January 5th   Hoi An Bike Ride

I took an all-day bike ride with a group, here in Hoi An. It sounded interesting and I remembered Kim saying, "DO EVERYTHING!" So I signed up and rode off with the group. The bikes were sturdy beasts, very serviceable but could have used a bit of maintenance.

Here's a guard held on with fishing line. Very clever.

My trusty bike had an excellent mud flap, which was great since it did rain for awhile and we rode through a lot of mud and puddles.

We rode over a bridge, through the town and then loaded the bikes on a ferry for a ride to a nearby island.

At the island we went to visit a mother of pearl workshop. Almost every home and hotel has one of these plaques in sight, it's a common thing. We saw the process of polishing the shell, cutting the designs, hollowing out the board, gluing in the pieces, going over it with black ink, polishing again and staining the wood. It's a very labor intensive process and the prices reflect this, not so much for the labor, but for the wood. Wood is scarce in Vietnam and the govt. has in place measures to help protect the forests.

This island, and everywhere in this area is in the floodplain. Notice the highwater marks on the shutters. Many houses are two stories, so you can move upstairs when the annual floods come.

Next to that was a boatyard, where workers were making wooden boats. A small one takes two weeks and costs $500 USD.

Here's the eye.













A larger one costs $20,000 USD and takes more than 2 months to make. Some of the wood used is recycled from older boats.

The caulking between the boards is white string! Life expectancy of this boat is 30-40 years.

We pedaled around the countryside where there was a lot of rice growing. It's hotter here, with a lot of water, so once the flooding season is over, the rice planting begins again. They grow 2 crops a year here.

We rode to the village ice factory. The ice is made from local well water and used by locals, so no hotels, or restaurants use this ice. It's for the people who live on the island because it is not "sanitized" water.
The ice molds are metal. Stainless?

There is a big cement enclosure filled with saline water. The molds are filled with well water and sunk into the saline bath.

There are freezer coils, cooled by water.

It was pastoral in the countryside, flat easy riding. Sometimes there was single track between the rice paddies.

We continued riding to the basket boat weaver. These little boats come in two sizes, small and a little bigger. The smallest ones are used for fishing in the rivers. The bigger ones are used in the sea. They are woven with bamboo and sealed with cow dung. To get in, you step into the middle with one foot, grab one side with each hand, then sit and rest on your knees. The paddling is done out in front of the boat with a C stroke, an S stroke or a combination of the two. It's not an easy boat to paddle successfully.

We cycled across a floating bamboo bridge in the driving wind and rain. With many boards missing on the bridge, or not secured in place, it was a little dicey. My technique was speed. The faster you pedal, the faster you get to the other side safely was my thinking. No one went in the river, although some folks walked their bikes across. It was a toll bridge.

When we got to the next island, we visited a family that weaves bed mats, which are a common bed covering in the poor, rural areas of Vietnam.The bed mat is placed over wood planks that make up what we would call, box springs. The local grass is spun by hand into a long strand. These are dyed, then woven into intricate patterns. Each mat takes a couple of hours to make. One person can make 3-4 mats each day. It looked like very tedious work.

We had some obstacles on the trail, cows. Fish/shrimp farming is carried out on a fairly large scale. Many shrimp are processed and exported.

We boarded the last ferry for a 45 minute ride back to Hoi An. The bamboo dock was a little shaky.

On the way back we saw these huge fishing nets. At nighttime they are lowered into the water, the fisherman has a battery powered light hanging above the net, then in the daytime, they haul them up to see what they caught.

It was a very fun trip with a good group of people. The guides were knowledgeable and I learned and saw a lot.