Andre and Wendy: Pu Luong Day 1

Breakfast this morning and if possible even more fruit. Once again not much mango left on the platter, and a bonus of Jack fruit this morning too.

Had a great 2 nights here but again time to move on. Toan is our guide today, shows up right on time and we are off towards Pu Luong for the next 2 nights with him and a driver.

We drive through so many fruit and vegetable farms today, some we have never heard of. A really pretty drive on a very hot day.

Our first stop of the day is at an army surplus store. Toan is happy as he bought new sandals and some clothes. Andre went in with him, I chose the air conditioned car.

Next stop.is a pineapple and jackfruit farm. I now want Andre to prepare pineapple like they do here, so pretty and easy to eat. Toan gives us a little tour of the farm, this is definitely a wealthy farmer, lots of land and a nice home.

Next stop is at a forest of a rubber tree farm. No idea the rubber runs in the rainy season like sap runs AR home from our maple trees. It is not running here yet, but we did see the little buckets it is collected in and the cuts in the trees to make it run. Very interesting.

Next stop is a market. Toan says he needs to buy things for our dinner, now I am really curious about where we are going for the night. Andre goes in with him, once again I choose air conditioning, Andre will always choose a market.

Next stop is to see how arrowroot noodles are made. Andre saw these in the market earlier for the first time this trip. Wow what a hot job making these over a wood fire. This is definitely not her first time making them. They are dried in circles on bamboo poles, then cut into noodles after a couple of hours, then the cut noodles are hung outside for another 4 hours. Twice the price of rice noodles.

Next we are off for a walk in the mountains for 7 km. It was incredibly hot. We are a little unlucky that we are here while SE Asia is in a heat wave. We needed to stop many times in the shade. What a great walk, stilt houses, rice fields, fish ponds, bamboo fences, bamboo forests, water wheels for irrigation, just a great walk. We did stop at one point and I think Toan saw we were reaching our limit. He says this us a good place for a break in the shade, a lovely lady invites us to sit in the shade on her deck and then serves us tea. An absolutely amazing view, I asked Toan if we could stay there for the night. Added bonus was 3 little puppies playing in the yard.

Time to move on again and I ask Toan how much longer even though I feel so much better after our break. 1.5 km, I think we could have made it, but the break and visit were really nice. Around this are it is Black Thai people, as well as where we are staying tonight. So many different groups in Vietnam, we read about a lot of the in the woman museum last week.

At the end of our walk we find our driver visiting with another family. Time for more tea, this time it is strong green tea, earlier it was some kind of medicinal tea.

On the road again to our homestay for the night. We are climbing high into the mountains. We come across 2 women dressed in traditional black Thai, I bet there aren't too many of those around still. Many 'shepherds' walking their water Buffalo along the road.

Arrive at our homestay and we are right in the middle of the rice terraces in Thanh Son, at least that is what we think looking at Google. This is our first homestay where our mattress is on the floor about 6 inches thick, like others we have stayed in it is a shower nozzle on the wall, everything gets wet. We are not exactly sure what to do with the bedding, sounds strange but we have never seem anything like this before. We have a fan and a mosquito net, and I'm thinking we just open this white sheet that is under the pretty runner and sleep on top of that.

We have walked the path through the rice paddies, had a beer on the veranda watching Toan and our driver try to put together a roof rack, and watched a bride and groom get their wedding pictures taken below us. Toan has given up on the roof rack, Andre helped by showing them how to watch the video to assemble it.

Right now there is a competition happening between frogs and roosters to see who is loudest, may be a long or very short night tonight.

Toan has made supper for us, way too much food. Stuffed zucchini, spring rolls, fried greens in garlic, rice and jack fruit for dessert. I think there was another course but we told him to stop. At the end the owner came out with a bottle of what we would assume is rice wine to have a shot as a thank you. Has a little kick.

An early night again tonight, breakfast at 730, we want to start our walk early tomorrow instead of the heat of the day.

Todays Pictures:

Just outside Tam Coc. Looks like it was a place to get get pictures taken by a small lake