October 2, 2025
More people in Indonesia and Vietnam have asked if the boys are twins than any other country so far. In the airport yesterday, a woman stopped me and our guide to ask about the boys. Their twin status, ages, and hair. She stayed for over 5 minutes asking questions about their hair color and texture, Ollie’s particularly. Most also assume they are girls at first.
After our early night, we all woke up with plenty of time for a slow morning before we went downstairs to the hotel breakfast. Kyle and I tried the in-room instant coffee which tasted much more like hot chocolate than coffee to us as its a 3 in 1 (coffee/cream/sugar). We had a chuckle at the secret agent label, though. The buffet felt like a huge letdown from the hotel on Labuan Bajo.
We met our new guide, Fifi, in our lobby and we were on our way to Bat Trang Ceramic Village. The first things we noticed looked like mini coffins and we learned that after bodies are initially buried, some families will later dig up the bones, clean them and then place them in the upgraded ceramic coffin where the bones will then be stored. We walked through the ceramic area for 20 minutes and the kids complained they were melting and asking if we were close to the pottery studio incessantly. When we arrived, we got them ice pops immediately to stave off any meltdowns. Fifi also rearranged our schedule to get the kids on the pottery wheels as soon as possible to keep their moods up. We learned that the wheels were neither electric nor foot powered but low sitting hand powered wheels. We were impressed watching the artisan spin the wheel herself to center and stage our clay but we struggled to keep the same momentum. Soon Kyle and I abandoned our own wheels to become human motors for the boys. Len crafted a pot with a lid and Ollie a cricket house with a top. Sadly (thankfully?) these were just for fun as we won’t be taking these with us.
Fifi shared that there was a potential typhoon headed to north Vietnam later this weekend and that we should consider adjusting our Ha Long Bay boat cruise if possible. This was a great tip and we were able to adjust our boat cruise to instead start tomorrow when the weather looks great. This means we’ll need to pack up and check out of the hotel again tomorrow morning only to re-check in two days later. But it will be worth it to avoid a rainy river cruise!
After Kyle and I each got an iced Vietnamese coffee (“Brown coffee”), we briefly toured the ceramic operation. The highlight of this studio was the 100+ year old, massive wood-fired kiln that we were able to walk inside of. At first I found this terrifying but learned the kiln was no longer used. The boys went first and when I followed I heard crunching beneath my feet and realized Len had left a trail of snacks in his wake. We had him go back in to pick them back up.
Since it was approaching the Mid-Autumn festival in Vietnam, vedors all over the city were selling special mooncakes and fruits like persimmons. We bought some special mini persimmons to snack on during our walk to the ceramic market but these weren’t a favorite in our group. We used to have a set of ceramic soup spoons and chopsticks that we bought in Hong Kong over 15 years ago. Over the years, all but 2 chopsticks and 1 spoon have fallen victim to the dishwasher or brother battles. We forgot to replace our ceramic spoons in Hong Kong so today was our chance. Len picked out a capybara spoon and Ollie a dinosaur spoon to bring back home. We also made the on the spot decision to buy a crab shaped candy dish that made us all smile so we couldn’t leave him behind.
After lunch, we went to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. Len fell asleep on the ride there but was up and energized once we were inside. He ran around like a maniac and slammed into one of the signs on the wall prompting a security guard to come over and “shush” him dramatically. We soon made our way outside to explore different traditional Vietnamese dwellings which was an activity which better matched the kids’ energy. Many of the home tours involved climbing in order to enter which the boys loved.
We had some time to kill before our puppet show so Fifi took us to a few stores to pick up snacks for our upcoming river cruise. When she learned the boys love popcorn, she took us to a specialty popcorn store. We figured we’d be able to find a traditional salty flavor but nope! All flavors, even the classic and cheese, have a coating of sugar before other toppings are added. Len complained at first but then proceeded to eat most of the ‘classic’ flavor bag that we bought. We also stopped at a local market to grab more snacks to have on hand and to get some heavy duty conditioner for the boys’ hair.
The water puppet show went over way better than expected with the boys. The songs were all in Vietnamese but most of the puppet acts involved animals or animated human puppets that the kids got a kick out of. Ollie’s favorite was when the fox tried to hunt a duck and Len’s was the water shooting dragons.
We tried to pick up Bahn Mi sandwiches to take back to the room for a quick dinner but the shop we stopped at had ran out of ingredients! Instead, we had a sit down dinner closer to our hotel that we all slogged through, exhausted from a long day of activities. After dinner, the kids excitedly asked whats for dessert and we reminded them of the three different ice creams they each had during the day and they agreed they were full of sweets.
