Southeast Asia - Vietnam - Seventh Week
Day 48 2.18 Sunday on to Hue
Up at 6 for exercises, swim, and 7 breakfast at Phu Thinh. Having to go up and down 4 flights of stairs to get to/from our 3rd floor room has been good for us-it takes effort. 8:30 we started our 4 hour trip north to Hue with several stops on the way. Mx. Hung from Hue is our guide and left home at 4am to meet us. Our First stop was in Da Nang at a marble sculpture sales facility which gave us a well rounded understanding of what the area is carving and what is for sale (shipped to US). Da Nang is a million strong and the economic powerhouse of the central highlands. Second, we climbed into Marble Mountain which is a Buddhist holy area with many sacred locations and carvings. Monkey mountain had a 68 meter statue of a Buddha women over looking Danang. We then went thru the Cham museum (4-12 cent). Third, we stopped in the pass on the mountains that run right to the sea and rise (I figure) 2K’. Forth, we stopped in an oyster harvesting bay and the adjacent fishing village where we got refreshments. There is some Chinese development for tourism/casino south of Hue. Hue has a 354000 population. Beautiful beaches all the way up our 4 hour, 75 mile drive. Fifth, in Hue we checked into the Asia Hotel, went for a boat ride, Marnie climbed to a hill stupa and I waited, and then taxi’d back to the market area. However, it was closed for Tet so we got cyclobikes to haul us back to the hotel. Poor hotel-electrical fixtures are bad, desk is off the wall, dirty windows, and bathroom has a window therein. We are wondering if the quality of our tour is declining or just more detailed and confusing in writing as we can’t figure out the security and travel accommodation from hereon.
Day 49 2.19 Monday day in Hue
Up at 6 for exercises, organizing,then had breakfast at 7:30 and were ready for pickup at 9:30. Our guide, Mickey Mouse, (‘r Dieu Huong Le) was a very knowledgeable guide. The conventional working citizens make about 160$ per month and get free health care with incremental advances after 3 years. Contract workers like Le make much more. We started at the mausoleum of the second emperor who had 500 wives and 143 kids and died of (guess what) old age in 1840. The next mausoleum was for an extravagant king under the influence of France and not liked because he ran the state money into the ground. There are many lady Buddha statues and they tend to be very large to be seen from a distance. Then we went to lunch in the citadel in a real upscale place. We got the guide and driver to join us, thou the company said no, and they helped us understand the food and how to eat it. After many courses we’re back on the road to the city site of the emperor in the citadel. The citadel is star shaped with motes and beautiful buildings for the king and military on the order of Fort Sumner, the fort at St. Augustine, and fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. Marnie and Le walked the full distance as I dropped off after the throne room. I spent time talking with 25 year old couple from Barcelona who were product designers for a company in China. Finally, the women showed and we headed toward the train station, looking for flag stickers for my bike. At the train station we were herded and amazingly got on car #11, bunks 22 & 24 and found we originally had the sleeper to ourselves but there are 5-6 stops before Hanoi. At one of those stops we acquired a young American couple to share our room. It’s dark now and we’re wondering what the nite will bring beside too much ac. We brought bread, peanut butter, and jelly with us and peanut/white sesame pancakes for dessert.
Day 50 2.20 Tuesday Hanoi and to SaPa
Terrible nite on the train with rocking and no cpap. Off the train at 6:45 and taken to our interim hotel til 1:30 when we tour Hanoi. We repacked for a 4 day trip to the mountains of the Red Dao people 1/2 hour from the Chinese border, then we crashed for 2 hours trying to catch up on missed sleep. We toured the ethnicity museum detailing the 54 minority ethnic groups in Vietnam’s 95 million people (80% are Vietnamese- Kinh people) with our guide “Ricky”. We were particularly interested in the Red Dao with whom we will stay Wednesday nite. We then had a cyclo ride around the Hanoi lake. The time of day and holiday season caused the area in central Hanoi to be a continual traffic/people jam. Finally, we went to the water puppet show before leaving for dinner with Ricky after his girlfriend could not make it as planned. We ate at a low seated ethnic street place where we had rice porridge with chicken and some vegetables which tasted like chicken noodle soup. At 9pm we loaded onto the train which had WiFi so we read til late and then got pretty good sleep without my cpap-Marnie upstairs and me down. We shared a cabin with a Japanese couple on their way to SaPa to trek in the mountains. We had no way of knowing what trek meant as we did not understand SaPa....but now we do and we would not have been able to undertake the effort to trek in these mountains, thou it would be special and beautiful..I don’t know where else in the world we would find these kinds of panoramas (rice paddys and spread housing).
Day 51 2.21 Wednesday to SaPa and a homestay-TaPhin
Off the train at 5:30 AM and met Nam Nguyen Van (Mr. 5) our guide for the next 3 days in Lao Cai. We drove in a Fortuner suv 1.5 hours to SaPa thru the mountain terrain and arrived at the CatCat Hotel for breakfast, a shower, and into long pants for the cool foggy morning. At 9 we set off with a car because I can’t trek the 14 km trail to our homestay. We walked some, the sky cleared, and rode when my right knee (downhill pain) and left hip started seriously aching. So we saw up close the terracing for rice and vegetable crops. Nam had us smell, taste, and touch many natural and herbal medicine crops. 4 kids rode by on 2 water buffalo (note the shoes on the horn) and pigs roamed free to forage or suckle the mother if young. The hillsides look alive in spite of it being the non-crop or rice time, tho vegetables (cold weather varieties) are doing very well. Hawking, Red Dao women followed us to sell their goods whenever we walked. These women all have the same name, Mai, and get designated by number in birth rank. When the car could go no further in Ta Phin we started walking down a long grade (exacerbating my knee pain) and could see our homestay in the distance high on the next hillside. Just in time the owner of the homestay came upon us with his moto and they offered me a ride. I got on feeling very unsure as we went down to a narrow bridge over the stream and started up the hill on the ever-narrowing concrete walk (finally down to 2’ wide), up and down with many sharp turns; I had to stop looking as seeing where we needed to go made me anxious. I doubt I could ride my bike up the paths. Soon after I arrived at 11 and met the family, Marnie and Nam arrived and we were served lunch of noodles and vegetable salad with fried spring rolls, while the family’s meal was similar except for the pig intestine meat. This is a Red Dao family. Time to rest and catch up on sleep. But the 4 yr old had other ideas and wanted to kick a ball and play with him, with an empty water bottle being hit on the head lightly. We took a tour of this buildings that the owner had constructed here on the hillside. The homestay houses must be approved by the government to insure political and health standards. They include two large self-built structures with separate quarters for the family and visitors and common areas for meals. While there was some electric there were few lights inside. This stay has 3 generations living here, with pigs and chickens and water ponds for rice fields. Our table and chairs are very low but our platform, mat bed is beyond king size, or possibly two doubles. They have rigged up a special water system and the bathroom facilities are fairly standard. We can sit at our table and look out over the garden and rice fields of this farm, the valley, a small community, the terracing and the mountain to the north, which is in fact China. Late in the afternoon Nam, Marnie and I went for a steep 1 hour walk up and down on this mountain with farms far apart. I was sitting next to the young mother of the two children and she had the young baby on her back at dinner and she was rocking back and forth as she ate using body motion to calm the 6 month old baby. Father of the homestay was 36 when he became a grandfather. Dinner was at a low table and there was a variety of foods: ground pork w/ veg, beef tongue, miniature whole fish, two kinds of cooked greens, another spicy ground fish, many shots of rice wine, and of course rice. I spied the plows used in preparing the rice paddies after they have been flooded but are waiting to be planted. Electricity has been in these mountains for 10 years. The construction is very basic with board cut onsite and placed functionally with homemade collapsing walls, many curtains, and sliding doors. Tables and chairs are very low.
Day 52 2.22 Thursday doing SaPa 4921’ 10k pop
Up at 7 and worrying about the trek out of the mountains to a local festival. Thin Pancakes with bananas and honey for breakfast with instant sugar-milk coffee. 1million dong ($50) for a woven tapestry ($40) at the homestay and a tip. Grandfather, who looks half my age, will give a ride about a kilometer to the road on his moto with my eyes closed after he suspended his work for a neighbor cutting metal for a wall. We arrived at the festival of the Black Hmong, Flower Hmong, Red Dao and spent 3 hours taking in the shaman’s dance, a simulated marriage ceremony, pig races, special group dances, and traditional food stands. We photoed as many costumes as we could and observed all ages- particularly the teens where the boys wore jeans with their ceremonial coat and girls were decorated head to toe in traditional costumes except for tennies. We walked to the village for coffee as we waited for our driver stuck in a traffic jam on the one lane dirt road. Many very young looking girls had babies on their back- tough to tell age and whether the young one is her child or a sib. We met Nam’s wife but everything was so confusing and nowhere to sit we had little time with her. We came back to SaPa on terrible roads and went to lunch and then a crafts market for bag purchase, then meat-craft market and sewing crafts for a pouch. Finally to our hotel to rest and eat ‘til our 2pm tour tomorrow. Rain this evening as we went for a hamburger and pizza. Staying the nite in the Sunny Mountain Hotel. Big 10 b-ball was on TV. Lao Cai
Day 53 2.23 Friday tour and to the train to Hanoi
Up late for breakfast. Nook still on wait list for UNT and we hope and pray. The entire morning was covered in dense fog and was coldest day here so far this year. We checked out of our room and read in the lobby for 3 hours. We left before 2 to go to the village of Sin Chai which is more natural than CatCat and we walked the concrete path of the Black Hmong village. The village is 1200 and has a generator in the center area, but outlying homes have ptheir own gen to lite a few light bulbs. We walked about the village observing the kids, a pig that just delivered and was covering/hiding her new born piglets, and many flocks of chicks with their mother. We were aloud to visit a black Hmong house with dinning are on concrete and the remainder on harden clay floors. The second story is used for rice, corn, and animal feed storage and is accessed by log steps. The greener hanging in front of the house indicated no one could enter as the shaman was petrifying the house. The children had moto tires they used to roll along up and down hills with sticks like American kids. We observe the community helping build and new house and found that asbestos roofing products are still used here. The rain held off until we were back at the van. Then we rode over the highest and longest pass in Vietnam as we return to Lao Cai for the overnight train to Hanoi. Being early in Lao Cai we went to the Vietnam-Chinese border for a look across at the forbidden territory. Kidnapping a young potential bride and she lives and is wined and dined with family for 3 days. Then she either leaves or agrees to the marriage.
Day 54 2.24 Saturday go to the boat in HaLong
Off the train at 4:15 and over to A25 hotel for 7:15 pickup for the trip to our boat at HaLong. The train was good and we slept very well, even with no cpap. Washed up and got 6:30 breakfast. We discovered is hotels which have short term customer for breakfast, shower and a nap early in the am until mid morning - We had this service in CatCat hotel in SaPa and at May De Ville Hotel in Hanoi 3 days ago and will have it at A25 in Hanoi. We were out of town by 7:45 with a stop after an hour for bathroom and crafts place. In another hour we stopped for a water puppet show (1000 yr hx) and an extended lunch. One hour later we were loading onto a chinese Junk boat with 15 other people. After introductions they offered a cooking course in making pork fried spring rolls. I was more interest in the operation of the boat and stayed on deck until the rolls were ready to eat...good. We started to organize our stuff and clothes in anticipation of moving to Mongolia.
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