Thursday, October 18, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
The Good Stuff
October 13, 2007
We are headed back to Hanoi. I am excited because I feel like I could spend much more time in that city, with it’s tremendous energy and accommodating people. We stop off at a local street marked on the way in. I am stupefied by the amount of goods jammed together in one place. It’s not even in the city and there must be a couple of acres of stalls with an endless variety of plants, animals, minerals, and, well, lots of junk.
Having become addicted to yet another form of coffee, I venture in to the market, and with Lien’s help, acquire a filter/brewing cup, a kilo of real Vietnamese coffee, and the crucially important Ong Tho sweetened condensed milk that captures the ‘ca fe sua’ experience. It all sets me back around $9.
I’m not really into the acquisition of ‘stuff’, though. My prized possessions are my pictures and videos taken throughout the trip. I’m pretty happy with my camera, except for extreme close-up work, and up to this point I just hadn’t worked with it much. I brought my digital video camera, but I am impressed with the quality I get from my regular camera, and I decide it’s not really worth the hassle of dragging the video camera around. I never filled a memory card, had back-up rechargeable batteries when I needed them, and everything downloaded smoothly onto the Mac.
My flight out of Hanoi doesn’t leave until late Saturday. I try to squeeze every possible moment out of Hanoi. We visit the Museum of Ethnology. Would like to spend more time there. Would like to be able to read Vietnamese. I say my goodbyes to the team members as we depart for various flights and hotels. I am jealous that most of them are extending their stays to visit other locales in Vietnam and Southest Asia. So much to see.
I picked up a small visitors guide to Hanoi before my trip. It’s golden. I end up consulting it for shops, sights, and ‘sua. I have catfish spring rolls. Get jewelry. Have mango and dried shrimp salad. Get a t-shirt. Try to remember the endangered status, am assured it’s OK, and have crocodile. Should I feel bad here? I hire a guy on a motorbike to run me around. Nice guy, and we don’t get crushed at an intersection in a tragic xe om/dump truck accident. Purely by coincidence, I find myself at the very intersection my book describes as the quintessential Old Quarter experience. I have a bia hoy. I meet Yanni from Finland, Dassy from Australia, and their girl friends, Lan and Nguyen, and Sun and Li. They invite me to dinner. We go to another bia hoy joint and have eel, ham, gherkins (which are, um… juvenile pickles?), tofu, wasabi sauce and beef. It’s all awesome. I sleep all the way to the airport.
We are headed back to Hanoi. I am excited because I feel like I could spend much more time in that city, with it’s tremendous energy and accommodating people. We stop off at a local street marked on the way in. I am stupefied by the amount of goods jammed together in one place. It’s not even in the city and there must be a couple of acres of stalls with an endless variety of plants, animals, minerals, and, well, lots of junk.
Having become addicted to yet another form of coffee, I venture in to the market, and with Lien’s help, acquire a filter/brewing cup, a kilo of real Vietnamese coffee, and the crucially important Ong Tho sweetened condensed milk that captures the ‘ca fe sua’ experience. It all sets me back around $9.
I’m not really into the acquisition of ‘stuff’, though. My prized possessions are my pictures and videos taken throughout the trip. I’m pretty happy with my camera, except for extreme close-up work, and up to this point I just hadn’t worked with it much. I brought my digital video camera, but I am impressed with the quality I get from my regular camera, and I decide it’s not really worth the hassle of dragging the video camera around. I never filled a memory card, had back-up rechargeable batteries when I needed them, and everything downloaded smoothly onto the Mac.
My flight out of Hanoi doesn’t leave until late Saturday. I try to squeeze every possible moment out of Hanoi. We visit the Museum of Ethnology. Would like to spend more time there. Would like to be able to read Vietnamese. I say my goodbyes to the team members as we depart for various flights and hotels. I am jealous that most of them are extending their stays to visit other locales in Vietnam and Southest Asia. So much to see.
I picked up a small visitors guide to Hanoi before my trip. It’s golden. I end up consulting it for shops, sights, and ‘sua. I have catfish spring rolls. Get jewelry. Have mango and dried shrimp salad. Get a t-shirt. Try to remember the endangered status, am assured it’s OK, and have crocodile. Should I feel bad here? I hire a guy on a motorbike to run me around. Nice guy, and we don’t get crushed at an intersection in a tragic xe om/dump truck accident. Purely by coincidence, I find myself at the very intersection my book describes as the quintessential Old Quarter experience. I have a bia hoy. I meet Yanni from Finland, Dassy from Australia, and their girl friends, Lan and Nguyen, and Sun and Li. They invite me to dinner. We go to another bia hoy joint and have eel, ham, gherkins (which are, um… juvenile pickles?), tofu, wasabi sauce and beef. It’s all awesome. I sleep all the way to the airport.
Tam Dao Teen Night Out
October 12, 2007
We are done with transects. This morning, weather permitting, we are supposed to climb Tam Dao 1, the first of the 3 Tam Dao Peaks. Weather does not permit. I say I’m going anyway. Viet shakes his head: “Slippery! Leeches! Three hours!”
Libor and I still want to go. I consult Lien. He wins my heart: “OK, we go.” I don’t think he really wants to. I think he goes because he thinks it would look bad for Earthwatch if we disappeared into the forest and got consumed by the leeches.
It’s not raining as we start out. That doesn’t last long. We go from t-shirts to ponchos and then hoods. I’m pretty happy. It looks like a typical November day in Oregon, only warmer. As we enter the forest, though, the rain gradually lets up. As promised it’s a wet sloppy slog to the top. It only takes 45 minutes from the forest edge, but the slope is about 45% all the way up, so it feels like a workout by the time we get up there. No view. Too much fog. It doesn’t matter, as the three of us toast the top and chat for awhile before heading back down. No leeches either. Moved too fast for those suckers.
This afternoon I do the TV tower in 14:48. New PR. Gotta find some steps at home.
Did I mention that our team leader, Lien, works hard? Tonight he takes me out around 10 pm for moth baiting. It’s kind of like chumming for sharks. He knows a house around the hill from the village that has a bright halogen light that they leave on late into the night for Lien (wait- is it the moths or Lien who is attracted to the light?). He’s looking for rare moth species. It’s kind of a social event for some of the boys from the village. There are a half-dozen teenagers hanging around. A couple of dogs. I give them a hard time for smoking. The kids, not the dogs. When the light goes on, the result is crazy. Moths by the thousands come to the light. They pour over the ridge up from the valley. They swarm around the light, land everywhere, whack me in the head. They keep coming. Some are 6 inches across. Many are beautiful. One kind looks like a jet fighter. Lien will stay up until one, two, sometimes sleep out there looking for his target species. I don’t last that long, I’m back at the hotel before midnight. I know how those moths feel though, because I get crazy like that when I see coffee shops.
We are done with transects. This morning, weather permitting, we are supposed to climb Tam Dao 1, the first of the 3 Tam Dao Peaks. Weather does not permit. I say I’m going anyway. Viet shakes his head: “Slippery! Leeches! Three hours!”
Libor and I still want to go. I consult Lien. He wins my heart: “OK, we go.” I don’t think he really wants to. I think he goes because he thinks it would look bad for Earthwatch if we disappeared into the forest and got consumed by the leeches.
It’s not raining as we start out. That doesn’t last long. We go from t-shirts to ponchos and then hoods. I’m pretty happy. It looks like a typical November day in Oregon, only warmer. As we enter the forest, though, the rain gradually lets up. As promised it’s a wet sloppy slog to the top. It only takes 45 minutes from the forest edge, but the slope is about 45% all the way up, so it feels like a workout by the time we get up there. No view. Too much fog. It doesn’t matter, as the three of us toast the top and chat for awhile before heading back down. No leeches either. Moved too fast for those suckers.
This afternoon I do the TV tower in 14:48. New PR. Gotta find some steps at home.
Did I mention that our team leader, Lien, works hard? Tonight he takes me out around 10 pm for moth baiting. It’s kind of like chumming for sharks. He knows a house around the hill from the village that has a bright halogen light that they leave on late into the night for Lien (wait- is it the moths or Lien who is attracted to the light?). He’s looking for rare moth species. It’s kind of a social event for some of the boys from the village. There are a half-dozen teenagers hanging around. A couple of dogs. I give them a hard time for smoking. The kids, not the dogs. When the light goes on, the result is crazy. Moths by the thousands come to the light. They pour over the ridge up from the valley. They swarm around the light, land everywhere, whack me in the head. They keep coming. Some are 6 inches across. Many are beautiful. One kind looks like a jet fighter. Lien will stay up until one, two, sometimes sleep out there looking for his target species. I don’t last that long, I’m back at the hotel before midnight. I know how those moths feel though, because I get crazy like that when I see coffee shops.
Vietnam Vignettes
October 11, 2007
1) There is a meeting at the hotel today for the Tam Dao Farmers Association. This is a big deal. Most of the village people are farmers, either part or full time. They have worked hard to develop a market for the local khai otay vegetable as a cash crop and it has made many of them financially successful. There are new houses going up around Tam Dao that I think are strikingly handsome. These homes are paid for in cash by the farmers.
The meeting brings people out in their nicest outfits. The men all wear suits and ties. The women, including the hotel staff, wear the traditional long silk dresses- I didn’t get the name. The dresses are beautiful. Vietnamese women age gracefully, and there are no overweight Vietnamese women in Tam Dao.
We share a common dining room with all hotel guests, so at the lunch the day of the meeting, we are introduced to the local community leaders with multiple toasts. It becomes evident that there will be more toasts than my carrying capacity for alcohol can handle, so the team members slip water into the shot glasses and toast with H20. Again I am impressed with the hospitality of the Vietnamese people
2) There are these small moments that will stay with me. The inviting porch of the MiMi Hotel, with it’s stunning view out over the village and valley, becomes a gathering place before dinner for conversation with team members and clumsy shared attempts with the staff to learn our languages. My tongue just doesn’t function in Vietnamese, but I enjoy trying.
A half hour just before bedtime spent with several of the staff, sharing oranges, a still unidentified fruit, and candy I bought in the village. Further attempts at names and language. Laughter.
Negotiations in the village for ca fe, peanuts, soda, and cookies. I learn to bring a pen and paper at all times. I’m pretty sure I lose most of these negotiations, but I don’t get too worked up about paying an extra 10 cents for cup of coffee.
Discussions with team members about cricket (the game), US vs. European vacation policies, drought in Australia, organic farming in America, and marriage traditions in Pakistan.
3) We visit the school. Their resources are pretty limited. Most students have to scramble to be able to afford paper and pencils. There are no computers, calculators, copiers, projectors….. About sixty children, grades K-9. Parents try to send high school age children to the cities, where the education is better and there are more options for classes and teachers. Classes at Tam Dao are maybe 6 or seven students in tiny rooms. English is always taught in schools, not just here in Vietnam, but in all the countries where my team members come from where English is not the primary language.
1) There is a meeting at the hotel today for the Tam Dao Farmers Association. This is a big deal. Most of the village people are farmers, either part or full time. They have worked hard to develop a market for the local khai otay vegetable as a cash crop and it has made many of them financially successful. There are new houses going up around Tam Dao that I think are strikingly handsome. These homes are paid for in cash by the farmers.
The meeting brings people out in their nicest outfits. The men all wear suits and ties. The women, including the hotel staff, wear the traditional long silk dresses- I didn’t get the name. The dresses are beautiful. Vietnamese women age gracefully, and there are no overweight Vietnamese women in Tam Dao.
We share a common dining room with all hotel guests, so at the lunch the day of the meeting, we are introduced to the local community leaders with multiple toasts. It becomes evident that there will be more toasts than my carrying capacity for alcohol can handle, so the team members slip water into the shot glasses and toast with H20. Again I am impressed with the hospitality of the Vietnamese people
2) There are these small moments that will stay with me. The inviting porch of the MiMi Hotel, with it’s stunning view out over the village and valley, becomes a gathering place before dinner for conversation with team members and clumsy shared attempts with the staff to learn our languages. My tongue just doesn’t function in Vietnamese, but I enjoy trying.
A half hour just before bedtime spent with several of the staff, sharing oranges, a still unidentified fruit, and candy I bought in the village. Further attempts at names and language. Laughter.
Negotiations in the village for ca fe, peanuts, soda, and cookies. I learn to bring a pen and paper at all times. I’m pretty sure I lose most of these negotiations, but I don’t get too worked up about paying an extra 10 cents for cup of coffee.
Discussions with team members about cricket (the game), US vs. European vacation policies, drought in Australia, organic farming in America, and marriage traditions in Pakistan.
3) We visit the school. Their resources are pretty limited. Most students have to scramble to be able to afford paper and pencils. There are no computers, calculators, copiers, projectors….. About sixty children, grades K-9. Parents try to send high school age children to the cities, where the education is better and there are more options for classes and teachers. Classes at Tam Dao are maybe 6 or seven students in tiny rooms. English is always taught in schools, not just here in Vietnam, but in all the countries where my team members come from where English is not the primary language.
Lien. Labor Force.
October 10, 2007
Over the last two days, we have hit the transects, grouping according to the transects we have not had the opportunity to walk, according to the weather, according to what Lien wants to accomplish. We are becoming better at recognizing and identifying the Latin families and classifications for the butterflies. I am more impressed as the week passes with Lien’s comittment to his work. He does all the computer data entry work. He gets up early to prepare materials, works with the hotel staff, and stays up late talking with group members. He is very accommodating, but knows what needs to be done, and in the characteristically polite Vietnamese way, says no, we
’re not doing that, we’re doing this instead. But we always end up feeling like his plan is the best idea anyway.
Over the last two days, we have hit the transects, grouping according to the transects we have not had the opportunity to walk, according to the weather, according to what Lien wants to accomplish. We are becoming better at recognizing and identifying the Latin families and classifications for the butterflies. I am more impressed as the week passes with Lien’s comittment to his work. He does all the computer data entry work. He gets up early to prepare materials, works with the hotel staff, and stays up late talking with group members. He is very accommodating, but knows what needs to be done, and in the characteristically polite Vietnamese way, says no, we
’re not doing that, we’re doing this instead. But we always end up feeling like his plan is the best idea anyway.Speed Limits
October 9, 2007
S….L…..O……W When you have downtime in Tam Dao, it’s about as far down as you can get. Today we finish our transects about 2, have a late lunch, and then….. hmm. In Oregon, when I have free time, that means heading out for a cup of coffee where there’s wi-fi, and I can read the paper, have a latte, check e-mail, maybe have a yogurt parfait. There’s an internet café, but when I try to get on I can’t get any of my email accounts, my blog, or CNN to load. Nothing, loads, and it costs me 10,000 dong to try. Dong doesn’t grow on trees, you know.
There’s no wi-fi. No newspapers, no books, no yogurt. I could have a shot of gecko liquor and a pig snout but I pass. I have no idea what is going on in the US. There is no one in any of the little cafes or shops except the owners. Where do the people go? I could go for a run…. But I did that this morning. I wander around the hotel, willing to do anything where it looks like I could help. Move chairs, pluck chickens, repair a door. No one seems to be doing anything. It’s the middle of the week, and it’s a tourist town, so the roadside stands that provide some interest and sell those tasty Vietnamese bananas are not set up. Yes, we have no bananas. It would take me a while to adjust to the pace of life in Tam Dao.
Some things just make me laugh. Our room came with complimentary toothbrushes. Very nice. But every day we get two more toothbrushes, even though we have our own toothbrushes. We have a hoard of toothbrushes. Today I notice we got a little packet of ‘Rejoice’ toothpaste. I will try it tonight.
Today I was appreciating the advice of the travel clinic I consulted for my immunizations. On their recommendation, I treated several items of clothing with permethrin and purchased Ultrathon long-lasting mosquito repellent with around 30% DEET. We were on a forest transect, with many mosquitos hanging around, but it was as if I had a force field or something around me. I could hear and see those little pests all around, but I bet if I understood mosquito, I would have heard them swearing at me. They didn’t land on my clothes, hat, face, or neck. No bites! No leeches, either. I got to keep all my own blood. A good day for the circulatory system.
S….L…..O……W When you have downtime in Tam Dao, it’s about as far down as you can get. Today we finish our transects about 2, have a late lunch, and then….. hmm. In Oregon, when I have free time, that means heading out for a cup of coffee where there’s wi-fi, and I can read the paper, have a latte, check e-mail, maybe have a yogurt parfait. There’s an internet café, but when I try to get on I can’t get any of my email accounts, my blog, or CNN to load. Nothing, loads, and it costs me 10,000 dong to try. Dong doesn’t grow on trees, you know.
There’s no wi-fi. No newspapers, no books, no yogurt. I could have a shot of gecko liquor and a pig snout but I pass. I have no idea what is going on in the US. There is no one in any of the little cafes or shops except the owners. Where do the people go? I could go for a run…. But I did that this morning. I wander around the hotel, willing to do anything where it looks like I could help. Move chairs, pluck chickens, repair a door. No one seems to be doing anything. It’s the middle of the week, and it’s a tourist town, so the roadside stands that provide some interest and sell those tasty Vietnamese bananas are not set up. Yes, we have no bananas. It would take me a while to adjust to the pace of life in Tam Dao.
Some things just make me laugh. Our room came with complimentary toothbrushes. Very nice. But every day we get two more toothbrushes, even though we have our own toothbrushes. We have a hoard of toothbrushes. Today I notice we got a little packet of ‘Rejoice’ toothpaste. I will try it tonight.
Today I was appreciating the advice of the travel clinic I consulted for my immunizations. On their recommendation, I treated several items of clothing with permethrin and purchased Ultrathon long-lasting mosquito repellent with around 30% DEET. We were on a forest transect, with many mosquitos hanging around, but it was as if I had a force field or something around me. I could hear and see those little pests all around, but I bet if I understood mosquito, I would have heard them swearing at me. They didn’t land on my clothes, hat, face, or neck. No bites! No leeches, either. I got to keep all my own blood. A good day for the circulatory system.
Shopping Tam Dao Style
October 8, 2007
Most people here live in poverty- they make less than $3000 per year. I can’t say I am shocked about this, after all, as a social studies teacher I talk about world poverty issues in my classes. But to see it up close is still disturbing. Today I buy a bottle of shampoo for 33,500 dong, a little over $2. If the shopkeeper made a $2 sale every day, he would make $60 a month. But most Vietnamese don’t- most make less than $1 a day. Many live in shacks of bamboo with tarps, some corrugated metal sheets, and simple wooden furniture with a few pots and pans.
There’s not really a grocery store in Tam Dao. I have wandered through the village several times, looking for some kind of snack, maybe a Snickers bar, or graham crackers…. Nothing like that to be found. I can get local bananas, which are excellent. Thankfully, I can get ‘ca fe noh’, which means brown coffee. This is like a shot of espresso with condensed sweetened milk. Vietnamese coffee is excellent, and since I am addicted to coffee, life is still worth living for me.
I also have the opportunity to buy the specially modified local liquors, which start out as normal alcohol but then some of the alcohol gets poured out and things like snakes, scorpions, geckos, seahorses, and evidently any other local wildlife that can be caught gets stuffed into the bottle. There must be 20 places in the village where I could buy this. Drinking this is supposed to be a test of manliness or courage. Being a secure person, I abstain from trying this killer stuff. It makes for a very impressive souvenir, though.
There are a number of other items in recycled water bottles which absolutely terrify me. Some of them are supposed to be a kind of vinegar. Others are unknowable. I look for nuts of some kind but cannot identify anything that looks edible. I am ignorant of the kinds of things available to eat here and since I don’t know Vietnamese, I can’t get an explanation from shopowners. There is very little packaging with English, as I sometimes saw in Hanoi. There is so much I don’t know about this world. I will find out more.
Today, I am weak. I am dying for something with pure, white, unrefined sugar. I wander into village and get a cup of ca fe. With milk. It’s really good. I get another one of those. I edit some pictures and work on my blog. Did I mention there is only dial-up internet in the village? I don’t think I can get much of this uploaded to my classes- I had hoped to have more back and forth but it takes half an hour just to log on. Anyway, I get brave and wander into another shop. I negotiate for juice and some cookies which are ancient and probably made with concentrated fully saturated fully hydrogenated oils. They taste really good. I try to communicate with the shopowner- we do fine with the money part- the universal language?- but I can’t even figure out her name.
I am spending dong right and left. I always think I bring enough and every time I buy anything, it’s 20,000 here and 40,000 there. It seems like a lot but then I do the conversion and I realize I have spent about as much as a 20 oz. latte’ costs in Oregon.
This morning I decided to do the TV tower again. I don’t usually like to run in the morning but I know the humidity here in the afternoon will kick my rear, so I make myself get up and go before breakfast. As I leave my room, my Earthwatch buddy Libor, from the Czech Republic is also leaving his room. We compare notes, and it turns out we have the same objective. This time we get to the top in 20 minutes. I drag my camera up there in hopes that the fog will have cleared, but no joy. Still, it’s a great workout and I think I will do it several more times before I leave (notice I am too chicken to commit to doing it every day).
Most people here live in poverty- they make less than $3000 per year. I can’t say I am shocked about this, after all, as a social studies teacher I talk about world poverty issues in my classes. But to see it up close is still disturbing. Today I buy a bottle of shampoo for 33,500 dong, a little over $2. If the shopkeeper made a $2 sale every day, he would make $60 a month. But most Vietnamese don’t- most make less than $1 a day. Many live in shacks of bamboo with tarps, some corrugated metal sheets, and simple wooden furniture with a few pots and pans.
There’s not really a grocery store in Tam Dao. I have wandered through the village several times, looking for some kind of snack, maybe a Snickers bar, or graham crackers…. Nothing like that to be found. I can get local bananas, which are excellent. Thankfully, I can get ‘ca fe noh’, which means brown coffee. This is like a shot of espresso with condensed sweetened milk. Vietnamese coffee is excellent, and since I am addicted to coffee, life is still worth living for me.
I also have the opportunity to buy the specially modified local liquors, which start out as normal alcohol but then some of the alcohol gets poured out and things like snakes, scorpions, geckos, seahorses, and evidently any other local wildlife that can be caught gets stuffed into the bottle. There must be 20 places in the village where I could buy this. Drinking this is supposed to be a test of manliness or courage. Being a secure person, I abstain from trying this killer stuff. It makes for a very impressive souvenir, though.
There are a number of other items in recycled water bottles which absolutely terrify me. Some of them are supposed to be a kind of vinegar. Others are unknowable. I look for nuts of some kind but cannot identify anything that looks edible. I am ignorant of the kinds of things available to eat here and since I don’t know Vietnamese, I can’t get an explanation from shopowners. There is very little packaging with English, as I sometimes saw in Hanoi. There is so much I don’t know about this world. I will find out more.
Today, I am weak. I am dying for something with pure, white, unrefined sugar. I wander into village and get a cup of ca fe. With milk. It’s really good. I get another one of those. I edit some pictures and work on my blog. Did I mention there is only dial-up internet in the village? I don’t think I can get much of this uploaded to my classes- I had hoped to have more back and forth but it takes half an hour just to log on. Anyway, I get brave and wander into another shop. I negotiate for juice and some cookies which are ancient and probably made with concentrated fully saturated fully hydrogenated oils. They taste really good. I try to communicate with the shopowner- we do fine with the money part- the universal language?- but I can’t even figure out her name.
I am spending dong right and left. I always think I bring enough and every time I buy anything, it’s 20,000 here and 40,000 there. It seems like a lot but then I do the conversion and I realize I have spent about as much as a 20 oz. latte’ costs in Oregon.
This morning I decided to do the TV tower again. I don’t usually like to run in the morning but I know the humidity here in the afternoon will kick my rear, so I make myself get up and go before breakfast. As I leave my room, my Earthwatch buddy Libor, from the Czech Republic is also leaving his room. We compare notes, and it turns out we have the same objective. This time we get to the top in 20 minutes. I drag my camera up there in hopes that the fog will have cleared, but no joy. Still, it’s a great workout and I think I will do it several more times before I leave (notice I am too chicken to commit to doing it every day).
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