Hello all. First off, our apologizies on the poor communication recently. We have been very busy with our visitors and have been completely out of range of reliable internet access a lot of the time. This entry will just be a short catch-up on the past few weeks. I think Andrew is currently working on a more in-depth recount of our recent Cambodia travels.
In the past few weeks we have sadly said goodbye to Adam and gladly greeted our next visitors, Andrew's mom and step-dad, Peggy and Jack, and their friends, John and Nancy. During that time, we have been to Siem Riep, Saigon, Hoi An, back to Saigon, back to Siem Riep, and up to Sapa. Tonight we head back to Hanoi, then off to Hoi An and Hue in Vietnam.
After sending Adam off from Cambodia to Bangkok (where he was supposed to catch a flight home...??) Andrew and I took a bumpy bus ride from Phnom Penh to Saigon. This was our first border crossing by land and was a trip we will not soon forget (or repeat). The trip itself was only 120 km, but it actually took 8 hours. Why, you ask. Let's just say there were more buffalo on the road than four wheeled traffic, and the road was better equipped to handle the buffalo's needs than ours. But we made it to the border in one piece. There was a wait at the border, but we were entertained by several nice women selling fried cockroaches from baskets on their heads. Unfortunately our bus windows did not open, so we went hungry. We were then herded off the bus and into the border station. I was the last person from our bus left to pass through customs, waiting patiently for approval to enter Vietnam. We had purchased our Vietnam visas from some random business in Cambodia a few days earlier and had no idea of they were real or not. As I stood there, alone in a foreign land and on the wrong side of the border, I started to get a teensy bit nervous that the rest of my time off from work would be spent trying to talk my way out of a Cambodian prison. Finally I was allowed to cross through. Andrew, to his credit, did not get back on the bus until I was safely through immigration, although, oddly enough, he chose to wait outside the building rather than in. Once on the bus, though, it was Andrew they were worried about. His passport was confiscated and he was eyed very suspiciously for about 10 minutes before the commmunist officials finally gave him the go ahead to stay on the bus.
A few hours later we rolled into Saigon and were unceremoniously dropped on the side of the road with our suitcases (mine is very large at this point in the trip). After lugging our stuff through the unmentionables on the sidewalks of Saigon, we found a place to stay, showered and hit the town. Dinner that night was at the Temple Club, the favorite hang out of Brad Pitt and Angelina when they are in town. We only went for the food, of course. :) (ps - Brad was not there.)
The next day we headed north to our favorite town, Hoi An. This is where our Vietnamese friends live and where we have spent a lot of our time during our past trips to Vietnam. When we arrived we found our friend Ha, and she told us our other friend Linh's father had passed away 4 days earlier. He was only 51. Ha took us to the market to buy flowers and incense, and we went over to Linh's family's home to pay our respects. This was our first experience with a Vietnamese death ceremony and it was very moving. The family wears all white for 5 days and stays at the home to accept visitors paying their respects to the family. The body also stays in the home during this time, in a closed casket, heavily decorated in lights, flowers and photos. In central Vietnam they bury, rather than cremate like most Buddhists, and the buriel is on the 6th day after death. Following Ha's advice, when we arrived at the home we approached the alter, offered our flowers and an envelope with money for the family, and lit sticks of incense. We then knelt in prayer as the traditional Vietnamese music was played, then retreated slowly and drank the tea offered to us. Each visitor repeats this same ritual. We stayed for an hour and talked with Linh and her family. It was a sad experience, but I am glad we were able to be there to support her, if only just a little. We were the only westerners there and were welcomed warmly and graciously.
As some of you know, we met our friends Ha and Linh on our first trip to Vietnam. They both worked in the tailor shop where we had a bunch of clothing made. Both Ha and Linh were incredibly kind to us and we became fast friends. Ha has a little baby and a husband, and she invited us to her home for dinner during that first trip. It is quite a compliment for a tourist to be invited to a local person's home for dinner and we excitedly accepted the invitation. They cooked us a fantastic dinner, borrowing a table from a neighbor for us to eat at. We had a wonderful time and have stayed in touch with all of them since then. On subsequent trips, we have furthered our friendship. They have introduced us to their families, taken us to the baby's school where we get to help out from time to time, and had us back to their home for dinner several times.
After Hoi An, we headed back to Saigon to meet Andrew's mom and step-dad, Peggy and Jack, and their friends, John and Nancy, at the airport. Andrew was like a little kid, so excited to see his momma. Being about a head taller than everyone else, we spotted them as soon as they got through custums and we ran to save them from the mobs of other people waiting on loved ones. Everyone arrived safe and sound, and incredibly cheery given the 24 hours of travel they had just endured. We all spent the next two days touring the museums of Saigon (every last one of them, I think). Saigon has some dramatic war history museums that are defintely humbling to Americans. We saw several Canadians with little Canadian flags sewed onto their bags, presumedly to insure they will not be confused with Americans. We donated generously and smiled a lot in hopes of easing our conscience. Not sure it worked.
From Saigon we flew out to Siem Riep for another tour of Angkor Wat. There were fewer tourists this time, which was nice. But it is HOT in Cambodia this time of year. I believe Andrew is doing an entry on Angkor, so I will just say we had a lovely time. Off again (these quick trips are wearing us down) we headed to Hanoi, in the north of Vietnam. Hanoi is not our favorite place, but our visitors seemed to enjoy it and Jack loaded up on old propaganda posters for his book shop. Hanoi is very crowded and you can easily get run over several times a day just trying to walk down the street if you are not extremely careful. We saw a big German woman get swiped by a motorbike. We walked around and saw (more) museums. We also went to Uncle Ho's mosuleum and his house. The mosuleum was closed, so we did not get to see Uncle Ho himself. Andrew and I saw him on a prior trip and it is an strange and memorable experience. Security is incredibly tight and you are not allowed to stop walking while in the veiwing chamber and certainly cannot take photographs. He is housed on the grounds where his house was during the final years of his life. The house, called the "House on Stilts" is maintained in the state it was when Ho died. It's very sparse, but beautiful.
In Hanoi, Nancy talked us into sampling the local "street" fare. We think (hope?) it was beef with noodles, vegies and fried garlic. No one spoke English, so we cannot be sure. It cost $1.50, so who can complain. No one had to make an emergency trip back to the hotel, so we'll chalk it up as a success. After an attempted rip-off by our hotel operator/travel agent, we left Hanoi on the overnight train headed for Sapa, a hilltribe village in the northern highlands of Vietnam.
Depending on who you talk to, the train ride was either quite fun (me) or a little taste of hell (Andrew). The train tracks were either loose or missing in some parts and I think the brakes were last oiled right before the end of the Vietnam war, so the ride was bumpy, screechy, and slow. But they had kareoke going all night in the dining car and Andrew got to make his second appearance on the kareoke stage with a little rendition of a Bob Marley ditty. Arriving the town of Loi Cai around 5:00 a.m., we abruptly found out that budget travel in Vietnam includes seeing how many people, with luggage, can be squeezed into a minivan and then how fast that same minivan can negotiate hairpin curves on the rode to Sapa. I do not like budget travel. Anyway, we made it. Sapa and its surrounding villages are gorgeous. Sapa is the main stop for tourists visiting the hill tribes, as this is where all the western-catering hotels and restaurants are. People trek from Sapa to the neighboring villages to see the countryside and esperience the traditional village life. Within a day's walk, there are Black Hmong, Doa, Dzay, Flower Hmong, and Tai villages. All of the villages cultivate rice on terraces dug into the hillside, making for an intensely dramatic landscape. Sapa was absolutely freezing, but for only an extra $3 a day we were allowed a heater in our room. We splurged for the heater.
The first day in Sapa we met our local guide and headed for a half day trek to the village of Cat Cat, just 3 km from Sapa. This "village" had a bit of a suspicious Disneyland feel to it, but the scenery was gorgeous. There was also a fabulous waterfall at the bottom, which was one of our first glimpses of clean fresh water in Vietnam. Our guide sent Andrew and I on a "short cut" on the walk home, which led us up a very steep cliff of rice fields and unspeakable amounts of trash. The second day we went on an 11 km trek to three more more remote villages. The rice is not growing at this time of year and there is a lot of mist clinging to the hillside, but even so the views were spectacular.
Tourism has had a very noticeable impact on the small tribal communities in this area. There are hundreds of girls and women from the neighboring villages who make the journey each day into Sapa in their traditional tribal dress to sell their wares to tourists. Many of them live in the more remote villages and their "job" is to get into Sapa in time to cling onto a set of tourists and walk with them the entire way back to their village. They do not speak much, other than to say "buy from me". Some are also very helpful to the less sure footed trekkers by helping them down the steeper sections of the trail. At the lunch stop, the tourists are seated behind chain link fence to eat while hundreds of women and girls stand on the other side, staring and begging for the tourists to buy something from them. Its makes many people uncomfortable and ashamed of what tourism has done to these villagers. While this reaction is unavoidable, I think the other side of it must be considered. The tourism dollars have undeniably benefited the local villages. While very simple, the standard of living in the villages was, comparatively speaking, quite healthy. Clearly everyone has their own opinion on Sapa and tourism, all of which are justified in thier own right. As for us, we did buy local handi-crafts and used a local guide, so lets just hope we did not make the tourism problem, assuming there is one, worse. Day three in Sapa is today. Jack, Peggy, John and Nancy have set off to another village, three hours drive from here. I could not stomach the 45 mintue drive from Loa Cai to Sapa, so Andrew and I stayed in town. It is freezing outside and pouring rain, so we are currently hidden away at the only 5 star resort in town, desperately hoping the hotel staff does not realize until its time to leave for us to leave for the train that we are not staying here. Love to you all, Andrea and Andrea
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