A day in Bat Trang ceramic village

You are in Hanoi ? Don’t forget to visit Bat Trang Pottery Village!

Bat Trang ceramic village is located in Gia Lam District, the outskirts of Hanoi. If you come to Ha Noi, you should not ignore this place. Bat Trang traditional quality pottery includes bowl, dish, pot, cup, wine pot, a big flower-vase, leg lamp, lime-pot, big-bellied jar with glazes such as ancient pearl blaze, crackle glaze, dark glaze, indigo-blue flower glaze, grey flower glaze, melt glaze…

How to get there?

By bus: from your accommodation, you can take taxi, bus or motorbike taxi to Long Bien bus station, then taking the bus No. 47 to go to Bat Trang. The final bus stop is Bat Trang Village. A bus ticket to Bat Trang cost only 9,000 VND (~$0.5) which is the cheapest way to go there. And it takes around 1 hour to get there. But the only minus point for taking this mean of transport is you may have to stand if the bus is too crowded. If you don’t want to be in this situation, weekdays would be your best choice to visit Bat Trang.

For other means of transportation like motorbike taxi, taxi or private transportation, it would cost much more than 9,000 VND. If you go there by yourself, you can search the direction on Google map by your cell phone or your computer. From your address, you find the way to the Chuong Duong Bridge or Vinh Tuy Bridge or Thanh Tri Bridge and turn right and then go straight along the Red River dike. You go until seeing the signboard “Bat Trang Pottery Village”, time for you to discovering this interesting Village.

Activity

On the road to the market, there are many pottery families, so you can choose any of them to. You can ask understand quite clearly about ceramic and history by asking the local people. Most interesting thing is you can observe how they make the pottery products manually, really amazing. These families also sell ceramic products but for bulk amount instead of retail one. But no worry, all you want to buy will be sold at Bat Trang market.

Bat Trang market sells many kinds of potteries. It is divided into small stalls: the daily household use stall, the decorative stall, the worshiping stall and the souvenir stall. Most of products sold at affordable price but if you can go there with Vietnamese, you can save some amount of money.

I forgot mention about the most interesting thing when visiting pottery families. These families provide service that the tourist can directly make pottery products by themselves. Many youngsters and foreign tourists are interested in this pottery- making experience, and spend a whole day in the market to make a gift for family or friends. With wet clay, a basin of water and a turn-table, you are ready to start creating. However, making pottery is not easy. Some people spend 5 hours working on a vase or a bowl, but it never seems to come out right; one small mistake, and their piece is ruined… You can create what you like, from simple things such as pots or bowls, to vases of different figures or to shape clay into animals such as cats, mice, buffaloes or cartoon characters.

After the pottery is finished, it will be baked for 15-30 minutes. Afterwards, you can paint and decorate your items. You can then buy your creation at price ranging from 30-100 thousand VND.

If you do not want to try this service, you can choose the easier type that is decorating pre-made pottery. You can buy your decorated product at price ranging from 30 to 50 thousand VND.

Note:

• You should bargain when you buy in the market, as well as you go shopping.
• You must check the product quality (drawing line, color, etc) before buying to avoid the bad product.
• You should walk in the market carefully. The owners put many products outside. They are fragile and you must pay for the broken products if you break it unintentionally.
• There are much of things you could discover here, so remember let your shopping until the end of trips if you don’t want to have to worry about the heavy bag or broken products.

Food

Cuisine is not the unique interest of this Village but as other place in Vietnam, you still can enjoy some traditional dishes and some local dishes which are really delicious. You can easily find a “Bún Chả” or “Phở” restaurant. Each bowl could be priced at 25,000 VND to 35,000 VND ($1 – $1.5). In addition, it has some other foods that you should try like: “Bánh tẻ thơm”, 6,000 NVD ($0.4) per pair; “Bánh sắn”, 5,000 NVD ($0.3).