UAL Traveller:

You're right, the pottery village was a bit kitschy. Our guide only took us in a few of the stores, saying that the rest were wholesale only. And the actual place where they demonstrate making pottery was flooded out, so we only got the shopping experience. We did buy a bunch of stuff including some cool bowls painted with red dyes (instead of the normal "blueware" we tend to get in the Orient). I thought it was interesting that almost none of the pottery indicated it was made in Vietnam -- wondering whether some of it actually might not have been? Also wondering whether this is a relic of the days when US citizens couldn't buy any Vietnamese products?

We had been scheduled to do the Perfume Pagoda that day (last day of our trip) but we couldn't handle another multi-hour excursion with our private car/driver. So they took us to the pottery village and another temple or two instead. We also got to see quite a bit of the countryside, and I got great pictures of lush green rice paddies. So, not a bad day.