Going Wide Around Nge Anh Province

It is just about 3 weeks before the time will be up for both myself and Greg. I will have a chance of a bit of a holiday with Anne and we'll see some great places and meet some lovely people. We have been going around the place a bit - not far but further enough to get to see the local country and it people like we had never seen before. Lindsay has taken some great shots and has shared them so many of the pictures here have been taken by him.
It has been a fairly challenging working time but getting out when you have a chance  gives you head a bit of a refresher and tell you the truth, the more I see of Vietnam, the more I realize what a pretty country it is and what a good existence many of the country folk seem to have.

The buffalo rules the fields and the roads...

Rice paddies being prepared for planting, not farm from TH project

Planting of rice. The first cro has been harvested and what you see is the planting of the second crop to be harvested sometime around September. The rice cropping is something to really behold - thousands of hectares just around us and all cultivated by hand or with minimum machinery and then every little rice plant in by hand.

If you are a passing tourist you never get to really appreciate the effort. You can have a large, 10 or so hectares wet paddy block with old stubs and the next few days an small army of workers/owners arrive cultivate and within a week the whole block is planted.....
Women seem to do most of planting I think before they just love the hard work...

Boys operate the machinery and equipment

Ladies love to spend time head down planting millions of seedlings

Again, boys have to deal with machinery

and more machinery

while the girls just plod along

and along.....

 Tai Hoa, a town near by is our source of essential goods. There is a good market and is fun to go to.

Lindsay's photographer extraordinaire...

A bit like a western frontier.

In the market getting 100 grams of peanuts

 The market is kind of indoors , lots of alleyways and lots of different things for sale from hardware to seeds, fruit and vegetable, cloths and the not-to-be-missed, fish, meat and chook department.

 You can take it alive or order the chicken to be processed on the spot. does not take long and you get to take the innards home as well because as the Vietnamese says, everything tastes very nice!!

Very fresh fish

Rural man and his buffalo cart (courtesy of Mr Rowe)

His lovely mumma bufalo

Sending a kiss to the photographer...

How pretty can you get?

 Buffalos are so absolutely essential around here and you kind of wish it will remain so for ever. The are source of transport, cultivation and protein. they are well looked after and always seem to be quite healthy (unlike some bovine you see sometime). The buffalo has a lovely pace and seem to be almost completely introspect no matter what is going on around them..

Great, free- mortgage living. Depending where you go around here, you may seen lots of dwellings similar to this. Of course I guess the dream is to have a nice brick, status-enriching home like some I have shown in previous postings. It great for me to see them because I used to visit a friend when I was about 16 years old that lived in a very similar dwelling, in tropical Brasil. Many days and night spent in similar place, not power, no tap water, earth beaten floor, spiders, snakes, wood stove , good food and good company plus a little pinga (check google for the Portuguese English translation) with lemon...

Pretty

Undarilha, captured by Lindsay

Today (July 6th0 we did take a tour (me, Greg and Lindsay) and visited an area about 40km from the project. Great big Dam and lovely area.

Typical Brahma cattle. This is a young bull, tethered and happily (not always)grazing about

 We stopped at the spillway of the dam, and in contrast to the large Song Sao reservoir that feeds the TH project and receives a little run-off in return, this lake has what appears to be great water (in quite a few people swimming and lots of fishing going on. Above I am trying to see how comfortable it will be to stay the night in this sun/rain shelter near the spill way, and obviously used by the local fisherman while awaiting for the catch.. Seemed o.k.

 

recently attended weeding

Bride and Groom

Buffalo cooling in lake

Luong, one of the vets and

Mr Dinh, great vet, farm supervisor..

Sunset, just the other day

Tomorrow, Sunday is a day-off so I will visit a friend and his family and then try to go west for a little way towards the Laos border... I am also fossicking around for a few crystal and mineral. Have found a few but no Aquamarine, rubies , topaz or diamonds yet but good enough stuff to take home..

Catch you later.