Oriental adventures: 17/3/14 Delta cruise, Damn massage and Dinner Delights

Monday 17^th Delta cruise, Damn massage and Dinner Delights

And a good sleep it was, disturbed only by the occasional river boat with faulty silencer, then a cacophony of church campanology (bell ringing) and the consequent roosters reveille just before 5. I woke up and blogged yesterday’s events until breakfast. The cruise lady turned up and we booked to join the morning cruise, which already had a Spanish and a German Swiss couple. We cast off at 8 and headed off excitedly in our ancient wooden boat.

First stop was at a brickworks where we watched locals manhandling about 8 bricks at a time, tossing them in a loose stack to the next person, who caught them and passed on until the last person inside the big kiln (diameter 8 metres and stack height about 2m) dropped them in place. The walls tapered to a beehive shape a couple of metres higher up. The loading process is delayed until the calendar predicts a Lucky Day and then takes 5 days, 12 or so hours a day.

Pile of rice husks - off the ground that slowly drop into the fire and then onto the ground as ash. (Which is then sold as fertiliser)

We moved on to another kiln that burns for 14 days, needing to be constantly topped up with rice husks and for the burned bits to be raked out every 15 minutes. A woman sits there for 12 hour shifts with a hammock on standby – how much temptation would that be? Then somebody else takes over.

The bricks are left for 5 days to cool down and then unloading takes 5 more days. We later saw how the clay is mixed and then extruded through a machine which can mould the bricks with 4 ventillation holes running through them if required. They emerge in a strip and a specialised worker cuts them with a multiple wired device like an egg cutter. The base workers get $10 a day (for a 10 hour day), which isn’t bad for a 3^rd world economy.

I was repeatedly accosted by a 4 year old who first had a lunge at my (orange) watch and then grabbed at the wrist bands on the other arm and tried to stretch them over the fist that I was mentally struggling not to punch him with.

An interesting glimpse into the lives of average working people.

Next stop was for fruit tasting (pleasant) and cultural singing (acquired taste). Janine wanted a bag of dried sweet potato.

Next a coconut processing workshop. 2 topless young fellows gleamed with sweat as they gripped a ferociously sharp 6” knife between their legs (just look at the pictures ok) and with about 6 stabs cut the husk off in one piece. They then tossed the husks onto a pile and moved on to the next coconut. One of them paused to demonstrate how they then halved the nut and cut the fruit out of the shell with a curved knife. A woman was sitting there whittling the brown layer off and leaving the white meat. All the offcuts from each of those steps are kept and used for coir mats, carving souvenirs if intact other wise fuel, and feeding ducks.

What a lot of coconuts

Lad is removing flesh from the brown husk. Mum is peeling off any brown skin so all that is left is white flesh.

We also saw coconut lollies/toffee being made and took the opportunity to buy a classic Vietnamese hat. From there we were transferred in the back of a motorised tricycle that barely fitted the 7 of us.

Coconut factory. Machines to grind the coconut (front right), squeeze out the juice (blue bucket) then the cooking fire behind that. The substance is put into moulds. Cooled then cut with a knife into bite sized pieces. The seated girls are wrapping each sweet individually.

Travelling over the bridge to lunch

Lunch began with each couple being presented with a grilled Elephant Ear fish, which a girl demonstrated being filleted and then folded into rice paper with cucumber lettuce and pineapple strips and noodles, which we ate with delicious tamarind sauce.

Chris, the fish and our guide, Miss Dong

Turning Vietnamese...

We got to roll the rest ourselves and were sitting quite full and content until they returned with pancakes stuffed with vegetables and salad. Soon after, they were back with bits of grilled pork and rice with a pepper sauce.

Next, it was into canoes for a 15 minute paddle through narrow back ”street” canals to the original boat which was waiting to take us back from a different direction to the hotel after a varied and interesting 5 hour outing.

Fishing

Our boats

What a wonderful, happy smile

After some emailing and stuff I decided to go for a massage – J wasn’t interested. This entailed crossing the other bridge to the West of us and a 1km walk, periodically miming to the bemused locals – “I am looking for the blind people who give massages”. This usually worked well and I was guided along the street and then back a bit after I failed to recognise the place.

(skip to *End Massage* if this is boring you)

Apparently the Norwegian Gubment finances it to provide sheltered employment for blind people. I was sent into a room and had got down to my jocks when a blind man came in. Hmm ok no problem with that, although I did pause to remember the Seinfeld scene with George being traumatised by a similar event. I was signalled to start on my back, which is unusual and the masseur launched into a somewhat clumsy scalp and facial treatment. I do not like having my hair ruffled and I Hate having it pulled. Then he fumbled at my neck in a manner which was altogether far more like chiropractic than I wanted him (or anyone else) to attempt.

He then moved on to my upper arm and started punching me in the bicep. After a few of these, I tried to tell him that this was not the sort of therapy that I wanted, but he didn’t stop so I took him by the arm, which he ignored, and eventually punched him back a few times to facilitate his understanding of my concerns. He then moved down to my feet (out of punching range) and clumsily rearranged my toes then pinched my shins a few times, moving up to my quads, which he pummelled up and down with both hands. What with him being blind and everything this was fraught with all manner of dangers.

So I rolled over and presented him with less vulnerable targets. He started again at the head, repeating his earlier ministrations and then commenced thumping away at my back. I have completed 3 courses in Swedish and Sports massage and I do appreciate the role of tapotement (pummelling, cupping, etc) in professional massage but this was weird. For the next half hour he proceeded to range up and down my back, pummelling away with cupped hands, hammer fists and knife hands. No stroking, pressing,kneading etc.

The only defence against this assault was to flex my muscles so that he bounced off. He spared my kidneys but did bash away behind my knees (a no-go area) and the soles of the feet, which are beaten only by secret police agencies rather than by professional masseurs.

I should mention that another Asian man had come in later and was being similarly pummelled by a woman, who was not obviously blind. Having said that, she also got up on top of him and surfed his back, as well as the more usual forms of stroking, pushing and squeezing.

Eventually mine just stopped and left. (Janine is sooooo very glad she did not go)

*End Massage*

We found our way to the ice creamery (3D’s) tucked away in the back roads, which entailed avoiding several small but irate dogs. We were very happy to find a friendly young girl who spoke very good English, and even happier to find $1 mango smoothies. Yes!!! They serve very nice snack foods also and seem to be a favourite with local teenagers. We returned via the restaurant where we had the crunchy Lotus root salad again (very delicious) and set to planning the next stage of our Vietnam holiday.

Stilt house