A party, a house is built and an island grows

Friday, March 08, 2019
Hội An, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam
One of Be's friends recently bought his first house and we were invited to the house warming about 15 kms from Hoi An. I never actually got to see the house as the party was held in a marquee in a concrete yard a couple of doors away from the house. It was similar to a Vietnamese wedding, about 20 tables of 5 or 6 , huge loads of food and very loud music. Many people got up and sang their favourite numbers accompanied by a woman who did a miraculous job on an electric synthesizer. Unfortunately our table was right next to a huge speaker which sent bass shockwaves through my body but surprisingly ,or not, I enjoyed the music, not so much the singing but the keyboard woman was a virtuoso.And like wedings it was a brief affair, starting at 11am and finishing at 1pm I wish all parties or weddings could be similar. 
I have included some pics of Austins house which is taking shape rapidly. The Vietnamese are very efficient putting together houses probably because they are all very similar, concrete foundations, three or four concrete columns which are buried in the brickwork later and then a poured concrete slab for the upper floor and more brickwork for the upper walls. The women you see in the video supplying the brickies with bricks and mortar work as hard as the men but get paid less.
The last set of photos is the new island which is growing offshore from the mouth of the Thubon river. I climbed 200 steps to the top of the lighthouse but I had forgotten my good camera and had to rely on my phone so the photos of the island are very poor. Its not the sandbar you see in the foreground but in the distance you can see a yellow spit of sand which stands about 2-3 metres above sea level and is the subject of discussion about whether it is there because of Cua Dai beach being washed away or it is the sand washed down from the Thubon river in floods. The powers that be are deciding whether to dredge it and dump the sand back on Cua Dai beach or to let it develope into a fully formed island, I hope the latter.

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