Laos

Rice Krispies for the Holy

It's 5:30 in the morning, and Lisa is miraculously wide awake. She tells me it's time to get up or we'll miss everything. Fighting the dreamlike coma, I splash water on my face, put on some clothes and am out the door. The front door of the guesthouse is locked as they don't open until 8 AM. After contemplating hopping the fence into the monastary, we take the civilized approach and knock on the door. We wake up the staff apologizing profusely, as they let us out on to the street.

Moments later we are approached by overzealous older Laotian ladies. They take their turns pleading their requests to buy from them. All I see are bamboo containers filled with sticky rice and banana leaf sandwiches. Lisa and I take a plateful of the sandwiches and bowlfuls of sticky rice for a small donation.

We are in the midst of the Lai Heua Fai festival, the full moon festival in October. Every year, monks throughout the country of Laos come out of their three month retreat inside their monastaries to receive alms from the community. The people in the bigger Laotian cities of build large boats out of bamboo, banana leafs, paper and the like, then parade them through the cities before sending them out on the Mekong River later that evening.

We happen to be in the city of Louang Prabang. Flanked by temples, stupas and houses influenced by the French, Louang Prabang is Laos' main UNESCO heritage site. Here, you can enjoy everything from the Khao Xoy (Laotian noodle soup with minced pork) to French Coffee to an American breakfast that would rival restaurants back home. In our week's stay here, Louang Prabang has been a long, needed stop to our otherwise three days at a time lifestyle.

But this morning the menu is serving only the rice and banana leaf sandwiches. It is still early yet. Lisa and I are escorted by our Laotian vendors to the main street in town. They lay out the mats as we kneel down in preparation what is to come. My kneecaps feel sharp pain as they lay against the concrete. I buckle and fold my legs outward, as to not offend Mr. Buddha.

And then there is a sea of yellow cloth and balding brown heads coming our way. We are instructed to hand this sticky, crispy rice to as many monks as possible. We can throw a banana sandwich here and there for some extra decoration. Once we get down to the low level food reserves, the elder vendors are enthusiastic about giving you more...that is for a small fee of course. After thirty minutes of this process, we tell our elder friends that it's time for us to move on. We thank them for helping us glimpse into a bit of Laotian life. The whole process reminds me of Halloween's distant cousin, save for the Baby Ruths, Dracula Masks and house eggings.

Rice and Sandwich Surprise For the Monks

In Lao, monks are as common as the postman. While they have a holy quality about them, they also participate in real everyday life. They check email at the internet cafes, they light off firecrackers in the main square, and they may even play some patonk - the national lawn bowling game given by the french. But just about every Lao man comes into the monkhood for a short period of their life. Usually lasting two to three years, the monkhood serves as a rite of passage. They stop drinking alchohol, abstain from sexual relations and take a vow to go #1 sitting down as to not risk dirtying the robes. But entering the monkhood also insures a full education, as topics such as foreign languages, literature and Marxist-Leninist teachings are all apart of the curriculum.

The Festival of Lights

Later that evening, we are standing along the main street once again, roughly ten blocks away from where we stood that same morning. This time, it seems as if the whole city of Louang Prabang has entered the street.



We both have bought offerings of our own: A palm leaf base wrapped in banana leaves and topped by orange flowers, candles and incense. We would light them hours later and send them into the mekong river, keeping our wishes to ourselves and hoping they materialize. But for now, we watch the different boat floats in the ongoing parade. There are bamboo boats created in a gridlike fashion. There's boats with yellow streamers, boats with snakes, boats with dragons. All of which will be sent down the Mekong River for good luck. We see children from the Hmong village tribe and their boats. One of the children is getting clambored by an overeager tourist who seems to be taking ten pictures every three seconds. We walk a little further. We see more children holding a smaller boat like it was a miniature model toyship juxtaposed with it's bigger real life brothers. The drums start up again getting louder. Firecrackers go off in every direction as my eardrums feel like they begin to pop. We get out of the way and run into one of our Australian friends we have met in Vietnam. We all walk together with the swarming crowds, we put in our offerings and say goodbye to the evening, to the festival and hope for quiter surroundings.


Boat Races

The day before Lisa and I had hired a tuk tuk out of town to catch a glimpse at the local boat races apart of this festival.

The Full Moon festival also marks the end of the monsoon season. During the monsoon season, it was believed that the god-snake of naga escaped out of the Mekong Rivers throughout the city. The boat races are performed in order to convince the naga to come back into the water before he becomes too dangerous. Years ago, the naga was believed to take lives of many a foreign fishermen along the Vietntiane coastline. Today, the boat races live on (even though there has been no evidence of recent naga fatalities). The boats are painted with green snakes, with stripes of the team's chosen primary color.

The event spills out into the street as we see vendors hawking for you to buy peanunts, spring rolls or bed linens. We walk down to the Mekong river shore to watch the boat races, though the main events seem to be happening right around us. A middle aged woman in a tan hat and denim skirt leads a group of nine into an intoxicated folk dance resulting in offbeat footwork. Local kids are standing on tractor tires in the river cheering their boat team on. Musicians are scattered about with their red hand drums and bells trying to keep their four beats per measure but failing drastically. The boats pass by. A faint whistle by the boat captain instructs the team of twenty to a boat to paddle in unison. The cheers become louder. While we cannot see a finish line, we know that a given race finishes by the increase in volume of the cheers. I'm not sure who is cheering for whom, but it does not matter. We walk around the shorelines, look more at the strange folk dance group with the tan hatted leader. A Laotian mother comes up to me with her son and says "Saibadee, hello". Given the body language, the full translation should read "Hello white man, are you lost?" It doesn't matter. The locals are quite friendly enough with smiles as wide as the Mekong river itself. We gather our belongings and head back through the pile of tuk tuk and car traffic to find our driver. We get taken back to the tourist enclaves of Louang Prabang. We've had our fill of boats for the day.



Slow Boats and Trashy Buddhas

Every once in a while when you travel in third world or emerging countries, you wind up doing something that you shouldn't have done and get swindled for it. It happened today on our trip to the Pak Ou Caves.

The Pak Ou caves represent the biggest trashpile of Buddha statues in Northern Laos. Buddhas statues with broken eyes, decapitated heads, cigarette stains, and amputeed buddhas get sent here where they exist on display in their endless purgatory. The locals come to the cave on New Years for the "dipping of the buddhas" ceremony for good luck. Unfortunately the new year in the Buddhist calendar is months away as these buddhas were dry as a bone.

Pak Ou literally translates to "the mouth of the Ou" river, and it becomes fitting as we fall for the bait, hook line and sinker. The trip to the Pak Ou Caves takes you out on a slow boat that picks you up from the local Pier. After paying twice as much for half of the boat quality and quadruple the attitude, we sway back and forth up the muddy Mekong river before meeting up with the Nam Ou river where the caves reside. Our driver makes sure to stop for gas as the smells of petroleum permeates in the boat.

Arriving at the caves reminds me of what Chevy Chase must have felt like when Wallyworld was closed towards the end of the National Lampoon's vacation movie. All of this buildup for not much payoff. We walk up a series of steps, pay our $1 to our capitalist locals for the bathroom charge and meander towards the Lower Cave. We pay our respects to the low lying buddhas, walk to the upper cave, take out our flashlights and see some Buddha fragments. A twenty minute tour from a three hour boat trip. As we head back to Luang Prabang, the dozen of us tourists are shaking our heads wondered if it was all a bad dream, but then we look into our wallets and realize that we are $6.50 lighter.


The bottom drawer

There's much more to tell about this great country of Laos. The people by far have been the highest spirited and the most genuine. Save for a few boat rides and bowls of sticky rice, these locals really come up to you because they are friendly. A nice relief from Vietnam where the smiles are determined by the size of your wallet.

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1. We stop in a town called Vang Vieng in our travels. More of a pit stop between Vientiane (the Laotian capital) and Louang Prbang, the biggest thing this lovely town has to offer is tubing. For those not familiar, imagine taking an inner tube out of your automobile and floating down the river with it. That's it. Floating away. The day way quite peaceful, save for the Daytona Beach Spring Break like atmosphere that dates me by almost two decades.

2. In Vientiane, we stop by an herbal sauna that resides in a monastary. The sauna and massage package is a whopping two dollars, so we take a look inside. The lady who runs it speaks great english, and the wooden sauna is hot enough to shrivel you into a prune within minutes. The sauna is fueled by a big campfire 3 feet away from the flooring.

The Herbal Sauna Heating Source in Vientiane

3. In Luang Prabang, we travel to the Khaung Si waterfall. Known as the big waterfall, it contains three different pools. I swim in the little pool for a bit before taking a rest nearby the local village. While resting we meet an older Laotian man selling Pork and egg buns for 30 cents. His sign: "Best Fimily Ricipe". Terrible spelling but he was a man true to his word.

Khaung Si Waterfall

4. We see a Royal Ballet in Luang Prabang. A story about a Mean King Thotsakan of the Giants who likes a girl named Sida. Sida has two boy friends who protect her all the time. The king schemes and has his general dress up as a deer to lure the two boy friends away. Sida is left all alone, as the King uses trickery to kidnap sida. The local bird sees this going on, tries to stop it but gets tricked himself by the King. The ballet is not your usual Nutcracker, but proves to be quite entertaining. The green and blue painted masks with brightly golden crowns, the guitar and woodwind instruments match the dances by all of the characters. I later try to emulate the Giant Dance to Lisa as the local Lao attendant sees me and has a good laugh.

Pictures

So that's it for now. Tomorrow we leave Laos and go to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Working backwards I have caught up and have published the Vietnam Photos. You can look at them one of two ways:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50539386@N00/sets/72157602752584866/
OR
click on Travelling Sherman's Pictures ---> Vietnam

Enjoy, and talk to you soon.
Keep travelling, wherever you are.

Travelling Sherman

Northern Vietnam

A piece of Junk

October 18,

I'm sitting back on the wicker sofa writing on top of a glass table. It's been three days on the water, two ships, one kayak and an Island reminiscent of Las Vegas. The wicker sofa and glass table sit atop a wooden boat with deck chairs and an observation deck. The wood seems like a darkened brown hardwood with ornaments of the Snake-Like God of Naga along the edges. The boat looks sturdy enough, although I can't be sure when the last maintenance session happened. The Australians and New Mexicans are either reading, plugging into their iPods or doing some travel writing of their own. I look outside the boat and see rock outcroppings reminiscent of back home.

I'm currently joined by Lisa and ten others in Halong Bay, a waterway off the east coast of Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. The bay is famous for its enormous and pristine rock outcroppings, caves and island archipelagos that stretch for miles. The local myth is that the rocks were created by a dragons whom the Vietnamese summoned from heaven to fight off the invading Chinese. The locals even say the dragon still exists. Modern science would most likely disagree and state that these were merely caused by tectonic plates on the fault line. The first story sounds a bit more romantic.

We are currently on the support boat that takes us to our Junk Boat which will take us back to the mainland and back to Hanoi. The phrase Junk Boat for some reason disturbs me, but my best guess as to its name comes from the fact that there are hundreds of these boats in the bay at one time looking distinctly similar: Old wooden boats that run fairly well but seem junky, not to forget the junk toxic fumes and sewage that spill into the water daily. It is a member of the UNESCO group (UN educational and scientific, cultural organization) due to its beauty and history. But like many other places in Vietnam, econmic growth brings unregulated pollution. And recently the UN gave the mandate to Vietnam to curb its pollution by a given percentage (of which I do not know) otherwise it will pull its UNESCO label within five years. Still, all of this doesn't prevent the majority of us from swimming alongside the boat from time to time. As one of the Australians proclaims, the salt kills everything.

If I were to rewind the film by three days to the start of the Halong Bay trip, we start at the port of Halong city after a three hour minibus ride from where we were staying in Hanoi, the country's capital. We are led by Kiel, a fearless 23-year old with slightly styled black hair and huge smile. While he tries his best to speak to us in English, the lack of verb tense and grammatical structure makes every statement a difficult one to understand. While this doesn't bother me the majority of the time, it will become somewhat more stressful as he gives us instructions while kayaking through the narrow caves. But that's not until tomorrow, for today we sit back and enjoy the "Amazing Caves".

Which to give the Vietnamese credit, are amazing. By now many of you may know about caves. They are formed by some sort of waterway, whether by river, sea or ocean. They are usually made of limestone, and have a high salt content. The water erodes the rock and cuts the rock after millions and millions of years. The rock dries up in various eclectic forms including stalactites (cylindrical shapes forming "tight" from the ceiling), stalagmites (cylindrical shapes forming from the floor, that "might be a stalagmite), and columns (stalactites and stalagmites coming together). Throw in some finger rocks and you have explained 60% of what there is to see in any given cave in the world.

But still these caves prove amazing as they were formed in the sea, and it's most likely that these caves will collapse entirely after another 30 million years. But at the moment, I'm just happy that the weather is holding out for some clear, cool sunny days.

The highlight of the amazing cave is yet another big linga rock - the male genital description. At least that's what Lisa and I guess it to be. Kiel, the guide, disagrees and says it could possibly be the finger of Buddha. Either case, it's male testosterone protruding through.

By late afternoon, we're back on our junk ship which will be our accommodation of the evening. We're joined by a French girl couple, Flor and Michelle; Three Australians, Adam, Simon and Tim ; Two New Mexicans (not Mexican babies but from the state of New Mexico) of Matt and Jordan; Two Swiss, Katrine and another blond haired woman whose name I forget; and of course the neutral Canadian Adrian. We all get along from the most part, all between the ages of 25 and 45, all travelling through Vietnam, half of us teachers or former teachers, and all of us looking for something a little bit different.

Two of our friends from the boat, Fleur and Michelle

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It feels like I've been paddling for ten hours straight, but truth be told it's only been an hour and a half. Lisa's doing the steering in the back, and since my shoulder muscles have fallen out of shape all I can do is paddle in infrequent bursts. Usually, Lisa will try and spur me on by counting to ten. I will then drop off from exhaustion and give out a big sigh. Our guide Kiel keeps us paddling as we stick together, taking breaks to rest my arms and to view blue lagoons.

The lagoon is an inlet, making a semicircle with roughly a half mile radius. The peaks of the rocks in all directions remind me of the California coast. My neck gets sore from looking upward. Kiel tells us to have a look around, and like primary school children we have no choice but to go along Muscle exhaustion is kicking in. But then I block everything out and realize that I'll likely never have the chance to be here again, and things fall into perspective. My mind wonders, my pains forgotten. We row out of the lagoon as we dock at the nearby beach.

Kayaking would be quite fun without the hard work, I imagine. You get to see local fishing villages, swim off beachfronts less traveled, and see caves off the main tourist corridor. One such cave we attempt to see is buried in the Halong bay archipelago, and for lack of information I will call it the unnamed cave. Kiel checks the tide and has us paddling in one kayak at a time. The afternoon lights dim to a skylight which dim even more into a heavy dusk. Kiel is leading with a head lamp that is one flicker away of losing all illuminosity. He asks for interested parties that would want to walk through the cave. Lisa, myself and more than half of the group decline, as we huddle along a damp shoreline in almost darkness.

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It's not a good time when one of the people come back from the cave tour and says, "Man, I think I just stepped on a bunch of live coral." New Mexico Matt came back with cuts gashes all over his ankle. The others come back fairly unscathed, but all agree that it probably was not worth the twenty minute stroll in the dark.

Our Friends, Tim (foreground) and Simon (behind) trying to paddle in the dark cave

So one by one again we kayak out of the cave, Lisa egging me on to paddle as quickly as possible out of the darkness. The loveable french couple of Flor and Michelle are hopelessly spinning their kayak around in circles, accidentally ramming into us in every which way possible. With a helpful shove, we get them in the right direction.

Saying goodbye to the cave, we make our final paddle of the day along a final fishing village. An overly agressive dog tries to paddle his way out to greet us, but we are safely out of his reach. Minutes later we see our support boat. We fumble back on to this boat one by one, climbing up the rickety ladder on to stabler ground. Five minutes later, as if we hadn't enough water for the day, I jump off the top of the ship with the Australians into the water. I mind the pollution and try to relax my aching arms.

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Back on board the boat, tonight we set a course for Cat Ba island. One of the bigger islands in the Halong Bay archipelago, it is mostly overshadowed by the craggy limestone hills above. We exit the boat on the less populated side of Cat Ba island, cram into a minivan, climb over the hills and see a town on the other side reminiscent of Las Vegas. The beachline is riddled tonight with fantastically gaudy umbrella lights that flicker red, yellow and green. Trees and spacy beachfront has been replaced by discos, western restaurants and hotels. We stay at one of these hotels, living the artificial life of air conditioning, cable T.V. and an all you can eat breakfast buffet. Tour guide Kiel meets us this evening and takes us to a club he thinks we would like, the only problem being the music tens of decibels too loud and disturbingly annoying.

After deciding on a local bar serving cheap bottles of Hanoi beer, sleep becomes imminent. We walk back to the artificial hotel life for a night, wake up the next morning and back on the support boat. The support boat brings us to our Junk boat, trading places with incomming people awaiting their day of Kayaking. Like a well oiled assembly line, we are led back on to the boat, anchors away and back to the Halong City Harbor. Stepping on to the platform, we are led back on to the minivan back to Hanoi via a toilet stop which passes through another disabled handicraft factory.

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Back in Hanoi, we are quickly plunged into city life, as the Frogger video game comes to life once again when crossing the street. Motorcycles and scooters abound, an ancient Vietnamese scooter rider lady with curling irons and nightgown comes within inches of contact. Hawkers are asking us once again for motorbike rides, Vietnamese T-shirts and bottled water. Being professionals at dealing with this behavior, Lisa and I walk back to our Hotel in Hanoi, thinking of these hawkers like flies you metaphorically swap away every few minutes. But then I remember in my mind to be nice, as these people live on the high salary of $50 a month.

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Whites only

In our travels throughout this country, Lisa is constantly asked where she resides. "You, you look Vietnamese." We actually time on the stopwatch how long it takes a stranger to ask us this question. The average time being 45 seconds. Thinking about this more, I can see why the locals ask the question. She is petite, with Asian features and Asian hair with "white"-ish Asian skin, surely she must be Vietnamese.

And then I begin to look at the Vietnamese women on their scooters. Their faces are covered with masks, their foreheads covered with scarves, their arms covered with long gloves reaching the shoulder. It's almost as if they are piece-mealing a burqa together. I am puzzled, as surely this cannot be comofrtable, the temperature reaching almost 90 degrees. Like many Asian countries, it's in to be a white girl, a symbol of affluence and status. Vietnamese women take great measures to insure white skin, whether it is covering every body part or using a white lotion on their face made from mercury. So what if it kills fish, as long as it makes them look good.



Water puppets



Speaking of white people, we get a chance to go to a water puppet show in town, the audience mainly being white tourists. The women in the music section have dangerously white skin and rosy cheeks, waiting in turn to sing their parts while the water puppets of dragons and phoenixes take their turn. The puppetry, itself, goes back over 800 years starting in the Red River Delta in Northern Vietnam. The puppets are made of wood and laquered with vegetable-based paint. They are then attached on long hooks with moveable parts for their head, legs and ankles. The show we watch in town focuses on the magical creatures of Vietnam: the dragon, the phoenix, the turtle and the lion. I have to admit that some of the facts above were researched out and do not come for first hand experience.

But for more info on water puppetry, check out the following site:
http://www.thingsasian.com/stories-photos/1239



The Vietnam Withdrawal

Like our American forefathers did more than thirty years ago, it's time to pull out of Vietnam. Our next stop is Laos (where we currently are at the present, and need to catch up in my writing), home of cheap barbecue stands and herbal saunas. More on that next time.

Keep a look out for more pictures. Hopefully the vietnam pictures will be up in a few days. I'll put up a message as they are up. They'll be on the same site as the Cambodia ones.

But for now, keep travelling, wherever you are.

Travelling Sherman

The Vietnam Coast

A correction on communism

If you read the previous entry on Ho Chi Minh city, I was beginning to talk about Vietnam society, and how it is a communist government, yet it's hard to see it sometimes with the constant capitalist market howlers, motorcycle taxis and sunglass dealers. Over the last week, I've been privy to some stories that have changed my thinking on this matter. I refrain from making any overt opinions because in Vietnam, big brother may be reading this, even though the person may be only 5 foot 2.

Brief Story #1: Nguyen Ngu Center, Quy Nhon, Vietnam

The first story takes place in Quy Nhon, roughly a nine hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh city. In 1990, there lived a local named Nguyen Ngu, who fell on some unfortunate luck when she found out her sister was in a street accident. Nguyen became the principal caretaker while finishing high school. Over the next few years, Nguyen gains empathy for other handicapped locals, and begins a vocational handicraft program teaching anything from sewing, painting, and the like. Ten years later, the program becomes a full blown school. She gets so much success that the government takes the program over as she is moved to a smaller shop two miles down the road. Lisa and I go and see the shop as we see figure drawings from dozens of students and it's inspiring, so we grab some souveneirs for the homefront. My favorite being the cow with theupside down head.


I speak to one of the locals who is mentally disabled. He writes down on his hand "From:" as he nods over to Lisa. I say, USA. He presses his nose down like her nose is too small for the USA. I say Taiwan. He shakes his head in confusion. I say China. He smiles. I'm not sure what for.


Brief Story #2: Barbara from New Zealand, now from Quy Nhon


This is a simple story of Barbara of Barbara's Backpackers guesthouse in Quy Nhon. She is a wealth of information for a city that is no more than a rest stop on to better tourist attractions. Still, she manages to get us a train ticket, make us a fruit lassi and tell us the sights of the beach, including one of a statue who is giving the middle finger to the Chinese. The statue representing the Vietnamese response to the third Chinese attempt at invasion in the twelth century. At any rate, I've been told that Barbara once had a much bigger hotel somewhere else. It did really well, then the government took it over. Now she gives local information to Sweaty tourists at rock bottom prices.

The moral of the story is that if you want to start a business in Vietnam, do well enough to stay in business, but slack off long enough to lose quite a bit of money so you don't seem that successful. That way you stay in business.

Beach life

A Stray Dog at the White Sand Dune, Mui Ne Beach

You may be wondering why we would fly six thousand miles away to go to the beach, when Hawaii, Baja Mexico, and even Thailand would be closer. I had the same thought as well, but we decided to try the beach anyways. Three towns and roughly six days later, I still wonder why we flew six thousand miles away just to go to the beach. But as I scratch my head, as some highlights start to enter my memory:

The Red Canyon, Mui Ne Beach

I think about Mui Ne beach, a resort town roughly four hours north of Ho Chi Minh city. And all of a sudden I remember walking on clay looking at spirals that look like stalagmites in a cave. And I remember deep earth red. Part of a two hour tour, the red canyon of Mui Ne is one of the bigger highlights of the trip, as a river some time ago has carved endless paths and craters. We scramble up to the top and look over the Atlantic, only to realize that we may miss our ride back to the guesthouse. We scamper double time to the road just to be sure.

Local Kids Selling Sled rides, Red Sand Dune, Mui Ne Beach

On the same tour, I remember going to two sand dunes. One white, one red. I feel like I'm on the planet tatooine in Star Wars. Except instead of the little Tattoinites shooting arrows at you, little kids come up to you and offer sled rides for a dollar. We attract three of them on the red sand dune at sunset. They teach me the numbers one to five in Vietnamese and laugh at my pronounciation.

I remember eating barbecue mussels with fish sauce in a restaurant in Mui Ne for the grand price of five dollars. I remember going back there three times in two days.

I remember taking a bus ride up to Nha Trang as the wife and I are pleasantly harrassed by a Vietnamese hotelvendor to stay at their accomodation. I remember being very tired and just wanting to get to the guesthouse. We finally got to that guesthouse, and remember eating mediocre pizza at a french ex-pat cafe one block away. It turns out to be the best meal in this over-priced, undernourished beach town.

Cham Towers at Nha Trang

But I do recall a good trip in Nha Trang to what are the Cham Towers. The Chams are an indigenous population to Vietnam, and have lived since roughly the fourth century. Heavily influenced by Hinduism, they build shrines to Vishnu and Shiva in their Brick Towers at the Loh Tom Pagoda. The Chams also enjoyed Buddha, so much that they erected a fifty foot Reclining Buddha. It's more like the sleeping Buddha, or the lackidasical Buddha. I digress. The stone workmanship is excellent, especially around the head reath. The tower also features an even bigger buddha at the very top surrounded by six monks, I'm not sure why six. He sits on top of a lotus flower, which represents spiritual enlightenment for the Hindus.

I was going to write one more memory about a bad experience I witnessed, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. Essentially it deals with a troubled veteran of the Iraq war on leave, most likely due to emotional stress. While not knowing his whole story, I befriend him while swimming in the ocean. I return to my chair to start reading my book when I hear shouting. The Iraq veteran becomes abusive with his argument, saying many names and hateful speech which I dare not recite. At first the locals laugh, and then they chide him away. The veteran gets on his motorcycle calling death threats to the entire shop. I turn to Lisa as we create our story of our fictitious Canadian Life for the record.

A train ride to fashion - somewhere around the 8th of October

It's 9 AM, and the waiting room is filling up. We've been sitting on the plastic cafeteria chairs of green and orange for about thirty minutes. The locals are arriving, old, young, male, female. The surgical masks serve as an anti-pollutant as well as a fashion accessory. The official at the entrance calls us on to the platform. We see the rusty green train pull up on to the tracks The wheels hum as they grind on the rails.

We board the train, find our seat and settle in for the five hour train ride to Danang. Air conditioning, a cheap lunch, television screens, toilets, all of the signs are existence are found. The passage doors between the trains are kept open, which allow for moderately loud clicking noises throughout the trip. I find out later that people throw their trash on the center aisle, a worker then comes to sweep this trash, pushes it through the passage door and on to the outside ground. The outside world serves as a big trash can. Efficent yet a bit unsanitary.

A few hours pass. Lisa is reading, and I am staring out of the window. The palm trees scream by the countryside. Thatched rooves of would be houses flash by in seconds. A toddler is sleeping in the back seat with a tank top and Army shorts. He wakes up, peaks his head over the seat to check in on his parents as well as the two six year old twin girls.

Hoi An - The silk road rest stop

The city of Hoi An sits roughly at 16 degrees latitidue to the north, roughly halfway between Saigon and Hanoi. It serves as a perfect rest stop on our trip northbound. The same could be said here roughly five-hundred years ago, as the Chinese and Japanese locals called this place home in the off-season. They would meet with the Europeans in Hoi An and trade everything from fabrics to elephant tusks. As part of our stay here, we hope to trade some of our Vietnamese money for some tailored fabrics, hold the tusks.

We had been given advice by the hotel receptionist to use a local family member for any clothing requirements. Toto tailors, two doors down. We go inside the shop to have a quick look. Lisa pulls out her Bloomingdales catalog to see if they can replicate the design. Two coats and two dresses, and three trips later, the short answer is yes. The tailors were fantastic, precise, and patient. Especially as Lisa tends to pick the fabrics at the bottom of the pile.

(Lisa with the Toto Tailors Owner)

It was only a matter of time before I got into the spirt of things. I had earmarked one of the Bloomingdales pages myself with Lisa's Fashion advice. Tweed wool coat, brownish-gold. I gave it a try. The next day I come back and the coat fits perfectly. I give high compliments to Anh, the head tailor. She laughs as I try to speak broken Vietnamese. Both her and Lisa sway me into getting the trousers. Again, more measurements. I sadly find out that I have bloomed to a size 34 due to the extra fried spring roles and marinated pork.

Food

When I look back on this trip years from now, the best part of Vietnam would have to be the food. Sweaty markets serve up everything from squid and vegetables, fresh spring rolls and fish sauce, coconut barbecue fish, and fried fish cakes. And that's just for breakfast. They even make spinach taste good, as it seems leafier, greener, and tastier. They even have a better nickname, calling it Morning Glory. I somehow manage to enjoy the spinach all day long.

We decide to investigate things a bit further by signing up for a cooking class at the Red bridge cafe. We start with a trip to the markets, as the guide identifies all of the different fruits and vegetables. She seems knowledgable enough, pointing out dragon fruit (spotted white fruit) as well as the different types of basil and lemongrass. She crosses the line as she points out the Chinese mushroom as being ugly like the Chinese. Lisa rightfully speaks out against the comment, but the guide resopnds to the momentary stressful situation with annoying giggles. I learn throughout that it becomes normal for many Southeast Asians to respond to confrontation with laughter. Still, it feels humiliating. We shrug it off later as an event due to undereducation.

The rest of the class is quite fun. We take a trip down the Ban river to the cooking school where Ngoc, the head chef takes over. He demonstrates Marinated squid with pineapple, Roasted eggplant in claypot, homemade rice paper spring rolls and Fried pancakes with vegetables and other stuff i cannot remember. We get to try the later three afterwards. The group is for the most part succesful. After two tries of making holes in the rice paper, my spring roll looks more like an overstuffed burrito than anything else. I never really minded the details of presentation.

Left: Lisa making a Vietnamese dish; Right: My unfortunate Spring Roll Result

And then there is Vietnamese Coffee, which some proclaim is even better than American or European coffee. The beans are roasted longer, then grounded and placed in a steel canister with preferated holes on the bottom. Boiling water then gets poured through the canister and into a glass and served immediately. It takes on a slightly sweeter flavor, and can be varied to be chilled with ice or mixed with milk. For me, I'm a black man who likes it hot in the morning. Please don't take the previous sentence out of context.

The other Stuff

Between eating and trying on clothes, we manage to take in some of the sights. The tourist bureau sells tickets in town which allows you to see one of the old houses, one of the old temples and assembly halls. The highlight of the visit is a trip to the Tan Ky house. Built over two-hundred years ago, it has hints of Chinese and Japanese architechture. The Chinese comes in as we see the five pilars with Chinese writing and 100-plus birds. They signify the elements of earth, metal, wind, fire and water. The three tiered horizontal support beams by the ceiling form a triangle, as each beam becomes shorter as you look up. The beams represent the three fabled places of heaven, hell and purgatory.

We take a look at the bowl of the legendary Confucious. We look closer and see a 3 mm hole in the bottom. The story goes is that you pour boiled water inside and make soup. And as you eat the soup, roughly 20% of the soup drips through the hole and is gone forever. While that sounds like a bad meal, the story teaches moderation. It's better to have 80% of the soup, then to try and eat all of the soup and end up with nothing. I get the concept, but I'll try to find the bowl without the hole in it.

We take a random trip to a place called My Son. Its served as the headquarters of the ancient Cham civilizations of Vietnam, starting way back in the 5th century. The highlight of the trip is a statue of the Linga and Yani, the male and female genital counterparts. Supposedly the Chams poured water over the linga and gets drained out through the Yani for good luck. People still do it today to pray for good luck on their exams, or gaining strength or getting pregnant. Good luck to them, but I think I'll pass on pouring water down someone's genitals.

Unfortunately the majority of My Son had been bombed during the Vietnam-American war. Bomb craters have replaced the temples in many situations. The more I look around, I can't help but realize that the complex is like Cambodia's Angkor Wat but not as nice. Still, it's nice to get outside and have a walk around in the countryside.

Onward to the North

Tomorrow we go to Hanoi by plane, flying out of neighboring Danang. Our last stop on the tour of vietnam, the country shaped like the letter "S". With any luck of an internet connection, I hope to tell you about this sooner than later. And with any more luck, I'll post some more pictures. Internet demand in Vietnam is high as local Vietnamese kids are playing a strange "Dance, Dance Revolution" game over the network. How can I compete with that?

Until then, keep travelling wherever you are.

-Travelling Sherman

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Somewhere around the first of October....

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A bus ride into Communism
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We've stopped at the border now for almost an hour. The passports are stamped one time for exiting Cambodia, and now we're on line to get into Vietnam. Unfortunately, there's no express checkout. The local yells out my name, "EY-RAKE SHIRMAYN", yep that's me. Both Lisa and I pick up our passports from the window. We get our "Welcome to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" stamps, and hop back on the bus.

As many may know, Vietnam is a communist country, reunified by Ho Chi Minh in the mid-1970's. Ho has legendary heroic status, as he fended off the American Invasion and help bring peace to the country after 100-plus years of random millitary conflicts. But when you look closer at Vietnam, you see plenty of restaurants, plenty of hotels, and plenty of motor scooters from Japan. Education and medicine are taken care of by the government through hefty taxes, but after that the communism gets a bit harder to find.

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Some Good Advice
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We meet a local Australian gentleman on the bus ride into the capital of Ho Chi Minh city. He works in the tourist industry, and gives us some good advice about setting the pace when crossing the street. "Don't worry", he says, "You set the pace, and the motor scooters decide if they wish to go in front or behind you."

We check into a local hotel as we arrive in town feeling grateful of the advice. The first seven times we cross the street reminds me of the video game of "frogger". You begin to slowly cross the street and wait for the 95 scooters to pass, then continue crossing. If you're lucky, the local dump trucks and busses will have passed some time ago. If you're not, you get to stick out in the middle of the road watching vehicles of all shapes swerve around you at extremely close distances.

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Check Out, Check In
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We decide to leave the first hotel we stayed in Ho Chi Minh City due to Lisa's poignant observation of lack of windows and milldew walls. We decide to stay in the cheaper backpacker district at a budget accomodation. They provide cleaner sheets and semi-hot water at cheaper prices but lose about 10% of your laundary and blame you for it later.

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Breakfast of Champions
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9 AM, and we decide it's time for breakfast, and we've read that there's no better place to do breakfast than at a local Vietnamese market. A ten minute walk down the street puts us in the Tan Binh market. The smaller market in Ho Chi Minh city, but fantastic all the same. Ten different types of fishes are being dumped on tables, filleted and chopped right in front of you. Crab, tripe, mussels, trout, big fish, small fish, it doesn't matter. If there's a fish you want, there's a stall for it and it's most likely bloody at the moment.

We sit down at a particular stall on the plastic 15 inch benches. They're serving shrimp crepes and fried spring rolls this morning. The older lady will cook it right in front of you in her cast iron pot right over the wooden coals. Washed down with a sprite, the grand total comes to $1.50 for the both of us. And all that being said, the best meal we've eaten so far on the trip.

We pay the bill and walk around the rest of the market. We reach the wool and cotton fabric stalls in the next room over. There are two ladies who try to persuade us in broken english to buy a pair of pants. Not a pair that's hanging on the wall, but a pair they will tailor for you while you wait. All for the hefty total price of $5.

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War from a different perspective
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Just as the American Civil War was called different names such as 'The War Between the States' and 'The War of Northern Aggression', the Vietnam War in the mid-70's goes by a different name - the American War. In retrospect, it would be silly for Vietnamese to call the war the Vietnam War, since it would be like going to war against themselves. Well, that's partially true, but I digress. Here are some quick random history things I learned or relearned.

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BEGIN RANDOM AMERICAN-VIETNAM WAR TIMELINE, SKIP IF UNINTERESTED
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1850s ish: after a slew of dynasties and stands against various empires from Cambodia and Mongolia, the French take over Vietnam and annex it as a colony. They would be around the block for almost 100 years.

1940: France falls to Nazi Germany during World War II. The Japanese take over Vietnam.

1945: Ho Chi Minh gets excited and forms the National Liberation Committee of Vietnam and the Viet Minh party. Calls for a general uprising against the French. Tried to get some support money from President Truman and the US, but was denied.

1946: Power Struggle as French try to retain control of Vietnam. Fighting breaks out in Hanoi. The Franco-Viet Minh War Begins.

1954: To much Ho Chi as French begin losting control. Surrender on May 7 at the Geneva Conference. Vietnam gets split into North (Ho Chi Minh's communist) Vietnam, and South (Ngo Diem's Catholic) vietnam..

1959: The Ho Chi Minh trail gets expanded further south as Ho Chi Minh's army of the Viet Cong is formed. Over the next 5 years, the Viet Cong gets stronger and threatens the stability of the south.

1964: The US gets on another anticommunism war Kick as President Johnson implements the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which begins the course for the American-Vietnam war. The first troops reach Danang, central viet nam march of 65.

1968: After 3 years of fighting. The VietCong initialize the Tet Offensive, bombarding over 100 cities across VietNam and surprising the US and South Vietnamese armies. The US responds in kind, killing ten times the amount of Viet Cong troops. Gruesome Images of the US killings taken by local reporters get sent back to the US and public opinion heavily sways against the war.

1973: The US pulls its last forces out of Vietnam. Three million Vietnamese have been killed as well as 60,000 US soldiers.
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END RANDOM AMERICAN-VIETNAM WAR TIMELINE
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Most of the above information comes from books or from the War Remnants Museum we visited today. Besides the history, the museum provides gruesome pictures of the war. From a Vietnamese mother crossing the river with the kids to pictures of Vietnamese villagers at American gunpoint, the museum brings up the worst of the war.

And then there's Agent Orange, the US herbicidal weapon of choice. The millitary had been so frustrated about its ineffectiveness battling the VietCong that they sprayed 2 million acres of forest like it was the roach motel. The result has been amputated ligaments, birth defects, and other unpleasant symptoms.

There's much more to describe, but I think I'll stop here. The most fascinating thing about it all is how well people are doing in this country only thirty years after we left. Now the most conflict I see on the streets are the street vendors trying to sell me counterfeit sunglasses.

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Cu Chi Tunnel Vision
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We take in a day at the Cu Chi tunnels, an expansive network of underground passageways dug out by the Viet Cong in the early 50's, originally to battle the french. It turns out to be quite handy for the Americans, as the 3 foot wide, 4 foot tall passageways are only fit for the Petit Vietnamese variety.

The tunnel tour goes on for a half day, and is mostly interesting. Our tour guide unfortunately is a bit meniacal, as he keeps repeating information, demands that his father worked as a US ambassador, recites random books to read and movies to watch, and tells us that his new wife is quite ugly but cooks well. To add to the fanfare, our guide shows us the neighboring shooting range the tourists can partake in after the tunnel tour.

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Onward and Upward
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I think that's enough Ho Chi Minh City for you. There's still a discrepancy as to calling it Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City. Saigon just sounds more exotic to me, but I'll leave it for the locals to decide. We now go up the 1500 km coast for some small town beach life, our destination being the Northern Vietnamese enclave of Hanoi.

As web access is only one sweaty internet cafe away, I'll do my best to let you know how things are going. So until then, keep travelling, wherever you are.

Travelling Sherman