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Noyelles Travels
Monday 4th April
Cool & dampish as we dragged our bags out of the station & took a cab to the My Dinh bus station for our ride to Tuyen Quang. Here we found the ticket window & were on a bus in 10 minutes from arrival. It set off & on the way it stopped to pick up more people using stools in the aisle until it was totally full up. It certainly got a move on & we only had the 1 pit stop on the way.
The countryside was initially very flat & bright green with paddy fields but after about an hour we entered more hilly country still with rice growing in the valleys between the small hills.
We arrived at the bus station at about 9am & Avenel & Owen met us & took us for coffee, as we had only had a bread roll since lunch yesterday.
They both looked very well & then took us to their fine house a few km outside the town. Here we had lunch & discussed the activities for the week before taking a well earned rest.
After the break we worked out a provisional plan for the next few days, had dinner & watched the German TV English language news report before going to bed.
Tuesday 5th April
Up reasonably early we walked up the road for breakfast of Pho Ga & Banh Ga, 2 forms of chicken soup with fat & thin noodles, at a little cafe. We then returned & changed into more formal wear before we walked to Tan Trao University where Owen works. Here we met some of the staff & the Rector, or Vice Chancellor in Australia, before taking a cab to the museum set on a hill in the middle of an artificial lake. This was modern & well set up but was already looking somewhat neglected. Unfortunately there were no English texts anywhere on the exhibits & thus we couldn't understand some of the exhibits.
From there we drove to the town square, where we had a coffee. The square is huge with a massive sculpture of Uncle Ho with 4 acolytes in front of an even larger bas relief featuring the banyan tree which Ho Chi Minh used to sit under in the 1930s. On one end of the square there is an unusual Buddhist temple which to our amazement has a statue of Ho as the centre piece rather than the more usual Buddha. Apparently the temple & the sculpture are only 2 years old & one wonders if it is all part of an attempt to elevate Ho Chi Minh into a combined political & religious hero.
We returned home for a light lunch & retired for a well earned nap.
At 5pm some of Owens students arrived with their children to prepare a meal for us all. 5 ladies & 1 man brought their 7 children ranging from 13 to 1+ & they produced an incredible range of dishes including fermented pork, duck, 2 types of spring rolls, dried buffalo, black bean & rice, sticky rice & sweet rice flour dumplings in syrup as well as pineapple & cucumber. It was great to hear them talking about all aspects of their life. The children played happily & it was a marvellous evening which everybody seemed to enjoy.
Cool & dampish as we dragged our bags out of the station & took a cab to the My Dinh bus station for our ride to Tuyen Quang. Here we found the ticket window & were on a bus in 10 minutes from arrival. It set off & on the way it stopped to pick up more people using stools in the aisle until it was totally full up. It certainly got a move on & we only had the 1 pit stop on the way.
The countryside was initially very flat & bright green with paddy fields but after about an hour we entered more hilly country still with rice growing in the valleys between the small hills.
We arrived at the bus station at about 9am & Avenel & Owen met us & took us for coffee, as we had only had a bread roll since lunch yesterday.
They both looked very well & then took us to their fine house a few km outside the town. Here we had lunch & discussed the activities for the week before taking a well earned rest.
After the break we worked out a provisional plan for the next few days, had dinner & watched the German TV English language news report before going to bed.
Tuesday 5th April
Up reasonably early we walked up the road for breakfast of Pho Ga & Banh Ga, 2 forms of chicken soup with fat & thin noodles, at a little cafe. We then returned & changed into more formal wear before we walked to Tan Trao University where Owen works. Here we met some of the staff & the Rector, or Vice Chancellor in Australia, before taking a cab to the museum set on a hill in the middle of an artificial lake. This was modern & well set up but was already looking somewhat neglected. Unfortunately there were no English texts anywhere on the exhibits & thus we couldn't understand some of the exhibits.
From there we drove to the town square, where we had a coffee. The square is huge with a massive sculpture of Uncle Ho with 4 acolytes in front of an even larger bas relief featuring the banyan tree which Ho Chi Minh used to sit under in the 1930s. On one end of the square there is an unusual Buddhist temple which to our amazement has a statue of Ho as the centre piece rather than the more usual Buddha. Apparently the temple & the sculpture are only 2 years old & one wonders if it is all part of an attempt to elevate Ho Chi Minh into a combined political & religious hero.
We returned home for a light lunch & retired for a well earned nap.
At 5pm some of Owens students arrived with their children to prepare a meal for us all. 5 ladies & 1 man brought their 7 children ranging from 13 to 1+ & they produced an incredible range of dishes including fermented pork, duck, 2 types of spring rolls, dried buffalo, black bean & rice, sticky rice & sweet rice flour dumplings in syrup as well as pineapple & cucumber. It was great to hear them talking about all aspects of their life. The children played happily & it was a marvellous evening which everybody seemed to enjoy.
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