A few days ago David and I headed to a small village outside of Hanoi called Bat Trang. It is a small village where everyone works in ceramics….a bunch of Vietnamese Davids….except some where making life size ceramic dogs, not quite Davids style.

We took a local bus about 13 kilometers (we are so acclimated already :) . We were the only gringos/gylos/white people on the bus and it was nice to escape the bustling city.

In the village we wondered the shop area and saw quite a few cool pieces, only browsing though, as the backpacker can’t carry fragile pieces. We then went looking for the actual ceramicists and studios to see the work behind the pieces. We were havin a very hard time finding people as almost no one spoke a lock of English. Though much broken English, we were introduced to a young man named Hop who operated his family business.

He took us on our first Moto bike ride to his factory, which was an amazing huge space filled with work. David loved the factory and I loved the Moto bike ride. I couldn’t stop laughing watching everyone’s face as we rode by, “why does Hop have two white people on his bike?”

We also ate our first street food and experienced a day in the humid sun with no air conditioning or a drop of cold water. Wooweee!

Stay tuned for details about our adventures on Cat Ba island.

David & Morgan