Jan 2009

Sorry for the long delay in getting this out. But here it is.

For the last part of the trip we flew to Hanoi, took an overnight train for 7 hours from Hanoi to Lao Cai and then took a 1/ 1/2 hour van ride through the clouds to SaPa. This was the gem of the trip. The area here is at 7,000 feet and full of beautiful terraced hillsides where they grow rice. They harvest the fields using water buffalos and plant the fields by hand. They only have two crops per year because the elevation is much higher and it is colder but the rest of Vietnam in the Mekong area has 3-4 crops per year.

The small ethnic minority tribes are named for the color of clothing they wear. The two main groups that inhabit this area are the Red Dao the Black Hmong. The Red Dao wear red head pieces but their clothing are dyed using indigo an they dry it on their fences. They make clothing and crafts to sell to the tourists so there was lots of fabric everywhere in various phases.

We walked through a village and saw some kids playing with tops and this little guy was really excited to have his picture taken. I took a little video too. The little kids here don't wear pants very often. Some local charity groups once donated a bunch of pants and jackets to the families but they never wore any of the pants!

In the video they are hitting little tops with some string to keep them going.

We walked through such amazing terrain and beautiful little villages. The life here is simple, the people are happy and friendly, and the families are close. The age of marriage is very young usually around 16 for girls and 18-20 for boys. Lots of little kids everywhere. They have had a problem with mudslides and there was a lot of construction to help correct the problem.

They had some real prize roosters running around. This is a picture for Grandma Doris.

Here is a shot of the Red Dao women hawking their wares. They are super friendly and their sales pitch goes like this: Where are you from? How old are you? Do you have any kids? I have ____ kids. Will you buy from me? They love to chat with you and will literally start running with you if you try to run away.

Here the women are all running up to a tourist bus to try and sell their hand stitched fabrics. They actually scared the tourists because they went running up to it and some of the tourists were scared to get off the bus.

Here is the house that we stayed in with our Red Dao host family. The mother has 5 children and three still live at home. Two are married with children and she is a grandmother. They also took in a little boy about 6 or 7 because his parents could not afford to feed him any more. They had quite a large house and farm. They had pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, and a lot of terraced rice fields.

This is the view from their house. The lived at the top of a hill.

The host family we were staying with were helping another family cook for their wedding that evening and one of the daughters was invited to go. Here is the traditional headdress that the married women wear and that they wear to special occasions.

They let me try on some of their traditional clothing and I posed with the sister going to the wedding.

Here is the other sister that hung out with us while we stayed there. She was busy working most of the time and did not let us help very much (being that we were the guests and all) The headpiece she is wearing are for the unmarried girls

The family here was very close with one another. They spend a lot of time around the fire and working together in the fields.

Our host mother sewed me a headress in less than one hour and gave it to us as a gift. The best momento of the trip!

We did some more hiking to get back to the town of SaPa and saw more beautiful terraced rice fields.

We saw a performance in SaPa that highlighted all the dances of the regional ethnic minority groups. Here is some of the dancing and in the second video Quinn got involved in the performance.

Here is a yummy hot pot that we ate in SaPa. Thank goodness for our waiter because we didn't know how to cook or eat it.

More hiking.

On the way back we saw a bunch of Red Dao men working on building a house. Community spirit at work!

Back in Hanoi we saw more of the craziness....people load way things than possible onto a trailer pulled by a moped.

Here is some randomness in Hanoi. Lots stores, garbage, and a new years celebration.

A dragon made of flowers for the New Year.

A bike vendor selling popcorn.

Here are some streetside restaurants.

I could use the end of this blog to get philosophical about my thoughts on Vietnam but while I learned a lot about Vietnam I still don't feel educated enough to make comments on their way of life, their economy, governemnt, or social structure. As an outsider looking in, the cities were dirty, loud and busy. The countryside was beautiful and peacefull. Overall, it was a good trip.

The next day we took a boat ride to a floating market. This market is a wholesale market and therefore deals in large equantities of products. Most of the boats had fruits or vegetables for sale. Many of the people live on their boats and rarely step food on dry land. They put a replica of what they are selling on their mast to advertise.

Here are some buildings along the river bank. Not sure if they are houses or shops but they all looked like they were going to slide right into the river.

Here are the types of boats we saw in the floating market.

This woman was selling home (boat) cooked meals. You could see a little gas burner in the bottom of her boat to cook up some local vietnamese delicacies. We didn't partake.

After that, we said bye bye to the countryside and went back to the bustling city of Saigon. We were getting pretty worn down of Saigon by this point, as it takes so much focus to even cross the street. So, we treated ourselves to some ice cream. Here is a shot of one of the four ice creams we ate. Why not? We're on vacation.

We ate dinner in one of the many tent restaurants along the street. This one was excpetionally busy and had enough chairs to seat about 100 people. This woman is the cashier and had quite the system going. She looked like she was playing some kind of crazy video game trying to juggle all of those tickets and keep about 15 servers on track. She kept looking up at us and smiling because our eyes were as wide as sand dollars.

All the lights in Saigon were beautiful. They closed off the street this night because it was Christmas eve. The traffic became so bad that it was actually completely stopped and we had to climb over motorbikes just to get home. The traffic was worse because Vietnam beat Thailand in soccer and everyone was celebrating by riding their motorbikes and waving the Vietnam flag.

The next couple of shots are of the round about in the near middle of the city with a big display they had set up. It had lights and sound and there was a performance about every 30 minutes. You can see many Santa look a likes in the photos below.

Off to Cat Tien National Park, but first a little laundry in the room. For whatever reason, the hotels charge a fortune to wash clothing. We calculated it would have been about $75 for our two loads. Instead, we washed the clothes in the bathtub. It was too much work to go out and find a laundry mat. Especially with fighting the traffic.

Our guide described Cat Tien Park as a communist park. He was not the biggest fan of the government. The accomodations in the this park were absolutely disgusting. We had to wear our shoes in the bathroom because the floor was always wet from the toilet tank leaking and the toilet bowl seat was nearly black from mold and dirt. It was HORRIBLE. I cannot stress this enough. But the national park was pretty and we learned a lot about the local tribes and their culture from our second local guide. She told us that in her Ethnic Minority group the women get married at about age 14-16 and the ment 18-20. They begin having children shortly after that and they have many children. I think they are mostly farmers. Anyway, she took us on a trip through the forest and told us all the uses of plants including medicinal and practical. This is the plant from which they make the famed conical hats that you have seen in many of the pictures.

This is a barkless tree. It molts or sheds in order to grow into a bigger tree. It was very smoth and many of them were HUGE.

These are local mushrooms that are inedible but very pretty.

Here are two more giant barkless trees.

This is a picture of Quinn trying to use a flower whistle. You take out the middle of the flower and you can make a bird whistle with it. He was not successful.

This is a utilitarian bike used in the jungle area to transport items. Spare parts are obviously hard to come by in this neck of the woods.

Part 2: We head into the Mekong Delta.

The next day we set off into the Mekong Delta for two days of cycling (actually it was 3 days of cycling crammed into 2 days). We cycled about 50 kilometers on mostly dirt and some paved surfaces. Not even 2 minutes into the trip, there was a bridge missing and we had to take a ferry across. There turned out to be many river crossings with ferries instead of bridges. Each ferry ride costs about 5 cents per person. The fare increases with the size of the river. I think the most expensive one was 5 dollars and that included getting the van and all four of us across the river (me, quinn, guide, driver).

The ride through the Mekong was in an area full of orchards. Fresh fruit is plentiful and we stopped and tried many of the local fruits. Nobody in this country should ever go hungry. We usually just grabbed the fruit off someones tree, and they didn't seem to mind (or maybe they didn't notice. We counted tasting at least 8 new fruits that we had never seen before. These women are picking dragon eyes. It is a fruit that has a hard shell that needs to picked off, and then inside is a fruit that tastes very similar to a grape, and has a large seed that I would not suggest trying to chew.

There were houses on either side, buried in the vegetation, or built on top of water and we took a variety of pictures. Most of the houses are open to the living room and they don't really close the door. I'm not even sure that some had doors. The locals were all super friendly and would yell hello from every single possible location. I think they had some sort of system to alert the neighbors that we were coming because people would be screaming hello when we were still really far away. People were in boats, in trees, in their houses. They all wanted to greet us and give us a smile and a strange stare. It is not rude to stare in Vietnam and we often felt like zoo animals because we were quite the sight for them. Only poor people ride bikes so they think it is very odd that tourists are riding bikes through their neighborhood just to see a bunch of fruit. At least that is what the guide told us. Here is just a small selection of the houses that we saw while biking:

Here is a pretty typical elementary school.

This was our second ferry crossing of the day. This one is just a little bit bigger than the last one, because the river is just a little bit bigger.

Here is a woman loading wood onto her boat. We saw a lot of this type of wood being loaded on boats. It is a Vietnamese local type of mangrove. It is used for any application where something needs to be hoisted out of the water, often times for stilts on a house. Our guide was funny because whenever he doesn't know the name of something he would call it a local Vietnamese (insert name). It was pretty funny.

This boat was operating as a saw mill. There was a large sliding saw on board that was used for making building lumber. It was really quite impressive. Even the guys on this boat however still took the necessary break to yell hello across the river and stare dumbfounded at the alien form (Quinn) taking their picture.

The people in the Mekong seem to be exceptionally poor, because almost everyone here rode bikes instead of motorbikes, and they are able to carry almost anything on a bicycle. This woman was carrying large bags of rice, and that was just the beginning of what we would see throughout the trip. The poverty however doesn't affect the quality of life. Everyone seems so happy and spends a lot of time together. It is nice to see.

Our first day of biking terminated in one of the numerous little towns that we rode through. We had a lovely lunch where they served up spring rolls again. We quickly learned that every meal in Viet Nam starts with spring rolls. It is something like French fries with fast food. There is a lot of meat and rice, or meat and noodles served for lunch and dinner. Quinn was happy because they brought out large quantities of food for every meal. It turns out that it is possible to eat too much at every sitting. He was quite miserable after a few of the meals. We had to take some time lying in the hammock after this specific meal. Biking and eating really tire a person out.

Even the dogs here are really tired.

In another room in the restaurant there was two walls worth of beds lined up. We couldn't figure out if this was a hotel of sorts, or if they just cater to a lot of weary travellers. Quite the setup they had though. This is one of the biggest restaurants that we ate at on the trip.

We finished off the afternoon by taking a boat ride down the canals. There was a beautiful boat waiting to take us on a private cruise through the canals. The boat was gorgeous and they had fresh fruit waiting and we got to drink from fresh coconuts.

The fruits on the basket include dragon eyes (the small round brown ones) dragon fruit (the pink one with the rough looking edges), and longin apple (the red pear shaped thing), and some other unnamed fruit.

Then we transfered to a sampam (smaller boat) and were rowed down the canals. It was great.

We spent the night in a guest house and they served us fish (again). We were getting pretty sick of fish at this point and told them not to give us fish anymore. Quinn made the best of it and tried to imitate his food.

The next day we headed out to the coconut growing areas and then to the all famous rice patties. We drove to the cycling start point and had some pretty tight bridge crossings. I enjoyed the ferries more than the bridges because I felt that my life was more in danger on the bridges than on the ferrries.

Here are was a casket show room in the Mekong. We saw a lot of little stores like this where you could buy caskets. And here is another little store for lumber.

Here are some pics of us cycling through the jungle and towns. We said hello about 200 times per day to all of the locals. It was really cool. Everyone was so friendly and eager to welcome you to their village. Quinn even got into a a race with two boys on a bicycle. They were both pedaling extra hard to beat him.

The rice patties were all that you could hope they would be. It was beautiful. I wish we could have cycled through them all day long. They grow rice here almost all year long because of the ideal weather conditions but we were here during downtime so there weren't that many workers in the field. Hope you can get a taste of it from these shots.

Here are some bridges in the area. They range from the modern to the more classic style.

This picture is for worm. He is an electrician we knew he would approve of this type of workmanship.

Who needs 4 wheel drive and a V8 engine? You can haul anything with a bike or at most for a really heavy load, a motorbike.

And with that image...I will leave you waiting for part 3.

Okay, so the title might be a little tired but it still amsuses me. I have a feeling that this blog will be a little lengthy so I am going to do it in several parts.

Part 1:

We decided to go to Vietnam for winter break because those were the cheapest tickets online and we want to see as much of southeast Asia as possible so it doesn't really matter where we started. We used a tour company to make an itinerary and provide us with transportation, lodging and a personal guide. It was just Quinn and I on the tour so we felt pretty spoiled. We flew into Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and were immediately shocked and awed by the traffic, pollution, confusion, electrical lines, and trash. Living in Japan, we are spoiled by the cleanliness of the city areas and Saigon is the complete opposite. People throw trash and pee wherever and whenever they feel like it. Don' get me wrong though, the people are very welcoming, friendly, polite, and open. A typical conversation goes something like this: hello, where are you from, how long will you be traveling in Vietnam, how old are you, is that your husband or brother? Yet another complete opposite from Japan where they hardly EVER ask you a personal question even after you have met them 5 or 6 times let alone 5 or 6 seconds. Saigon is colorful, loud, and pungent. I was exhausted just trying to walk around the streets. It was AMAZING.

Here is a video of the traffic. It is like this all the time. I couldn't cross the street by myself. I was too scared. Luckily for me, Quinn could just put his head down and step out. We never got hit

They love Christmas in Vietnam. The population is predominately Buddhist but they enjoy the lights and gift giving, pretty much just like most people in America.

Here are some power lines. This is how all the powerlines are in Saigon.

So, there is a welcome to Saigon and it wouldn't be complete without a picture of food. Quinn's first meal came in a pineapple. Cool.

The second day we drove to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These tunnels were used by the vietnamese to hide during the war. On the way we saw some rubber trees (seen below) which is one of the top 5 exports from Vietnam including: coffee, rice, and some other stuff I can't remember. Hey 3 out of 5 is pretty good. They come and slice the tree in the morning and then the rubber oozes into a cut coconut shell and they come and collect it in the afternoon. Traveling with a private guide is awesome but it is hard to remember everything they tell you. We really appreciated everything so much more and learned a lot more traveling with a guide. If only we were rich and could do that all the time!

Here is Quinn going into one of the Cu Chi Tunnels and hiding from the enemy. The propaganda filled video we watched prior to seeing the tunnels included calling Americans "devils" and other such endearing terms. Wow! We are not in Kansas anymore toto.

Snake wine is very popular in Vietnam and is considered an aphrodesiac. Here it is. There are lot of other types of wines here including: rice, bird, gecko. All of them have the real animal inside.

There is a lot of Chinese influence in Vietnam. We went to a Chinese temple in the city and our guide bought us a wish. They attach it to an incense ring and put it on the ceiling with the others. Here was a wish for our trip.

Here is some more yummy food. And Quinn in front of the restaurant.