Today we went to a textile workshop, explored a village by
motor cart, went to a Vietnamese catholic church, visited a family that makes
traditional conical hats and another family that makes boats.
On our first excursion this morning we headed out on those
smaller river boats and took a motor cart out to a textile workshop. The motor
carts we took were carts pulled by small motorcycles. Each cart accommodated up
to 6 people. I don’t know how such a small motorcycle can pull so much weight
but we managed to get where we need to go with out any major problems. The architecture
in the village we drove through had similar layouts to the ones in Cambodia but
the houses were mostly more stone, marble and cement as opposed to wood. The
textile workshop was a small operation that made scarves, bags, hats and other cloth
products to sell to a distributor. They had 6 automatic looms that produce 20
times more fabric than a manual loom. They kept a manual loom just to show curious
visitors but it wasn’t working today.
The Cu Lao Gieng church was the first Catholic church we’ve
seen the whole trip. Built in 1879 This church is the oldest church in the southern
region of Vietnam and the final resting place of a French priest, Gazignol.
After lunch we headed back out to the village to visit a
family that makes conical hats, Non La. This family makes most of their money farming
but they sell hats for extra income. Each hat is made with palm leaves fastened
to 16 bamboo rings for structural rigidity.
Before we headed back to the boat, we visited another family
that made boats. The craftsman showed us how he shaped and treated the wood to
make a 4 person vessel. He was very enthusiastic and was more than happy to show
us how he worked.
When we got back, we attended the nightly cocktail hour, had
dinner and retired for the night
This trip is going by pretty quickly
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