Let's Talk About Pot...

...tery.  Pottery.  Get your head in the game, people.  Kyle had today off for Martin Luther King, Jr Day, so we made an early morning excursion out to Bat Trang, THE pottery village around Hanoi.  We took the bus out there.

It cost 3,000 dong ($.15!) for the thirty-minute ride out there.  It was very pleasant, but on the ride back fifty high school kids turned the bus into a can of sardines...just think about taking the 1L in Austin with sixty five other people.  Oogie.

Our first stop, of course, was the pottery market.  The village has become somewhat diversified, but the vast majority of people are still involved in the pottery industry in one way or another.  They specialize in white and white-and-blue pottery, but there's one black sheep in the village who started using terracotta and now he's being imitated by several shops in town.  Way to start a movement, Mr. Independent Thinker.

I kept feeling like a bull in a China shop, but, thank God, I didn't break a single thing.

I just think this tree is super cool. The branches grow from the trunk at the same level and make it look like an umbrella when it's at full bloom.

We then attempted to follow the self-guided walk in our tour book...and we came pretty close to achieving that goal.  First stop was the town pagoda...

Followed closely by a trip to the town dinh, or communal house, which was unfortunately undergoing a crap-ton of construction.  But I was fortunate enough to meet one of the workmen, who knew just enough English to tell me that he only spoke German.  Ce la vie.  The Temple of Literature, dedicated to Confucius and his disciples was closed, but the panel over the door says "Heaven and earth move in rhythm."  How great is that?!  We then meandered by the river and down the twisty twirly alleyways for which the village is also known.

It's a terracotta fairy village!

Cocks...for fighting! Geez, people, your heads are really in the gutter today.

Dinh under construction.

The wall's lined with a mixture of soot and terracotta that has been slapped against the surface, leaving a hand print embedded in each one. You pull them off when they dry and use them as a fuel, akin to charcoal.

The niche below the 624 is called a "coffin corner." The alleys are so narrow, the villagers had to carve into the walls to allow coffins to be carried around the corners. Morbid. :D

Skiiiiiiiinny alley.

We then stumbled upon this huge open area filled with bonsai trees.  It was awesome!!!  Each was so different than the last one my eyes had perused, and they looked like miniaturized eco-systems.  They had such a primordial quality to them, but I kept thinking of the movie Fern Gully the whole time and expected for swarms of pixies to burst through the tangled convolutions of braided branches.

This one's MY FAVORITE! Doesn't it kind of remind you of the tree in Fern Gully?!

There were LOTS!

This one even came with a bird cage. Fancy.

And then I was about to die of starvation, so we went to this little cafe Kyle had been to before and got Bun Cha, rice noodles that you dip into broth containing strips of grilled pork and thinly sliced pieces of papaya.  IT WAS AMAZING!!!  By leaps and bounds my favorite Vietnamese dish so far.  I will be sorely tempted to order it every single time I eat for the next five and a half weeks.  We bounced around the village for a short while longer before being bombarded by that tsunami of teenagers on the bus back.  I didn't buy anything, but I really want to go back and get a tea set, one that's not made of silver or an heirloom and which I won't be afraid to use.

When we got back, I raced off to the first day of my internship.  Dr. Rapoport has called me a different name each time I see him.  The first day, he thought my name was Dawn and today he introduced me to a group of tourists as Sarah Ward.  I can't wait to find out who I'll be tomorrow.  Today was slightly anti-climactic, simply because nothing was really accomplished.  I enjoyed watching Dr. R. give his spiel about his extensive collection and talking to and helping the large group of tourists (to whom I reintroduced myself on the sly), but I still have no idea exactly what he wants me to do...I'm fairly certain he doesn't really have any idea either.  And then over and over, going up and down the seven flights of stairs in his shop...oy!  After my mountainside workout yesterday, my calves have been shrieking and taut as a tightrope all day.  But tomorrow will better.  No doubt in my mind.

Finally, Kyle (who works as a microbiologist specializing in AIDS research) had some colleagues over for a dinner party.  I wish I could say I picked up some key facts about microbiology, but that would be a bald-faced lie.  I just hope the lamplight wasn't glinting off my glazed eyes in too blinding a fashion.  They were lovely people; I just have very little to contribute to a conversation on the logistics of research labs throughout Vietnam.  Today's highlight: definitely the whimsical bonsai trees.  They were such a delightful and giddy surprise.