in on Monday, but more of that another blogging. It was about 7.30 when we set off and not too hot, but the heat was steadily rising as we went along, the heat may have been coming from Dung seething on the pillion spot, because she hasn’t eaten yet. If you ever catch her in a bad mood, just give her some food, that will bring her back down. There are usually 2 people in the Tan An office, but when we got there one lad was handling the shop by himself from what I could gather he was an amiable bloke and started our request when it was our turn and in our turn too, the Vietnamese rank up there with the Germans for love of queuing. Alas his number 2 turned up before he was finished, the number 2 told Dung I couldn’t just keep renewing my visa. Dung had thoughts of me leaving soon, but she said, he read something on the computer and it is as I said earlier, as many as I like, at least until the next time we go and somebody else is on the desk, then who knows, but it keeps us on our toes. Things nearly always work out well, it is just a struggle getting there sometimes. All that done, it is time to feed Dung, before she looks for some GBH on GPB. We took a circuitous route, as usual when Dung has an idea,” there was bound to be some good eateries around the market” and there probably are, but we couldn’t find them, so I craftily weaved my way back to a place we had been before. “Oh look Gil, here’s the Pho Bo place we went to last time”. Not as daft as I look, sometimes. Very nice it was too, the soup was a bit sweet, but there was loads of beef and good fresh vegetables and a free tra da, iced tea and it is cheaper than in Duc Hoa. Dung was very impressed.

Fed and watered, we set off to Di Thuong’s, stopping to pick up some apples and custard apples at a stall at the bottom of her road. The custard apples do taste a bit of custard, or perhaps the name plays psychologically on your taste buds, they are nice anyway, very refreshing, lots of juice that looks nothing like custard. The road to Di Thuongs has potholes that make the ones on the way from Duc Hoa look like dimples, but it not tarmaced, so fair enough. Some of the high points between cavernous potholes is very narrow and Dung is not the best pillion, so by the time we reach Di Thuong’s my ribs have been crushed. Di Thuong was at a wedding, so her mother-in-law let us in, a very lovely, very Vietnamese lady, she was tending her vegetable patch in the swelter that is nearly midday. Di Thuong used to live in a lean to, but her in-laws gave her and Cuong some of their land to build a house and very nice it is too, a damn site better than her lean to. They are still saving for the tiles on the floor, but no rush, this is Vietnam.

Di Thuong and Di Thuy turn up whilst Dung and myself are crashed in the hammock indoors, with that standalone fan blasting us, this is a very hot house. They have Nam in tow, Di Thuy’s son and little bugger. Thuy is very relaxed with him and lets him roam and run riot, but doesn’t object to others disciplining him. Di Thuong does a bit, but she is too soft with him, but Dung???? Well that is a different kettle of discipline, she gives the lad grief and he shrugs it off easily. I put up with it for a while, but then bad old uncle Gil appeared on the scene. He knew when I meant know, but pushed as far and as often as he could until the penny dropped. He disappeared a few times shouting “Me, Anh Gil dang nua” Mam, Gil has hit me again, only to be met with laughs. Another tale was born to tell his Dad, later on. The Vietnamese never use 10 words when they can use a hundred or more.

Cuong’s parent have given him and Thoung the land to build and it has banana plants, papaya, chillies, all bloody sorts of stuff growing on it. There house is next door, feet away and is very big, but made from wood and lashed together, it has loads of character and is smashing inside. Not lavish, just very old fashioned Vietnamese, before bricks and mortar became fashionable. Cuong says it is ugly, but I think I would prefer to live in this one, over his. Not that it matters, I’ll not live in either, but Cuong is very keen to get us to stay, but we duck out, saying we’ll stop when we pick up the visa next week. To pass a bit of time, as the evening began to cool, the ladies decided to collect some fruit. First off was bananas, so I was commandeered as chief hacker and trusted with a very sharp machete. I thought we cut the bunch of the plant, but I am a stupid Brit. No, Di Thuy said, hack the plant down, at least she motioned for that, so I did. It is very soft with a lot of liquid, so a couple of hacks and it was ready to topple, with the ladies holding onto the plant to stop the bananas bouncing. Di Thuy thought I was a bit of a whimp with the machete and so took over the role and with one clean swipe the bunch was off the plant. The bunch is blooming huge and I now learn it is for me and Dung to take home later. That should be fun on the moto. This plant has big bananas, we moved now to one with smaller bananas. I prefer the big ones, but in general the Vietnamese prefer the small ones. They are not so sweet, a bit unbanana like for me. Anyway, these are for Di Thuy to take home. I got the machete back for plant felling duties and Thuy took over for samurai hacking and was getting a bit excited with her samurai billing and nearly too my leg off, but I was too quick for her, well actually she missed me. Di Thuong felled a young banana plant earlier, no fruit on it yet and began peeling the trunk and then slicing it into a bowl. It goes into soup and is very nice too. The plants grow very easily here and Cuong’s Mam tells me they grow to give fruit in 6 months. The ladies have had their fun for now, so sit on the front steps chatting, then Di Thuy spots some different fruit on a tree in Di Thuong’s in-laws garden, so it’s off we go. All this time Nam is left to kip in the hammock, no doubt we’ll hear him if he gets up. There’s a bit of a snag with the new food adventure, the fruit bearing tree is hanging over a pond, so Di Thuong goes and fetches a bamboo pole about 4 metres long, some string and a short stick. All this is too much for Dung, so she’s off up the tree, a big splash may soon follow. The in-laws supplied the bamboo, stick and string, which is pretty good, since we are scrumping their tree. Dung has some success and hoys the fruit down she can reach, but Di Thuong’s contraption is needed. She just tied the stick to the end to make a small cross and this is used to yank the fruit from the tree, firstly it is pulled towards Dung, so she can grab it, but the rest are on branches too far away or too thick, so she just yanks on them, or twists on the twigs until they drop. This is where we got the splash, but only from wayward fruit that never made it to terra firma. Dung scrambled down the tree and started to do a war dance because Thuy told her that there was a caterpillar on her back. For someone who hacks live fish to pieces and all sorts of other deeds that some women would baulk at, she makes a big song and dance about a caterpillar, that turned out not to be there. Back to Thuong’s now to check out this fruit. I have never seen it before and guess what, I have never eaten it before either. It is eaten with muoi ot, a mix of salt and chillies, the fruit is dipped into it and eaten, it is to take the sour taste away and it works, but I’m not sure the fruit was worth the effort, although it was a good laugh getting it. They look like big green dates, but the tree was definitely not a palm tree. The sun is going down now, hence the heightened activity. It is shower time then chau vit for tea, duck rice porridge, sort of with veg and herbs not to mention the sliced, banana trunk. Not my favourite, but definitely high on the like list here.

Time to pack up for the journey home along the dark, potholed roads, Dung is a bad passenger, but we get there usually. I hope it doesn’t rain, as the bananas have been strapped to the back of the bike and there is no way we can get the seat up now to get the cape. Binh makes the journey easier as far as Ben Luc, as he leads the way. We were going along nicely and Binh’s moto developed a very bad sound, but he says he knows what it is and will get a million knocked of the price of the moto to take it. He only borrowed it to see how it went and if he liked it, he’d buy it. It turned out a good idea. We were going along and Dung gave me the order to pull up alongside Binh, so being obedient, I did and there I stayed for a few kilometres whilst Dung and Thuy had a nice chat to break up the journey. Nam was perched between Binh and Thuy on the moto seat, sometimes standing sometimes sitting and very often chatting. If the Brits saw this, some would have a fit, but this isn’t the UK. We parted company at a wild set of traffic lights in Ben Luc with some very well disguised potholes that I didn’t miss and it gave Dung something to gasp about, but no problem. We navigated through Ben Luc and hit the bumpy road home. A few kilometres out of Ben Luc, Dung was cursing her enthusiasm at taking the bananas, they were making her ride home even more uncomfortable, but she will forget all that when she gets stuck into them and sees her Mam’s smile when she sees them. It was certainly a long drag home in the dark, but we got there in good nick and hit the shower, considering the rain that is put down in this country, it is very, very dusty, hence the shower after shower, the sweating also contributes.

Brewed up and with a piece of cake moved to the veranda for a chill before bedtime.