Pictures as (not) promised... As usual, click on the photo to be directed to the Picasa page for detailed captions.
Click here for pictures my parents took on their visit here.
21 April 2008
20 April 2008
through the eyes of mom
A post written by my mom (click here for related pictures)...
I'd like to tell about our boat trip at Ba Be National Park, in northern Vietnam. On April 3rd, 2008, we drove 6 hours north to Ba Be with a hired driver and car. We weren't far from China when we got there! The next morning we gathered a few things, and were driven to a boat launch with our new guide, whose name sounded like Chip. He spoke very little English, and Anna had to do lots of translating! We climbed into our 20' open boat with tarp/thatch awning. Our pilot cranked the handle of the engine, and we were off down the Nang River. How exciting to see wild countryside, mountains, and rice paddies chugging by us! After awhile the river disappeared around a corner and into a gaping hole in the hillside. We went right into a cave!
There were stalactites coming down from the ceiling, and flowstone in places. Swifts zoomed in and out of the high chamber, disappearing up a ceiling hole. Our boat docked, and we got out, walking along the wide ledge on one bank. When we got farthest back in the cave, we stared into a black cavern. There must've been a kajillion bats in there, by the sounds of their chippering and the smell of their droppings. When I took a picture, there were eye-shines here and there in the flash. Too bad we didn't have a flashlight! These flitter-mice would've been fascinating to see, especially pouring out of the cave at dusk!
We continued down the river, stopping at a Tay minority village to walk around. We felt like we were the local clown show as villagers watched us try to negotiate 8" wide rice paddy dikes! At one point, 3 men had to pass me going in the opposite direction. They scootched down and passed behind by legs as I stood sideways. They commented in Vietnamese "so big" according to Anna…little did they know she could understand! They only came up to my shoulder , but I'm not sure that was the "big" they were commenting on! We saw water buffalo, and a woman with a shoulder pole with rice seedlings to be transplanted. We walked the village paths, and the dogs barked and growled at us in the same dog language they use back home! I liked trying to imagine what it was like to live there, with the rice fields, mountains, and river around me. How secluded! Yet what community they must have!
Back on the boat, we continued downstream past mountain views and wonderful smells of flowering trees. We disembarked at another Tay village, and walked to a waterfall. The water really rushed and pounded through the rocks, and both the guide and Butch grew alarmed when Anna ventured down close in her flip-flops. Later I read that there had been tourist fatalities there, so no wonder the guide was worried!
We trekked back to the village, and stopped at a house for lunch. It was just the 3 of us and our guide there. I watched as the woman of the house and her daughter chopped cabbage and potatoes on a wooden counter. They cooked over a cement hearth, fed with bamboo trunks. We sat at a table, looking up at the thatched roof and the bamboo gutter pipes. The room was fairly spacious, with a hard bed in one corner, about 5 tables, and a little "store" counter at the front. We drank tea from small ceramic cups with the guide. We really enjoyed being in the hut and having the village experience, even if only for an hour.
Boating up-river after lunch, we snuck over to Ba Be Lake on a connector canal. We landed on a shore of the lake and took a quick hike to a small pond. It was great to get away for the noise of the diesel engine, and hear strange bird songs across the water. I'd read about this pond too: "Ao Tien is a small lake on the top of the mountain. The climate around here is very cool and fresh. Legend said that the fairies above always go down in this place to swim and play chess. Therefore, people name this place Ao Tien (the lake of fairy)." There were no fairies, no swimming, and no chess, but it was a wonderful place nevertheless!
Our next stop was at a pagoda on an island. Climbing to the top of the hill, we arrived in an open area with a temple on one side and a house on another. We visited the pagoda first, an open building with a huge drum at the end. The priest greeted us, and was quite intrigued that Anna could speak Vietnamese. They rattled on about what she was doing there and that we were her folks from the U.S. We took some pictures of the elaborate and colorful altar with statues of Confucius (complete with beard hairs, so you could tell it wasn't Buddha!). Then the priest invited us to the house for tea! We sat overlooking Lake Ba Be, and visiting. All Vietnamese want to know how old you are, so they know how to address you properly. It turns out that our host was only 5 months older than Butch. I ruminated about how their lives were so different, and yet about the same length. What an experience to have that shared moment of juncture. If the Vietnamese war had lasted longer, these 2 might have been enemy combatants, but here they sat drinking tea together in peace. Ahhh, peace is good.
We finished our boat trip with a chug around Widow's Island and landed at the boat launch. The vendors were ready for us, and moved in to sell us local tea, sesame candies, and clothes. We drove back to our bungalow at park headquarters for a long snooze. We finished the day with dinner at the park restaurant (accompanied by a French woman traveling by herself and a Vietnamese Karaoke party). The skinny kitchen kitty gladly helped us finish our meal of rice and lake fish. What a long and wonderful day we'd had, experiencing so many aspects of rural Vietnam!
14 April 2008
Vietnam through the eyes of dad
A blog post written by my dad after visiting earlier this month...
"There is nothing subtle about Ha Noi. It is a complete sensory experience--overwhelming sounds, sights, and smells. First and foremost is the traffic, unlike anything seen or heard before: Motor scooters zigging and zagging in apparent chaos; the occasional car weaving in and out; and the lumbering bus clearing through all. A bit unsettling is the fact that everyone uses their horn to signal presence. It's as if there was a consensus to dispose with rear view mirrors and over-the-shoulder-checks before changing 'lanes.' For a Westerner used to vehicular order, this was a challenge to say the least. But it quickly became apparent that there actually was a set of rules that everyone seemed to be following, and one could indeed adapt and survive. For the pedestrian trying to cross the road, this meant disposing with the time honored practice of looking both ways, and only walking when clear in all directions. Instead, one simply walks....right through it all, and like the water around a stone in a chaotic rapid, everyone moves around you and the system actually works. One must have the courage to take the plunge through the traffic in a deliberate and predictable manner, or risk a true collision if one hesitates, causing confusion among oncoming traffic. A great confidence builder for first-time tourists is the firm hand-hold of our experienced daughter, Anna, guiding her parents through the chaos. If you want to see Ha Noi, you have no choice than to adapt to these unaccustomed rules.
"Ha Noi is a maze of streets and I never did figure any of it out. I had brought my running gear thinking I would explore the city on foot during early morning runs. Nothing doing. I know I would have been lost within a half mile of our hotel. Once you venture off the main roads, especially in the so-called 'Old Quarter,' the roads go every which way. It is on these smaller roads where one really experiences Ha Noi. There are people everywhere and most of them seem to be taking in a meal or a cup of tea or a warm beer. As one walks through these narrow roads, the sensory experiences becomes mostly one of diverse smells, primarily of various cooked foods.
"There was one particular smell that I couldn't quite put an identity to until about mid-week, and it turned out to be the burning of their coal stoves used to fire nearly all street-side dishes. Everyone seemed to have a specialty--One restaurant would serve 'Phở,' a type of stew/soup very famous in Ha Noi; another would serve up pork; still another might specialize in fish dishes. Customers would sit around a tiny plastic table with tiny chairs, almost play-like in appearance, and take their meal. It seemed that meals were served at all hours of the day, from early morning to late at night, and there were always peddlers walking around with fresh produce to supply their customers.
"This was one of the enduring
visions of Ha Noi--the stooped woman (always a woman) bearing a heavy load over her shoulder: two dangling baskets balanced at either end of a bamboo strut supported by first a left, than a right shoulder. Where do this woman come from and how long and far have they walked bearing these burdens? While Ha Noi appears to be on the cusp of becoming a modern city with all the trappings that Westerners seem to expect (five star hotels, posh restaurants), these woman seem to be guardians of the old ways, and are just one element of the great charm that one feels in Ha Noi."
While on a trip to Hạ Long Bay, Dad asked our tour guide, "I wonder how many caves haven't been discovered yet?" The reply: "21."
"There is nothing subtle about Ha Noi. It is a complete sensory experience--overwhelming sounds, sights, and smells. First and foremost is the traffic, unlike anything seen or heard before: Motor scooters zigging and zagging in apparent chaos; the occasional car weaving in and out; and the lumbering bus clearing through all. A bit unsettling is the fact that everyone uses their horn to signal presence. It's as if there was a consensus to dispose with rear view mirrors and over-the-shoulder-checks before changing 'lanes.' For a Westerner used to vehicular order, this was a challenge to say the least. But it quickly became apparent that there actually was a set of rules that everyone seemed to be following, and one could indeed adapt and survive. For the pedestrian trying to cross the road, this meant disposing with the time honored practice of looking both ways, and only walking when clear in all directions. Instead, one simply walks....right through it all, and like the water around a stone in a chaotic rapid, everyone moves around you and the system actually works. One must have the courage to take the plunge through the traffic in a deliberate and predictable manner, or risk a true collision if one hesitates, causing confusion among oncoming traffic. A great confidence builder for first-time tourists is the firm hand-hold of our experienced daughter, Anna, guiding her parents through the chaos. If you want to see Ha Noi, you have no choice than to adapt to these unaccustomed rules.
"Ha Noi is a maze of streets and I never did figure any of it out. I had brought my running gear thinking I would explore the city on foot during early morning runs. Nothing doing. I know I would have been lost within a half mile of our hotel. Once you venture off the main roads, especially in the so-called 'Old Quarter,' the roads go every which way. It is on these smaller roads where one really experiences Ha Noi. There are people everywhere and most of them seem to be taking in a meal or a cup of tea or a warm beer. As one walks through these narrow roads, the sensory experiences becomes mostly one of diverse smells, primarily of various cooked foods.
"There was one particular smell that I couldn't quite put an identity to until about mid-week, and it turned out to be the burning of their coal stoves used to fire nearly all street-side dishes. Everyone seemed to have a specialty--One restaurant would serve 'Phở,' a type of stew/soup very famous in Ha Noi; another would serve up pork; still another might specialize in fish dishes. Customers would sit around a tiny plastic table with tiny chairs, almost play-like in appearance, and take their meal. It seemed that meals were served at all hours of the day, from early morning to late at night, and there were always peddlers walking around with fresh produce to supply their customers.
"This was one of the enduring
visions of Ha Noi--the stooped woman (always a woman) bearing a heavy load over her shoulder: two dangling baskets balanced at either end of a bamboo strut supported by first a left, than a right shoulder. Where do this woman come from and how long and far have they walked bearing these burdens? While Ha Noi appears to be on the cusp of becoming a modern city with all the trappings that Westerners seem to expect (five star hotels, posh restaurants), these woman seem to be guardians of the old ways, and are just one element of the great charm that one feels in Ha Noi."While on a trip to Hạ Long Bay, Dad asked our tour guide, "I wonder how many caves haven't been discovered yet?" The reply: "21."
13 April 2008
meanwhile...
Oh right, I have a blog. Good thing I didn't make that New Years' resolution to write here every other week because I'd be feeling really guilty right now. Some of my fellow SALTers have the excuse of little internet access or funky connections, while here in Hanoi I'm on a wireless connections all day every day at work. Truth is, this winter has been a bit rough and I find myself staring at a blank page thinking, "what can I write that people would want to read?"
The cold, damp winter that overstayed its visit has finally been shooed out the door by Mr. Humidity and Mrs. Heat. This is the month where windows drip with condensation and towels never dry. Some weeks ago I thought I'd be all cool and artsy and hang up some roses to dry. I guess I forgot that "dry" isn't in vocabulary usage here, for my lovely roses have sprouted fuzzy, white and green hair and have now been laid to rest in the waste bin.
I've had the fun of hosting and/or meeting several visitors lately, including Tim and Dale from The Mennonite (check out Tim's blog here), friends I met in Indonesia at the Indigenous Spirituality conference, and, most recently, my parents. It's refreshing to see Hanoi through their eyes and realize how far I've come in navigating traffic to ensure survival, conversing in Vietnamese (I even set up our Vietnamese-speaking driver on a date with a friend of mine), eating with chopsticks correctly, and understanding some underlying values that lay the foundation for once-unfamiliar customs. See future blog posts for first-person accounts from my parents (hear that mom and dad? you now have people waiting for your entries).
I guess the big news for me is that I've decided to attend Indiana University (Bloomington) this fall for a dual MA in ethnomusicology and journalism. Part of me (most of me actually) is really excited for this next turn in the pilgrimage, but part of me is dreading moving yet again--to midwest suburbia at that. I'm thinking of putting an ad in the "wanted" section for a home that reminds me of Hanoi: "Looking for crowded, narrow, loud apartment. Honking motorbikes, crowing roosters, barking dogs, and a locked gateway are requirements. Bonuses include nearby walking peddlers with singsong cries, street vendors with $1 lunches, fresh fruit markets year-round, and potted green plants gracing every courtyard. Only basic facilities and furniture needed, but these include rice cooker, wash basin, mattress pad, mosquito net, gas stove top, electric hot pot, and TV playing movies with monotone, emotionless Vietnamese overdubbing. Please call with openings at +84947404086. Loving host family should be included." I'll be waiting.
Ok, xin chào for now. Pictures coming soon (but no promises).
The cold, damp winter that overstayed its visit has finally been shooed out the door by Mr. Humidity and Mrs. Heat. This is the month where windows drip with condensation and towels never dry. Some weeks ago I thought I'd be all cool and artsy and hang up some roses to dry. I guess I forgot that "dry" isn't in vocabulary usage here, for my lovely roses have sprouted fuzzy, white and green hair and have now been laid to rest in the waste bin.
I've had the fun of hosting and/or meeting several visitors lately, including Tim and Dale from The Mennonite (check out Tim's blog here), friends I met in Indonesia at the Indigenous Spirituality conference, and, most recently, my parents. It's refreshing to see Hanoi through their eyes and realize how far I've come in navigating traffic to ensure survival, conversing in Vietnamese (I even set up our Vietnamese-speaking driver on a date with a friend of mine), eating with chopsticks correctly, and understanding some underlying values that lay the foundation for once-unfamiliar customs. See future blog posts for first-person accounts from my parents (hear that mom and dad? you now have people waiting for your entries).
I guess the big news for me is that I've decided to attend Indiana University (Bloomington) this fall for a dual MA in ethnomusicology and journalism. Part of me (most of me actually) is really excited for this next turn in the pilgrimage, but part of me is dreading moving yet again--to midwest suburbia at that. I'm thinking of putting an ad in the "wanted" section for a home that reminds me of Hanoi: "Looking for crowded, narrow, loud apartment. Honking motorbikes, crowing roosters, barking dogs, and a locked gateway are requirements. Bonuses include nearby walking peddlers with singsong cries, street vendors with $1 lunches, fresh fruit markets year-round, and potted green plants gracing every courtyard. Only basic facilities and furniture needed, but these include rice cooker, wash basin, mattress pad, mosquito net, gas stove top, electric hot pot, and TV playing movies with monotone, emotionless Vietnamese overdubbing. Please call with openings at +84947404086. Loving host family should be included." I'll be waiting.
Ok, xin chào for now. Pictures coming soon (but no promises).
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