Living Like Locals and the Dire Consequences
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2008
1
34
38
Trip End
Sep 28, 2008
Ta Van,
Vietnam
Monday, October 20, 2008
The next homestay in Ta Van village was located a kilometer uphill from a pleasant if simple hot springs where Mee and I washed our hair and soaped our smelly feet. It was relaxing and awesome lounging in these cement basins with warmish water and listening and watching the rushing river with these enoooormous egg shaped rocks.
I was being housed with some other home-stay people which included a Dutch family with four daughters, a mother disgruntled and obsessive about the lack of cleanliness with the beds and the inevitability of head lice on her girls. After much hootin and hollerin she calmed down after we told her of the hot springs a little ways off and that she could bathe there.
That day I told Mee that for breakfast I did not need the host fmaily to make me the "backpacker" fare of pancakes, bananas and honey. I'd eat what they had for breakfast which is what I prefer - leftovers of rice, vegetable stir fry, tofu - basically Dinner. She said okay so the next morning I join the family squatting near their fire and dine on hot rice, morning glory and garlic, tomatoes, and pumpkin in chicken broth. Deeelicious.
But there is a new dish added to the mix and I point to it and ask what it is. The grandma laughingly points at the family dog begging and big-eyed right by my side and then back to the dish! It's DOG! I knew people here in Vietnam dined on dog and it's apparently good luck to eat it the last day of some month I think and certain restaurants are booked full of people wanting to eat dog. I didn't think I'd seek it out to try, but the opportunity presented itself and I guess I couldn't refuse.
So I took a teenie-weenie itsy bitsy chopstick bite of the meat. It was flavored strongly and I didn't mind the taste. The emotional taste however hit my consciousness like a sledgehammer and I couldn't really bear the thought of what I was doing. Then the mother reaches to the bowl of dog with her chopsticks and drops a heaping portion of dog meat and fat into my bowl. The next twenty minutes of breakfast consists of me trying to eat the food around this guilt-laden piece of meat. I don't regret eating the meat...but I'll certainly never do it again.
It's a sign that as much as I'd like to live like a local, you're still a gosh darn TOURIST! :)
There are some things I just can't bring myself to do.
lesson learned and it was back to Sapa and the night train to Hanoi.
