The village of Duong Lam, about 60 kilometres from Hanoi, is recognised as a UNESCO heritage site because of the large number of well-preserved ancient traditional houses. Some of these are more than 400 years old and while this is great for tourism not all the people who live in them are happy – if they want to make any changes they must get government permission, not always easy, and use only traditional materials such as laterite bricks, mud and wood.
We were entertained in one such house, a magnificent wooden building, high roofed, cool in summer and warm in winter and with plenty of open space to make the most of natural light.
While our guides Tuan and Duoc told us about the history of the place, we were served green tea, a delicious ginger flavoured rice cake (similar in style to Turkish delight but more solid), and two sorts of rice whisky. The first was white and tasted like a strong dessert wine. The second, brown, variety was much stronger and apparently was similar to the ‘real thing’, scotch. It might as well have been paint stripper but I don’t like whisky at any time let alone eleven o’clock in the morning!
The tea and rice cake were great though.