a sunburn and a bottle of wine

When we came down for breakfast in Da Lat, the Hotel owner had laid out this banquet of a spread. There was dragon fruit, pineapple, passion fruit, watermelon, tomatoes, avocados, laughing cow cheese, baguettes, yogurt and fried eggs. There was even vegemite, marmite, and some peanut butter. The peanut butter was all the way from Metaire, Louisiana. He also had made his own passion fruit juice, which was heavenly. We ate really well, and then decided to walk around the city and see things for ourselves rather than taking a tour.

We walked along the lake to the Da Lat flower gardens. There were so many beautiful flowers, some that I recognized and some that I didn't. I took an awful lot of pictures. My favorites were the many kind of orchids. In Vietnamese, "lan" means orchid. There were some funny plant sculptures of different animals, and there was also a sculpture garden of stone sculptures. It was so lovely and the morning was nice and cool.

We walked all the way around the lake and got lunch at a restaurant downtown. After lunch, we decided to return to a small bakery where we had gotten pastries the night before. The lady working in the bakery was so sweet and let us sit in the store while we ate. I got this delicious pastry that has white raisins and potato chunks in it. It tasted a little like a King Cake.

We spent the afternoon at the Crazy House. A Vietnamese architect who studied in Moscow designed this structure, and it truly is crazy. It doubles as a hotel at which people can stay, and I think the woman who met us at the front said that the architect still lives there. Each room has a different theme: kangaroo, bear, bamboo, ant, termite, tiger, etc. The kangaroo and the tiger both had light-up red eyes, and it was creepy as all get out. I would not want to stay in a room and have that thing staring at me.

We went to tour Bao Dai's summer palace, which was more or less like touring the White House. Bao Dai was the last emperor of Vietnam around the time of World War II. What was interesting about our tour there was that two Vietnamese guys our age approached us in one of the rooms. We were talking with them about school, where we went and where they went and about how old we all were. One of the boys had very good English, but the other one didn't seem to speak any English, though I did notice the quite one subtly taking pictures of us on his phone.They were on holiday from school and with a group of other students. Once the other students found us, it was game over. They all wanted to take pictures with us. They asked for our e-mails and our phone numbers (we don't have phones). I have never experienced anything like that before. Unfortunately, the three of us were so flabbergasted by the whole thing that we didn't get a picture with one of our cameras, but if the guy every e-mails us, maybe we can get him to send us the picture.

We walked around some and then got dinner at an outdoor cafe. This cafe had artichoke tea, which was very delicious. I didn't expect to like the taste, but it was really good and soothing. After dinner, we split a bottle of DaLat wine at one of the terraced cafes in the city center. We also walked past the bakery one last time for a coconut pastry before heading back to the hotel entirely content and sunkissed.

a black square, some fruit, and an old Vietnamese lady

Today, I had my first extremely frustrating experience of not being able to communicate with someone. We caught the bus from Hanoi to DaLat, which is about a seven hour trip. I was sitting next to this very nice Vietnamese man for the ride who spoke only the smallest bit of English. He would ask me questions, and I would try to respond or vice versa, but neither one of us really knew what the other was saying. Each of us would just agree with a "Yes" when we didn't know what the other person had said. We both knew that the other was doing this too, so we would just laugh it off mostly. I pretty much felt like scum for going to a country without having even tried to learn a bit of the language, but he was very kind. At one point, he pulled out something to eat wrapped in banana leaves. Whatever it was, it was a black square and seemed to have some sesame seeds on it. I thought I was just looking, but I may have been staring because he saw me looking and handed another one to me. I unwrapped it carefully, because it was very sticky. I took a bite, and it seemed to be black tapioca-esqu substance filled with a banana and sesame seed paste. I only took one bite because the windy roads up in the mountains were making me sick, but it certainly was an interesting food. I've asked my brother's friend who is Vietnamese if he knows what it's called, so I'll have to get back to you.

There were also two ladies sitting on my other side, and they were eating some fruit that I didn't recognize (typical because I recognize maybe two fruits here). Again, I flirted with the line between looking and staring because she offered me some of the fruit. It had been pre-cut and packaged, so there was no telling if the knife used to cut it had been clean. I decided against the fruit, and tried to be as polite as possible about it.

When we arrived in DaLat, I breathed deeply for the first time since getting into Vietnam. Most of the Vietnamese would agree with me when I say that Saigon is loud and dirty and way to busy. DaLat is in the mountains, and the air is cool and clean here. It was so great to be off the windy vomit bus and in clean air. We walked around for a bit just wandering and looking for a restaurant. We crossed paths with a cheery, elderly Vietnamese woman. She touched Allison's arm and started talking to us in rapid Vietnamese. She pinched my arm tenderly in that affectionate grandparent style and then gave my face a love pat (akin to a slap only a lot more gentle) all the while speaking Vietnamese to us. I have no idea what she was saying.

I don't have any exciting food updates. My stomach has felt wrecked the past few days, so I've been eating mostly chicken and rice. I am frustrated by my tummy.

snake, in retrospect

We took a two-day venture in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. If you don’t really know where that is, you’ll have to look it up because I have no idea either. What I do know is that it seems to rain a lot there, boating down the river is lovely, and there are a number of floating markets there. The floating markets are a lot like what I imagine a redneck yacht club would. The boats in the river raft up with each other as each boater has need to sell or buy the goods of the others. I bought a pineapple which the lady selling it cut these swirly ridges into. It was so delicious Each alerts the others to what he or she is selling by suspending the product from a bamboo stick on the boat. They were mostly selling fruit and produce. Every boat has a set of eyes painted on the front of it. The eyes are meant to keep alligators away.

I drank jasmine tea with honey and a small citrus fruit squeezed into it, which was absolutely delicious. I saw the process for making coconut candies and ate one of the coconut toffees while it was still hot. I probably will never be able to eat anything with fake coconut flavoring again because this stuff was the real deal. I saw how  rice paper is made which involves mashing up rice to get what they call rice milk and then mixing it with tapioca starch and steaming that mixture for a minute or two. It kinda looks like making a giant, white crepe. After the rice paper is dried, they run it through this machine that slices it all into rice noodles.

In our travels, I have met people from all over the world: Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Colombia, Ireland, England, and even one American. I’m learning about the company and generosity of travel. Everyone seems to want to talk with everyone else and share his or her own life with others. We learn about each other’s countries and cultures while experiencing that of Vietnam. Everyone shares what they buy with others in this communal exchange. I shared my pineapple, and Jonathan from Colombia shared his snake wine with pretty much everyone traveling through the Mekong in our group. Snake wine is rice liquor that is held in a jar with a couple dead snakes. The Vietnamese think that is you house fierce creatures in the alcohol it makes it stronger.

For breakfast yesterday, we were in Can Tho and I ordered bread and cheese. I was brought the standard baguette roll and two wedges of The Laughing Cow cheese. There are advertisements for The Laughing Cow all over the place, which seems to be a funny thing to have in common with Vietnam. One thing we don’t have in common with Vietnam is that Vietnam doesn’t have a single McDonald’s. Apparently, McDonald’s refused to use Vietnamese beef in their production, so Vietnam wouldn’t let them it. This is quite alright with me because I don’t like McDonald’s.

I was trying to be adventurous yesterday for lunch, so I ordered snake with onions. Snake is brought out as long strips of meat. It’s very tough, which makes sense because I don’t think of snakes as particularly fatty. Maeve ordered frog legs, and I tried some of that too. Snake, in retrospect, could have been what caused me to feel excessively nauseated for the rest of the day. Then again, that could have been car sickness from the bus, the snake wine, the pineapple cute with a less-than-clean knife. In any case, I got lasagna for dinner at a French restaurant. It was delicious, and I knew that I could eat it.

I will leave you with this: you know how I feel about a man in a sweater vest.   

chillin' with uncle ho

I want to first echo yesterday’s post and say that traffic here is straight crazy.

I woke up super early today because my body has not adjusted to the time difference. I managed to dally in my room with my friends for a while before beginning the day with breakfast at the hotel. Breakfast consisted of coffee (which here is always mixed with sweetened condensed milk) and French roll that was about the size of a six-inch Subway sandwich with very sweet strawberry jam. It was very delicious.

We went to the Museum of Fine Art. It was in this lovely building that’s yellow with blue trim. The tile work on the floors was intricate and colorful and the stained glass doors and windows were absolutely beautiful. I wonder what that building was originally used for. It had everything from ancient Vietnamese art (heavily influenced by the Chinese) to modern art. There’s a lot of art made with lacquer on wood. Almost every work was done with vibrant reds. There was this one funny metal sculpture in front of the museum that looks like a man flying off the back of his motorbike.

After the art museum, we stopped into X Crème, a café known for its imported, New Zealand ice cream. I got this wonderfully arranged plate with three little cakes each sandwiching a scoop of ice cream. It was crazy refreshing.

We ambled around the city for a little while and saw the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Ho Chi Minh Post Office. The post office also had beautiful floor tile-work. I find that no matter where in the city I am, Bac Ho (Uncle Ho, as the Vietnamese people called him) is gracefully watching over everything. After the post office, we stopped into the lovely Press Café and had a delicious beef and rice lunch with iced green tea for the equivalent of $2 USD. Trust me, it was a steal.

We moseyed over to the War Remnants Museum. We got a little turned around on our way there, but a very nice man stopped to help us out. He is an American from Texas and was shot in the Vietnam War. He had flown into Hanoi and made his way down to Ho Chi Minh City. He seemed really pleased to run into some other Americans. Even though I haven’t been here that long, I was pretty pleased to see another American, too. He said that we should know that the War Remnants Museum was gonna be tough and that all the information is skewed from one side. He was right, but it’s so important to hear the story from both sides. At the museum, there are a number of US aircraft sitting outside the building. I took a picture in front of the Huey because it reminded me of riding in the Vietnam-era Huey with Dad’s flight group. I walked through three exhibits: the Tiger Cages, Agent Orange, and a collection of photos taken by photojournalists from 11 nations during the war.

Tiger Cages and holding facilities had been reconstructed outside of the museum. The exhibit talked about the various forms of torture and the horrifying realities of being detained during the war. The Agent Orange exhibit focused mainly on the Vietnamese affected by the toxin, but also showed the pictures and stories of Americans affected by it. I didn’t realize that there are still children being born with serious defects both physical and mental. Dioxin is evil.

My favorite exhibit was the photo collection. The introduction stated that this collection was originally gathered in Kentucky from photojournalists on all sides of the war who lost their lives in the conflict. Their photos were harrowing to say the least.  The pictures presented such an even-handed truth that war affects everyone. It doesn’t matter which side you are on, the pain of loss is acute and long-lasting.

We wandered aimlessly about the city for a while thinking we knew where we were and then not knowing where we were for a while. The good thing is we are a navigational team, and eventually, we started recognizing places we had been. We walked through this one park where there was exercise equipment for people to use. There was definitely an elliptical, some crazy oblique twisty contraption, bars to do pull-ups on and platforms to do crunches on. This is Public Health. 

The vanilla icing on the top of this M&M cake is that I heard the Backstreet Boys played twice today in public places. Thank you BBoys for being that awesome. 

traffic

The flight from Newark to Hong Kong was sufficiently delayed so that we missed our flight into Saigon. The airline was kind enough to put us up in the Novotel City Gate Hotel near the Hong Kong airport where I had pork shu mai (I know I'm biased, but I think Dad's shu mai is better) and noodles for breakfast before catching a short flight into Saigon.

The hotel we booked a room at was kind enough to pick us up from the airport. The first thing I noticed about the traffic was that the majority of motorists were on motor bikes and scooters. I haven't figured out yet if the motor bikes are subject to the rules of the road or not. The flow of traffic follows steady streams and bend and curve so as to avoid an accident. I came to terms with an imminent crash before realizing that everyone on the road was operating on a system of mutual trust. Whatever one motorist did, the rest would follow or bend around him and collisions were always avoided.

The same is true of crossing the road. Motorists and pedestrians respond to each other so as to avoid a crash. The key is the pedestrian has to fully commit to crossing the road. The motor bikes and cars will avoid hitting the pedestrian, but the walker cannot hesitate or turn back. In the book I'm reading now, The Beauty of Humanity Movement, one character is teaching another to cross the street by "finding your inner peace." When I first began crossing roads, I held my breath. Now, I just cross them with confidence.

I haven't been hit yet.

time for an adventure

Tomorrow, August 23rd, I leave for Vietnam. I am excited and nervous and, most of all, ready for an adventure. I told myself that I would probably never keep a blog because I didn't have much that was important enough for the entire internet to read, but now I've got something worthy of keeping a record of. Also, this is the easiest way I can think of to keep in touch with a lot of people at once. I don't know when I'll next have internet access, but I'll be flying into Ho Chi Minh City sometime in the next 48 hours and will spend several days there before venturing on to several cities and making my way to Hanoi where I will be studying at the Hanoi School of Public Health. I can't wait to share my stories with anyone reading them, so if you'll try to keep up, I'll do my best to keep up as well!