Over lunch the AmaLotus sailed on to our next stop; the town of Sa Dec, another important river port and agricultural and industrial centre.
During the Vietnam War it was the site of an American River Patrol Boat base.
After lunch we set off again for an afternoon excursion to Sa Dec with a foreboding sky. Our first stop was at a brick factory of which there seem to be hundreds in Vietnam. The furnaces are fired with rice husks so that nothing is wasted – a common feature of Vietnamese culture. Watching a tiny local man (You may just be able to pick him out in the photo) heave great bushel sacks of husks into the furnaces in high humidity and heat 35C & 70% humidity - and that was just outside not in the factory - was draining!! Chickens roamed the vast heaps of husks searching for stray grains of rice and of course were reared as a ready source of food!! The ash from the furnaces is dumped by the river and local framers collect and use it to fertilise their fields, so nothing is wasted.
We left as the sky grew darker and more foreboding!
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