February 7, 2017

 A more relaxing day today. We got up later, had a nice relaxing breakfast and chatted to two Canadians from Alberta.

While I was waiting for Ralf, I watched the owner of the home-stay plant a row of vegetables. Ralf had already watched him hoe a few rows and took pictures.

After breakfast we headed out to the Terracotta Pottery Village. We spotted this temple, it had a lovely garden.

The Than Ha Pottery Village was about 2.5 kms, outside of the old Town. The Village consists of simple potters and a museum.

You have to pay an entrance fee into the village and the museum (total of $6.50 for two) and we got a souvenir terracotta whistle. I picked a pig for me and a cat for Ralf. I think we will keep the pig and add it to my collection.

We watched a lady smooth the bottom of the pots with a shell.

The museum was really nice and very informative. The terracotta mini village was really well done.

We spent a couple of hours wandering around the village and the museum then headed back to the homestay.

As part of the experience of the village you could try your hand at making your own pot.  Both Ralf and I knew our attempts would end up being ashtrays, so opted not to try \”throwing\” a pot.

To encourage more visitors to the Village, some of the potters created a miniature world village.

Inside the museum there was a wall of terracotta friezes, depicting life in the area.

I liked this Do Not Walk on the Grass Sign.

As we were returning we spotted the two Canadians from Dong Hoi. They are staying at the same place as us, but couldn’t find it. They followed us back and we met them for dinner.  We went to the place we ate the first night.  The service tonight was dreadful.  The food came out in bits and pieces, everybody else had finished eating before I got my noodles. 

Later on the bar across the road were playing very loud music.  I am not sure Tabi and Mark will want us to recommend any other places to stay.  Sorry guys. 

Tabi and Mark have done a lot of cycle touring, in South-East Asia, we got a few tips. They prefer to ride the rural routes, Tabi has a suspension mountain bike and Mark has a more rugged Surly Troll bike.

We spent the afternoon, cleaning the bikes ready to be back on the road tomorrow. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain too much more.  Although the forecast for Thursday is supposed to bring more rain.