He said it is called the "Missing River". I hope it refers to the river and not the boats or occupants that travel it. I turn the pilot wheel of the boat just enough to make a smooth turn.

 I met up with Tony early this morning . I hired him to guide me through the countryside around Hoi An on a bicycle. We ride through small alleys, avoiding the traffic on the small Hoi An roads. I have my sunscreen on and a bottle of water. Tony gave me a straw hat to wear "Better to keep the sun off than a ball cap," he says. Who am I to argue? This is his country and he is the guide. This will be an all day ride and it is hot in Vietnam, just my style.

Eventually, once we are out of town, we pass a cemetery. We go in to visit a Wat. The Monks here have the entire courtyard filled with rice drying in the sun. There are three gates to enter the Wat by. Tony tells me one gate is for the men and boys, one for the women and girls, and the third one is for teachers. 

We look at a statue representing Confucius. One of his teachings was that anytime 3 people walked together, one of them had to be the teacher. It was usually the oldest, as they had more knowledge and their responsibility was to pass it along to the younger ones . 

Confucius was born in 500 B.C. and another of his teachings was the stages of adult life. He said that at age 30, people should marry. Then, at age 40 a person knows it all. At 50 a person could not change the things in their life, such as careers. A person was to retire at 60. Tony tells me Confucius established the very first university.

He tells me the qualifications a man and woman should have to marry:

    * An excellent wife must play a one string guitar, play chess, write poems, and be good 
    at painting pictures. This is the type of wife an important or rich man must find.

    * A good wife must be good at cooking, be beautiful, have a sweet sounding voice and
    good manners. This is the type of wife the ordinary man must find.

    * An excellent man must be good at Kung Fu and have a lot of knowledge .

    * A good man must sincerly love the wife, be a good human being, have a good mind to    solve problems, keep promises and always say thank you.

 

We are at the Long Tuyen Pagoda. In English it means, "Eyes of Dragon." We are looking at the Buddha image. Tony tells me Buddha's belly represents knowledge. The big belly is full of knowledge. The big ears on the Buddha represent Buddha able to hear all the problems of others. His hands have eyes in them, as he sees the peoples needs and helps them go through life.

He tells me there are different orders of Buddhists. The monks in Thailand only eat one time a day. It is the morning meal and they can only eat what they have collected that day. They cannot eat the rest of the day. Thai monks may eat vegetables and meat. The Vietnamese monks can eat all day long, but cannot eat meat, only vegetables . 

As we bike through the countryside we pass a cemetery. I stop to take a photo. I have noticed all over Asia that there are cement, vault-looking things for the graves. I suppose the people are buried in these above ground. Tony tells me this is not right. The vault-looking things are hollow and filled with either dirt or sand. The bodies are buried beneath them, in the ground.

We ride to an organic farm where vegetables and herbs are grown. Tony picks herbs and lets me smell them and try to guess what they are. This is not my field of expertise and I only guess a few. The weed looking stuff from the water at the shrimp farms is used for fertilizer. We pass some of the shrimp farms and I see some people with boats loading the boats with the pond fertilizer.

We come to a fishing village at the De Long river. There are fish traps in the river. I have seen these before but did not know what they were . The traps are circles made with bamboo in the water. Inside the larger bamboo circle, there is a smaller one. Fish bait is placed in the smaller circle. Once the fish get used to coming here to feed, a net is put around the larger bamboo circle to trap the fish.

We ride through the shrimp and fish farms, seeing water buffalo and a lot of storks. The storks like to eat the shrimp from the ponds. The shrimp farm raises two crops of shrimp a year.

We rode through small villages and then rode to the ocean. Tony tells me the Vietnam beach is over 1800 miles long. There are round boats here. I wonder what it's like to paddle one of these things. I can just see myself turning around and around in circles trying to get it to go where I want it to. Maybe one day I will get the chance to paddle one, but not today.

As we ride the roads, there is rice spread out everywhere drying. I saw the rice drying on the ground at the Wat, but this rice is spread out on the road . I see this all over. Sometimes it takes up one entire lane of the road. People just drive around it.

We board a river ferry to take us downstream. We have been biking all day and I guess we are a good ways from town by now. We load the bikes and I take some photos from the side of the boat. Then the pilot asks me if I would like to steer the boat. 

I took the wheel and he stood beside me for a while. I made a few turns around some river bends and tried to smooth out my steering. Then, he went to the front of the boat and started talking with my Guiide, Tony. I am sure he was keeping one eye on me, though. When I needed to turn at a river fork, he would tell me which direction. He would call out to me, "Captain, turn her ......". So ... you can also call me Captain ... if you want to.

I had a lot of fun. The only thing I can't understand is when we got to the place to dock the boat, he wanted to take the wheel . I had driven the thing for 30 or 40 minutes, but I guess he didn't think I was experienced enough by now to dock her. 

Tony and I unloaded our bikes and in 30 minutes or so, we were back in Hoi An. He took me through some alleys to a small eatery. He sat me down, put on some relaxing music and started bringing me things to drink, then he brought me a big plate of chicken salad and fresh baked bread. It was a large portion and I felt full when I finished it. 

He left and came back with another course. I thought that was the entire meal, but he shows up with two more courses. One of which I just could not finish, I don't care if I had been biking all day. The meal consisted of chicken salad, rice, morningglory, rice bread and pineapple for desert. I just love how the Asian people use fruit as their deserts. It is so refreshing and tasty.
 
I just continue to be amazed at how the Asian people treat you on a tour, and how do they do it for so little money? I learned so much today that I would never have learned on my own, and seen so many things. Also, I got to do one of my favorite things, ride a bicycle.