Countryside by bicycle

 Little later still this morning, wakeup call for 7. Short bus ride to pick up the bicycles. Really!
Amazing ride, around 2 hours, rice paddies,

boats, everyone is home because today is Tet New Years Eve. Tomorrow is New Years day. Most things are closed but there is not much traffic which is good cause we're on bicycles and don't want to die.

We stopped at the house of a former Viet Cong, although we are now in South Vietnam. He was very proud of his water buffalo and the Ho Chi Minh shrine in his living room.

There was a wooden plank that apparantly became the bed at night with the addition of a rice mat. Quite stark. The cooking (and a lot was going on because of the holidays) is done in the back of the house on an open fire in a shed type building. They were preparing meat and chicken and vegetables.
Many places on the streets there were small fires where they burned offerings like phony paper money and paper pictures of items like boots, as well as flowers. All for prosperity in the new year.
We all survived the bike ride and the bus took us to Hoi An on the river.

 Beautiful city with an incredible market and a temple with incense coils hanging from the ceiling that burn for a month when they are lit. We had lunch in a restaurant there and it was really very good, Lots of lime and lemon grass, we had beef and chicken and shrimp, rice and dumplings and clam broth soup (well I didn't have that but Jo really liked it). Dessert was fruit and a wonderful mango, maybe papaya sorbet.
Stopped at marble factory number 3. I'm beginning to think they import all this stuff from China. Marble statues 15 feet tall. Jade jewelry and figurines and clean Happy Rooms which is why we stop there.
Walked on China Beach, put my feet in the South China Sea.

 It was a little chilly.

Ship sails at 7pm, tomorrow is a sea day then Ho Chi Minh City.