We visited a pagoda dedicated to the eight kings of the Ly dynasty (1010-1225) who established the capitol of Vietnam in Hanoi.
And a Buddhist temple where worship and practice are both being revived.
And then we had lunch at an interesting restaurant that also offered some traditional Chinese-style medicines:
As much as Gail loves snakes (not!), you can bet this is one of the first things she noticed.
Our afternoon was spent exploring some Vietnamese industries. We visited a village where the families specialized in traditional paper making. The printing blocks are hand carved from wood:
Several blocks are needed to print multi-color prints.
Then we went to a village that specialized in working with brass and bronze. When we've explored the Old Quarter in Hanoi, we've often seen brass pictures and ideograms for sale just like these.
We learned that this is the village that produces many of these images and that all of the work is done by hand.
First the general form of the image is stamped into a sheet of brass.
Then the fine details are worked in.
And the images are finished before mounting for sale.
Across the street from this shop, they were making gongs.
The sound of the gongs being hammered was deafening and Phil wondered how the artisan could hear to tune the gongs. But they did sound nice. Gail wanted one, but they would only sell the whole set.
Our last stop was a village that specialized in the production of furniture. They had a market for selling all kinds of lumber.
Craftsmen who specialized in making parts of chairs
and others who specialized in adding mother of pearl decorations.
There were some who specialized in selling the finished product.
We were told that this bed frame with in-laid mother of pearl sold for over $10,000 US dollars!
Overall it was a fun and interesting day spent learning more about Vietnam while spending time with our friends.
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