Saturday, 1 November 2008

Another day at Dung's.

18/6 - Up for a shower, a manual, cold one and it does the trick and blows away the cobwebs. There's somemore visiting to be done today, someone has phoned to ask why we didn't go to see them yesterday. Dung's Dad is one of 9 and 7 of them live around here. Dung's uncle Hiep, finally got me fishing, but I caught nowt. He did thought and came trotting over with it dangling from the rod. We ate it for lunch. Yesterday's forgotten visitors were glad to see us and others called whilst we were there, to check out the ugly Englishman. Dung is a dab hand at sheperding me aoong to the next stop. We made it back for lunch and everyone is trying to fatten me up again, so I put my foot down and Dung promptly stepped on it. The fish here is smashing and as I said, very fresh. We were on the fresh, roll your own, spring rolls, made with rice paper and very nice too, even though I wasn't allowed to roll my own, Dung has seen me mess them up before. The day moved on and it is time to move onto An Binh, near Vinh Long. Dung has to be back at work on tomorrow. I think the family have spent money they don't have to feed me up. It has been an eye opener and a great experience. You don't get more Vietnamese than this.
We get a taxi to a street corner in HCMC and a minibus turns up to pick us up after about 15 minutes. I didn't know she had booked it and was ready to flag down any passing minibus that looked like it might head to Vinh Long. A ferry across the Mekong in Vinh Long and then a moto to the digs in Hoa Ninh. I have stayed here before, the people are smashing and chuffed to see me and Dung again. It's a chill place to stay. Dung is hungry, as always, so we get into a bowl of Hu Tieu, noodle soup, but the real stuff, not the stuff in a pot.
Another day done and it's good to be back in Vietnam.