Let me take you to Ploung Village.

Walk with me in the rain,

Three kilometers

Down the multicolored river-road that leads to Ploung,

Because the moto won’t make it in September.

When you’ve crossed this patch of sharp, red gravel,

Slip your flip-flops off to tread

Through the dark, soft-bottomed puddles

And the shoe-sucking yellow slush,

So that your feet can appreciate

The clean, white sand

And the firm, orange earth

And the hard-packed red clay.

From around the corner, the rhythmic clang of buffalo bells

Chimes the approach of four massive black beasts,

About to share the way with us,

The narrow way hedged by thick forest and barbed wire.

We pick a side, and the buffalo walk steadily by –

Step-a-step-a-step-a-step,

Followed by their drivers – two kids holding slim sticks,

One buffalo shies off the road into the forest,

Giving the weird white creatures some extra space.

The way widens into a crossroads,

And the water deepens.

Don’t bother to roll up your pants today,

Because the water comes up to here!

But take your cell phone out of your pocket,

And wade through.

On the other side, the forest drops away

As we near the village.

Soaked, rolled-up pants drip water down bare calves

To the water pooled at your ankles

Your thin, bright blue plastic poncho clings to the skin of your arms

Lift the hood obscuring your view and let the rain seep into your hair, drop onto your face

Hear the sound of rain, the swoosh of water disturbed by your walking

Smell the washed air, the air that brushes the rice fields and cradles the morning mist on the dark, forested mountains.

On either side,

A jumble of weathered wooden stakes

Keeps the buffalo out of the smooth expanse of

Rice, rice, rice to the dark mountains.

Gazing, you decide

Grass does not deserve to be called green.

We walk on through the ankle-deep, sand-bottomed stream of a path.

We start to see the houses, wooden with thatch or corrugated metal roofs,

All on stilts to tempt a breeze in the heat.

The houses coagulate, and the rice fields fade,

The path dries a little, and firms to red clay,

And the buffalo dung comes closer together.

The people greet us,

Hanging in hammocks under their houses,

Gathered together under the thatch shelter of a café storefront,

Kids shyly pausing on the street to smile.

They laugh when we show them how we’re wet to here.

Welcome to Ploung.

(Note: Check "For More Pictures" link to your right - I've added many more pictures!)