How the other half live (Trip Day 3)
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2002
1
98
129
Trip End
Sep 22, 2003
Central Highlands / Dong Xoai,
Vietnam
Sunday, June 1, 2003
Obviously I haven't mentioned toilets yet. Well being a girl, I have to go quite a lot, even without any lager so I got to inspect the loos of the locals which were rather interesting in themselves. In one shop that we stopped at, the little girl of the household proudly showed me their toilet and grabbed me by the hand and ran me around the back of the shop into a little tented area. Inside, (if you can have an inside with no roof) there was just concrete. There was no hole, paper, ledge, or previous deposits that indicated which way I should point myself. As it had been raining hard anything anyone else had done had been washed out of the side so I just pointed myself in the direction of the flow whilst the little girl watched in delight through a hole in the 'door'. In another, it was still raining so I made sure it was inside the house. Oh yes they said, and it sort of was except the roof finished just on the "cubicle" so I got all the rain running off the roof as well. Again no hole, but there was a little kerb of concrete which I felt I should know what to do with. I didn't though but at least no-one was watching me make an idiot of myself this time.
Of course the day wouldn't be complete without a few visits to minority villagers houses. We started in a quarry and as we pulled up a little boy ran into his house and came out with a handful of little bananas for us. He even offered one of his home made corn crisps. These people didn't even have a front door. Or a front wall come to that but this little chap was still giving things away. We tried to give the bananas back as we felt guilty taking things from people who had nothing. Binh told us that they would be really offended though and anyway bananas was the one thing they had plenty of. They actually don't use money, just bananas! The quarry where the men in the family worked involved them chipping away at large rocks with chisels and crow bars until they break into smaller pieces. We asked how they get the big rocks down in the first place and they showed us where they had tapped holes in the hills of rock to weaken it and then they just wait till it falls. Our last stop at a village was the most moving of the whole trip. It had been raining hard for some time and even our covered rucksacks were started to feel the damp. We stopped at a village where they make huge sturdy baskets from bamboo and we were immediately offered seats. In this village the land is too expensive and they are illegal immigrants from the north so they have no claims to it anyway. Therefore they cannot grow anything for themselves, unlike all the other minorities we have seen so far. They make 5 baskets a day between each couple and each one sells for just $2 but they have to buy the bamboo out of that too. Our average daily budget in Vietnam for everything except the CD player was about US$45 for both of us. This family (they have 2 small children) live on less then that per week. Of course the house was made of wood and had a room for them to work, eat, cook etc and another for them to sleep (all in the same small bed). We looked around 2 or 3 like this and were about to get back on the bikes when Cheung suggested we see the lady at the back who was even poorer. She made the baskets that cover the chickens and cocks at market which are less sturdy but still quite big. Her hut would have made the little pig's stick house look like Buckingham Palace. Again made of wood, except most of it was held together with a wish and a prayer, and the 'ceiling' was a sheet of polythene. Of course with all the rain, this had started to fall in and she was trying to hold things up with bamboo poles and other bits of stick. We noticed that there were no personal effects around and I assumed that she just worked there, after all no-one could actually live in a place that may blow down at the smallest gust of wind could they? Of course I was wrong. She did live there, it was just that with all the water on the floor etc, she had to keep her bedding and other change of clothes tucked away to try and keep it dry. We tried not to look shocked and she smiled proudly as we looked around telling us that the government were building them a new village so there was no point in trying to fix anything. Back on the bikes, we hadn't gone more than 5 minutes down the road and we saw a huge building site that rivaled Marks and Spencers at Hedge End. The bricks were a beautiful slate grey and I asked Binh if this was their new village. He looked at me as if I was a little demented and said "No, this is another war memorial." I spent the rest of the journey fighting back the tears of frustration and anger at the Vietnamese government and can't help thinking that this wasn't what Ho Chi Minh was fighting for as this is hardly the equality that he dreamed of for every Vietnamese citizen. Luckily the rain started again in earnest so I didn't have to keep my face dry but we were absolutely drenched by the time we arrived at our hotel in Dong Xoai. We could have poured the rain water from our boots and were glad of a nice hot shower but neither of us could get the basket lady out of our head. We discussed their plight over dinner and found out to our horror that both Binh and Chung also live in wooden houses with Chung's only 5m by 5m. They also told us of another minority group further north who are so poor that they wear tree bark for clothing. If I hadn't seen what I'd seen in the last few days I would never have believed it. It made us realize just how easy we have it.
