Weather forecast indicated a shower at 11am, happily these guys are no better at predicting than their Brit counterparts so Giang’s brolly went unused. I started off the day by finding & visiting the tailor and his delectable wife in the standstill pre-week off Lunar New Year traffic. So many people buying cherry blosson trees, often delivered on the ubiquitous 150cc motorbikes. Orange trees (cumquats) and orchids on the roadside. Mum would have loved the marquees of enormous orchid displays for sale.
Today was a tee shirt day, a welcome change from the 5c days we’ve ‘enjoyed’ but the mornings are pure pea-soupers, washing refuses to dry. I think 5-10c is easier for the 2-wheeled old goat than 23c.
Leaving the city behind, heading southwards on mostly very flat rural roads, the countryside opened up into managed paddy and vegetable fields. The soil is incredibly fertile but then we are on the flood plane of the large Red River. Even in towns and cities, the spare space between buildings, edges of the roads is usually well cultivated, often by tiny grannys with the traditional womens woven coolly hats, face covered by surgeons masks against the cold & the sun. They found a use for the BS CV19 PPE! Maybe the equally useless Sunak can send a few tonnes over.
It’s a revelation to see grannys employed in the dirty and very physical rubbish collection, street cleaning and house-building, making cement & manually hauling up materials to the younger male builders above, loads that look heavier than they do.
Reminds me of the HSBC construction site in Pune, India. For health and safety the women, sometimes carrying babies, had to wear blue plastic hard-hats which incorporated a ring; onto this ring a basket of concrete sat and up they went, like an Escher chain-gang. I often wondered about being up a few stories in buildings where the concrete pour was done by the basket-load rather than by truck. I lived! Grandma’s cared for the young kids on the building site, kids had a wonderful time in the builders sand and mud. H&S still allowed them to wear flip-flops on site. Is that a juxtaposition?
The roads at first were bridal-path mud with occasional stretches of really cracked and broken concrete as planned by RidingwithGPS app. The aim being to avoid busier roads. Sadly, after 10km, I went through rubbish tip central where families recycle tons of un-sorted mixed rubbish around their homes. Four water buffalo looked hopefully as I passed – please take us somewhere nicer! Although I can’t smell much any more, my body must have recognised the stench, add on the very bumpy going and and last night’s excess of garlic & I was retching violently for 10 minutes, saved by a tarmac road and a favourable breeze.
I saw two church steeples on the ride plus a few mixed Budhist and Christian graveyards. Its common to see heavy stone/concrete tombs in the family fields. These can often be found for sale beside graveyards. Locally they bury the relative a few years, dig them up to collect the bones; any remaining fleshy bits are scraped off and the bones reburied. Not my cup of Tra at all.
I’m still waiting for permission to put Mum’s ashes in the family tomb in E. Sussex. We dont know what will be allowed or permitted for her inscription by the various busybodies who are involved – to argue with them would entail lawyers and Church court hearings. The Lutyens Trust letters are signed by Professors & KCs so it would be an expensive option.
The ferry across the Red River was fun and happily uneventful, I met a man from the Bronx N.York on the ferry, he had just landed and was cycling southwards to meet up with his VN wife and her family in Danang?? He intended to visit UK with wifey aboard a folding tandem. I was heading west so we soon parted company, I needed to find lunch in one of the sleepy villages.
In the lead-up to TET lunar new year, many families have already up-sticks to visit relatives so of course many businesses were already shut. By ignoring the GPS complaints that I was off-course I was relieved to find a Pho Bo cafe in the next small town and had a very welcome beef noodle lunch.
The ride back to VY was on a super-wide 4 lane highway over a long bridge, below was the sluggish river and later, paddy, fruits, sugar and veggies aplenty. Traffic here is generally slow & very very noisy, it seems you must hoot a horn with every second breath and for no obvious reason. On a parallel side road, I was surprised to find a 2 km stretch of truck axles and old diesel engines. Alongside them were metal-working sheds.
