Then over Long Bien bridge to spend the day with a coworker of Bill's. Huang grew up in a village outside of Hanoi but now lives with her uncle, aunt, and two cousins. She wanted to fix us a traditional Vietnamese dinner. It was wonderful. I helped until her 16-year-old niece Tam kicked me (nicely) out of the kitchen.
Bill helped grill the pork for the bun cha. He can't quite squat forever like Huang, but he did pretty well for an American.
Huang's uncle and aunt built their lovely house five years ago. They have a business selling chicken in the market. It seems like almost everyone in Hanoi is an entrepeneur.
The meal was wonderful -- grilled pork, rice noodles, steamed rice, fresh cucumbers. We ate on the floor (Huang said that was traditional).
Huang's uncle broke out the snake wine for us. He made it ten years ago himself -- ricewine with a number of snakes stewing in the bottle. Duan, Huang's friend, said that it is much better than the stuff you can buy in the stores because they reuse the snakes. It is supposed to be good for your health, especially by men on their wedding night. And it's usually drunk by men, but the uncle insisted I try a little too. mmmmmmmm....
Then we hopped on a local bus to Bat Trang, a ceramics village. Huang says it is one of the wealthier villages because they are starting to export some of their work.
Like we've seen everywhere, people were working hard.
Huang's nephews in one of the workshops.
The kids decided they wanted to make ceramics. The rest of us (that's Huang's friend Duan with us) just sat and relaxed.
The workshop was in this woman's house. She had quite a conversation with me. It seemed friendly.
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