Instead of burning on the beach today, I decided to take a ride out the other side of town...maybe take some pictures of the landscape, get away from the tourists. I ride out, pedaling furiously, as I do, and I pass a guy who was dressed in the fashion of a Chinese tourist wearing a Beijing Olympics cap. I didn't yell at him, but I wanted to.
After spotting and stopping for a nice photo op, he passed me, and at that point I yelled at him, 'Are you Chinese?' in Mandarin. He answered no, but in Mandarin, which is better result than I might have expected. He told me he was off to see a pottery village, and invited me to join him.
A more invasive tourist than I am, he was a joy to travel with. Where I would never presume to take a picture, he would snap away, allowing me to grab a few quick, discreet shots while the locals were distracted. We watched the locals make handmade roof tiles--awesome process--and throw pots. Then I threw a pot. My high school art classes did not fare me well...although, they didn't really fare me well back then either.
Then we went to the wharf, where we watched fisherwomen boil herring? sardines? some small fish. For the measly cost of 1,000 dong, I had the pleasure of eating a whole fish, with my Malaysian cameraman snapping away. It was a great trip, but ended sadly. I stopped to snap a pic of some nice blooms I saw on the edge of the road, and by the time I was done, he had gone. Weird.
Still, all in all, best tourism day yet.
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