15 Mar 2025 - Bat Trang Ceramic Village
Saviling away from Hanoi. The boat travelled less than 30 minutes from its overnight anchorage to dock beside a ceramics village Bat Trang. It was a festival day there, so we walked through a brightly covered pavilion to the village which specialised in making ceramics. We went through narrow alleyways to reach the factory and we saw there beautiful and large vases being made. They had a gas kiln which produced better results than the previous wood fired one. We then proceeded to the ceramics market where we were given 45 minutes to walk around, despite the fact that most of us only wanted about 15 minutes.
After lunch we sat up on deck for most of the afternoon and it was fairly windy and the waterproof screens were down which blocked the somewhat misty view. In the middle of the afternoon there was a cookery demonstration of how to make cold spring rolls and then carving of tomatoes and cucumber, etc. After this we had a rum and orange before the normal cocktail at 6 pm: tonight it was a piña colada. We dined with Alexander and afterwards Chris saw the second part of the film Heaven and Earth.She was the only viewer!
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So David and I walked back towards the boat but then found that there was going to be a lion dance in the marquee near the jetty so sat there for 30 minutes waiting for the group to catch up with us the lion dance was quite spectacular although very loud.
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