Vietnam day 36 – Mekong

Posted on Saturday, 29 Nov 2008 by Hattie

It is much cooler today – the temperature and humidity seem to be dropping as we get closer to Cambodia.  Another early start sees us leaving at 7am to catch the boat that will take us up the Mekong to the Cambodian border.  The Mekong is one of the world’s longest rivers and flows through three countries – Vietnam Cambodia and Thailand – all of which use the same name for this giant of rivers.  On the way we visit a floating fish farm and a village of the minority Cham people.  When we get to the border there is time for a quick lunch before walking our luggage through the Vietnamese and Cambodian checkpoints. Our border crossing takes about 10 minutes mainly because we completed all the paperwork on the boat earlier and our guide came ahead by motor bike to sort out our visas.  So by the time we arrive, everything is arranged.

Once in Cambodia we pick up another small covered boat no more than four seats wide, but at least the seats are fixed and side awnings provide some protection from the wind and spray.  This boat will take us on the 3-hour journey up-river from where we will pick up another mini bus for the final one-and-an-half hours to Phnom Penh.  This little boat hugs the side of the river bank as the wind whips up a slight swell. The river here is immensely wide and quite choppy.  All along the riverbank are village houses and people going about their daily lives, fishing, cooking, eating, washing  clothes, and themselves. in the river.  Smiling children and adults wave and shout hello as we chug by.

The fish farm is a floating single story wooden house with a large verandah.  The fish are kept in nets under the house and we are entertained to a feeding frenzy when the guide invites us to throw  fish food through trap doors in the verandah floor.  The fish go wild, splashing and jumping, some right out onto the verandah – it’s a sea of swishing tails and open mouths.  Fish farming is clearly a lucrative business – the houses may be basic wooden structures but they all have fancy glass windows – not a common sight in countryside villages.

The Cham minority village where the  houses, like most in the delta, are built on stilts to keep them above the flood level – although not always.  In 2002 the Mekong rose to the level of the verandahs and it was possible to set out of boats directly into the houses.  The family we visit are running a cottage industry weaving cloth for scarves, bags, sarong and table clothes.  Of course, there is the inevitable opportunity to spend money and to have photographs taken in the local garb.  This wood framed house with palm thatched roof is much less basic than it’s modest exterior suggest.  There is little in the way of furniture, but there are tiled floors,  western-style toilets and a TV aerial.  Apparently the government subsidises the cost of television equipment for the minority people as it has proved effective in reducing their spectacularly high birth rate – 10 or more children not being uncommon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cham_people

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Vietnam day 35 – Mekong Delta

Posted on Friday, 28 Nov 2008 by Hattie

Today started off well with a visit to the floating market but quickly deteriorated into shambles and disappointment when there isn’t enough room on the tour bus for us and two of our travelling companions – Janine and Steve from Australia.  The upshot of this cock-up on the part of the travel company (TM Brothers – actually dubbed ‘Trouble Makers’ by our tour guide!) is that we are put on a public bus immediately after lunch and shipped straight to Chau Doc near the Cambodian border – our afternoon’s itinerary abandoned!  This despite being assured by our tour guide – before she slinks off back to Saigon – that our itinerary would still go ahead.  Anyone thinking of using TM Brothers – DON’T – they are completely untrustworthy and they lie.  When we phone their office in Saigon to complain they tell us to take it up with our new guide the next day – what they fail to mention, we find out later, is tomorrow’s guide doesn’t work for them and is not the least bit interested in dealing with our complaint.

We leave the hotel at  7.15 am for the half-an-hour boat ride to the Cai Rang floating marketing.  This is a local wholesale market for Chau Doc and  the surrounding area and sells mainly fruit and  vegetables.  However most of the action is largely over by the time we arrive at 7.45am. And the market isn’t quite as colourful as the billing led us to believe.  There are plenty  of wholesale boats in evidence but the produce is mainly in the holds, whilst the number of  buyers are few and seem to be out-numbered by the tourist boats.

From the market we continue on to visit a rice noodle factory.  This is real eye-opener.  Again ‘factory’ is used rather loosely is this context.  This family-run business produces noodles in an open-sided barn with a black beaten earth floor and pig sties only a few feet away.  We watch as broken rice is ground with water from an open stone trough to produce rice milk which is then mixed with cassava flour,   The pancakes mixture  is spread waiver thin on hot plates heated by fires fed with rice husks.  The pancakes are laid outside to dry on bamboo racks and then cut into noodles and parceled up for sale locally.  Noodles must be a certain length and thickness so hence  the pigs – they eat the waste.  Health and Safety would have a field day here!

The rice mill is an interesting Heath Robinson affair with all manner of motor-driven belt pullies powering an assortment of machinery to husk and sort, polish and grade the rice and separate the bi-products.  But despite appearances this seems to work efficiently.

By 11.30am we are back at the hotel for a quick lunch (the Vietnamese eat lunch incredibly early)  and to pick up the bus for our three -hour drive  to Chau Doc.  This afternoon’s visits to the crocodile farm, Queen Lady temple, Thoai Ngoc Hau temple and the Sam Mountain are all abandoned.  We arrive at our destination by 3.30;pm having stopped several times along the way touting for extra passengers so that  the mini bus is so full that people are standing in the aisle! Our travel mantra has become ‘never expect anything’ especially anything  promised by travel agents – then you can never be disappointed.  We are trying to learn to chill – but it’s still very difficult to shake off our western expectations!

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Vietnam day 34 – Mekong Delta

Posted on Thursday, 27 Nov 2008 by Hattie

After saying our farewells to Lizzie and Andy,  we set out for our trip to the Mekong Delta which will take us all the way to Phnom Penh in Cambodia.  The first two hours are spent in a cramped (Vietnamese buses seem to have even less leg room than ones back home) and packed mini-bus.   We transfer to a narrow covered boat  just large enough to accommodate one row of chairs down each side and begin our tour of the Mekong Delta.   Our day’s itinerary includes a visit to a sweet-making factory on one of the islands; a change to a smaller boat to negotiate some of the numerous channels that make up the delta;   a honey farm which turns out to have only one hive, but where we get the opportunity to have our photograph taken with a python, for a fee of course;  and after lunch a journey by sampan further into the channel network for a fruit dessert and a very average performance of   traditional music.  The day is rounded off with a 3-hour bus journey to the ferry crossing and Can Tho for our overnight stop. We have booked a homestay for tonight, but by the end of the day we are beginning to wonder what to expect as the guide seems determined to do her best to put us off – lots of mosquitos, may be flooded, 30 minutes by motor bike in the dark …and we can’t take our luggage with us!  To cap it all it’s raining when we reach Can Tho and there is only one motorbike driver.  It’s when we find out that the journey also includes a boat trip as well that we start to wonder what else might await us that we have yet to be told about.  At this point we decide to wimp out and stay put at the hotel.

The Mekong is swollen and, even under today’s clear blue skies,  the water is a murky brown due to recent flooding.  As we explore the channels there is a distinctly tropical  feel;   giant palm fronds grow directly out of the water arching over our heads.  Through the jungle  houses perch on stilts some little more than huts others more substantial, some constructed of wood others with simple palm covered walls and thatched or corrugated roofs.   As we chug by children wave and shout hello.   The scenery is fantastic, but the tour turns out to be a tad too commercialised with souvenir stalls at every stop.

The coconut sweet ‘factory’ is an interesting stop but  nothing like any factory you may envisage!  Set in tropical jungle, it is housed in an open-sided building with a palm-covered  roof.  As well as  women busily producing sweets,  there are stalls selling  a range of locally-produced souvenirs mostly made from coconuts which grow in abundance here.  The production  line is no more than 20 feet long and almost everything is done by hand including the preparation of the coconut mixture, the cooking over an open fire stoked with coconut shells, shaping and  cutting the sweets, wrapping and packing.  All the while tourists are milling around.  The sweets, though are delicious, and we do our bit for the local economy and buy a packet.

Our Vietnamese guide is called Hong, pronounced ‘Howm’ as she is at pains to explain to us, although we are still not 100% sure we have caught the pronunciation correctly – the subtle sound distinctions of this tonal language are seriously difficult to grasp.  The five tones can give five different meanings to the same word.  Hung is a cheerful guide with a rather bizarre sense of humour.  She’s a bit of a shouter though and has a tendency to drop the ends of her words and which leads to some communications problems as most of us can’t understand here explanations.

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Vietnam day 33 – Ho Chi Minh City

Posted on Wednesday, 26 Nov 2008 by Hattie

It is last day in Ho Chi Minh City and we are visiting the children’s orphanage this morning with Michael.  The orphanage is sponsored by ILA Vietnam (employers of Andy, Lizzie and Michael) and many of their staff  regularly volunteer their time to help out two or three times a week and there are several here today.  We’re going to spend the morning helping with babies and toddlers many of whom have some form of disability (although in many cases these are very minor) and have been abandoned as a result.  Others are casualties of the one-child policy that applies to government employees and results in severe financial penalties for those who have a second child.

We start by helping out with the feeding of the babies of which there must be 20 or 30.  The first thing that strikes us is how quiet they are, lying in cots in a bright and airy room.  My baby doesn’t seem to be very hungry and would much rather be lifted up on my shoulder to have a good look at what’s going on around.  Andy meanwhile has one that just wants to sleep after a good feed.  After baby-feeding we move on to play with the toddlers and immediately I have a little girl who wants my undivided attention and who, once picked up, won’t let me put her down.  Whilst another little girl is fascinated by Andy’s beard.

Michael takes us on a tour of some of the other rooms here where children with more severe disabilities are cared for.  It’s a heart-rending experience, but also a positive one.  The hospital is clean and well-equipped thanks to the generosity of sponsors like ILA and is in the throes of being upgraded and the children are being looked after  in a stimulating and caring environment.

Having seen the work that is being done here and discussed the possibilities for using the money Andy raised from his sponsored shave, we have decided to support operations to remove cataracts which the ILA are hoping to start sponsoring in the New Year.  If the project goes ahead the money will give two children back their sight and the possibility of an independent life.

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Vietnam day 32 – Ho Chi Minh City

Posted on Tuesday, 25 Nov 2008 by Hattie

Hot and sunny today for our trip to the Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi underground tunnels.  It’s going to be a long day as it’s 70 km to the temple and we are aiming to be there for 12am to catch the midday prayer session.  We are then going to brave the tunnels in the afternoon on the way back to HCMC.  Tung picks us up at 9am and we spend a good hour negotiating the manic Saigon rush hour.  We still puzzle over why there are not more accidents particularly as there seems to be absolutely no difference between red and green traffic lights – here both mean go.  Tung is bringing his wife along for the drive, so we pick her up on the way and they chatter away non stop whilst we watch the scenery flash by.  It’s touch and go whether we will get to Cao Dai in time, but we arrive with 10 minutes to spare and stay for 45 minutes of the service.  We arrive at the Cu Chi tunnels after lunch  and fortunately there are no  tourists here apart from one other couple and we have a guide to ourselves.  Arrived back in HCMC for 8.30pm;  a long day in the car!

The Cao Dai holy see was founded in 1926 and is situated 4km east of Tay Ninh in the village of Long Hoa.  As well as the Great Temple, the complex comprises accommodation, administrative buildings and a hospital of traditional Vietnamese medicine.   The Cau Dai religion is a fusion of Eastern and Western philosophies which contains elements of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, native Vietnamese spiritualism, Christianity and Islam and there are some 2 to 3 million followers in Vietnam.  The Great Temple is a striking mix of architectural styles and is colourfully decorated in bright yellow and baby blue.  The temple is built over nine levels representing the  nine steps to heaven and each level is marked by a pair of columns entwined with multi-coloured dragons.  The temple holds prayer sessions four times a day at 6am, 12am, 6pm and 12pm and about 250 clergy participate.  The clergy all file into the hall and take their positions;  the men on the left and the women on the right.  Some are in vivid, red, blue or yellow robes denoting the three branches of the religion, the rest in white.  The services takes the form of chanting to traditional music provided by a small ensemble on the first floor gallery and is periodically punctuated by the resonant sound of  a gong.

The Cu Chi tunnels are situated 40km north-west of Saigon.  They were started by the Viet Minh during the French war and extended significantly during the American war creating a 250km network on three levels.  The tunnels were used extensively by the Viet Cong to control the  Cu Chi area during the American war despite the presence of a large US military base in the district which the Americans unwittingly built  right on top of the network.   Apparently it took the Americans months to work out how the VC were getting into the base and shooting the GIs in their beds!  The tunnels also allowed the VC to establish control of the strategic hamlets  which had been set up with the specific purpose of re-locating villagers from communist-controlled areas.  There are two sections of the tunnels open to visitors and we go to the the section that has been enlarged to allow access for westerners – there is no way we would have been able to go through the original tunnels which measure 1.2m high and 80cm wide.

The tunnels included a field hospital, meeting room,  rest rooms and kitchen although none are exactly as the real tunnels used to look.  There is also a interesting section on booby traps – all of which involve spikes in one form or another and all intended to injure rather than kill (according to our guide) as carrying away the injured means that 3 soldiers are out of action rather than just 1.  The entrance to the tunnels are well camouflaged with dead leaves making them impossible to spot – and very small – our guide only just being able to squeeze through an original opening.  So small were the trapdoors that the Americans had to recruit South Koreans and Filippinos to go down them as the GI were too large.  The VC were also very inventive in avoiding detection by American sniffer dogs using captured GI clothing in the air vents and even washing in American soap!  After trying various strategies to dislodge the VC including chemical defoliation and napalm, the Americans resorted to carpet bombing the area in order to destroy the tunnels by which time the Americans were already in the process of withdrawing from the war.

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Vietnam day 31 – Ho Chi Minh City

Posted on Monday, 24 Nov 2008 by Hattie

Today the weather is hot and humid.  We have the use of Andy’s chauffeur, Tung, and car again today and our first port of call is the the travel agents to book our trip to the Mekong Delta.  We are taking a three-day trip which will take us a far as Phnom Penh in Cambodia.  We decide to pay in dollars to take advantage of the favourable exchange rate we got back in April – $2 to the £ – which means we are saving about 25% on the cost of the trip.  The assistant doesn’t like our $100 bill though, because it has writing on it;  if it isn’t accepted by the bank we may have to swap it for another one when we return on Thursday!  Ironic really given the tattered state of some of the Dong notes that are in circulation here.  In the afternoon Tung takes us to the War Remnants Museum.  This was formerly known the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, but now is mainly concerned with the atrocities that took place during the Franco and American wars.  There is an open air display of American aircraft and tanks as well as several bombs, artillery pieces and infantry weapons.  The indoor spaces are are divided into eight rooms which cover various aspects of the wars and include many photographs documenting the US atrocities, as well as a model of the Tiger cages used to house Viet Cong prisoners on Con Son Island, and the guillotine used by the French on the Viet Minh.  A powerful and harrowing indictment of the crassness and cruelty of American foreign policy.

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Vietnam day 30 – Ho Chi Minh City

Posted on Sunday, 23 Nov 2008 by Hattie

It’s a lazy start this morning as we take it easy around the flat until lunch-time. After some dim sum with Andy and Liz at a local Chinese restaurant we go our separate ways;  they to do some shopping for their trip to Europe next week, and us to explore the Cholon district and some of the pagodas to the north.  We visit Quoc Tu pagoda although, because we aren’t appropriately dressed, we don’t go inside.  In the courtyard in front there are people with cages crammed full of wild birds which they  will release on payment of a couple of dollars.  We never cease to amazed by the inventiveness of people when it comes to finding ways to make money!   We get back to the flat just before the heavens open and a dramatic thunderstorm crashes overhead.

The streets may be wider and less full-on than in Hanoi, but the architecture is essentially the same;  tall, narrow buildings reminiscent of the colonial period, painted in all shades and combinations of colours.  These houses can be several rooms deep, but only the rooms facing the street have windows and often balconies.  The rest of the  rooms are windowless and many are rented individually to families.

We have decided to leave Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to do a three-day trip to the Mekong Delta which will take us all the way to Phnom Penh in Cambodia.  It will involve a homestay, some trekking, visiting the floating market and a crocodile farm – all for $54 each.  From Phnom Penh we are going to go to Siem Reap to visit the Ankor temples.

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Vietnam day 29 – Ho Chi Minh City

Posted on Saturday, 22 Nov 2008 by Hattie

Today Lizzie takes us to visit the families of the two children who we are sponsoring through school – Trang and Luan and then we go on to see the shelter for street children which she is involved with.  Our first stop is to see Trang, a 13-year old Vietnamese girl who lives in District X in one of the warren of alleyways off the main road.  We are accompanied by Nhi who regularly visits the sponsored children to give them money for the school fees and check on anything they may need for their studies.  It’s just as well we have Nhi with us as within minutes of entering the back alleys we are completely  disorientated.  The living conditions in this area are mixed but many people are living in very squalid and cramped conditions.  Trang lives with her mother, father, grandmother and 4 siblings in a single ground floor room which houses not only  the family but two motor bikes as well.  Shocking as their living conditions are they cannot prepare us for those of Luan and her mother who live next to the street shelter in a lean-to shack.  It is no bigger than a cupboard with a platform above for sleeping and is made from an assortment of old crates, boxes and the like.  It is hard to comprehend how two people can live in such a minute and flimsy hut. The boys’ shelter is in a house just further down the alley and we are greeted enthusiastically and affectionately by the boys.  The shelter offers accommodation to about 20 boys aged 12 to 16 and helps them to get vocational training and eventually jobs.  It occupies four floors and is clean and spacious if rather empty.  The boys sleep on mats on the floor – preferring this to western-style beds.

After our visits we decide to get a football and some sweets for the boys in the shelter and a small folding table for Luan so that she has somewhere to do her homework;  at the moment she does it on the dirt floor of the lean-to.  It’s hard to reconcile our privileged lifestyle which allows us to pull up in a chauffeur-driven car with the destitution of these children.  But the biggest decision lies ahead – how to best use the money Andy raised to help in some small way.

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Vietnam day 28 – Ho Chi Minh City

Posted on Friday, 21 Nov 2008 by Hattie

We have use of (Australian) Andy’s car and driver today – what luxury! – so we have no difficulty getting in and out of the centre of the city.  We start out at 11am and head for the main Post Office to get a map and orientate ourselves.  The Post Office (the largest in Vietnam)  is worth visiting  for its architecture alone.  It is housed in a very lovely colonial building built between 1886 and 1891 with a beautiful interior covered by a glass canopy and a large picture of Ho Chi Minh dominates the central business hall.  Our main focus today is a visit to the Re-unification Palace, but it is closed between 11.30am and 2pm.  So we decide to start by having brunch in a creperie over-looking the well manicured gardens between Notre Dame cathedral and Re-unification Palace.  We then take a stroll down to the river.  It is much hotter and humid here than in Hoi An and the effort is quite exhausting.  There is nothing very picturesque about this stretch of the river so we head back to the Palace.  30,000 Dong (£1.20) covers our admission and an English guide.

Re-unification Palace, previously known as Independence Palace, was the seat of the South Vietnamese government and the home of the President until 30th April 1975 when it was stormed by the North Vietnamese army at the end of the American War.  The iconic images of tanks breaking through the gates and the North Vietnamese flag been unfurled from the  4th floor balcony are images that will be etched in the minds of those of us of a certain age.  It is fascinating to wander the corridors and view the rooms of this sixties-built palace where history was made in our lifetime.  The interior of the building is quite plain and minimalistic but very light and airy.  It is beautifully furnished with the best of Vietnamese art and crafts and has been preserved as it was on that fateful day in 1975.  Also very interesting is a visit to the two basements from which the war was conducted and which still contains the old radio equipment, the president’s bedroom and the map rooms.

Saigon has a very different character to Hanoi.  The city centre has wide boulevards and open spaces and has a much less claustrophobic, more modern and international feel.   Modern, high-rise buildings punctuate the skyline, but the overall impression is a low-rise cityscape of colourfully-painted houses in the typical style of Vietnam.  The roads are just as frenetic as Hanoi,  but here there are many more cars in addition to the hoards of motorbikes and scooters.

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Vietnam day 27 – Hoi An

Posted on Thursday, 20 Nov 2008 by Hattie

We are leaving Hoi An this afternoon for Ho Chi Minh City and decide to spend our free morning  viewing one of the several historic houses in the old town that are open to the public.  Our first choice is  in one of the streets just back from the waterfront, but the the river is even higher than yesterday extending the flooding;  more streets are flooded and two bridges that were well above the water when we first arrived are almost submerged.  The street we want to visit is passable only by sampan and the house is closed for the time being at least.  Meanwhile boatmen and women are making the most of this opportunity by charging for boat rides around the flooded streets and along the swollen river.  We decide to take take a trip – the agreed price is 20,000 Dong for 30 minutes,  but when we return the price has somehow increased to 120,000 even though we had double-checked the price at the outset.  An argument ensues and eventually the boat women  accept 20,000 Dong. A lesson for future – write the price down to avoid post-trip inflation!  We go on to  visit  Quan Thang House which is outside the flood area.  The young woman who greets us explains that this house has been in her family for six generations, and had been built by an ancestor who was a Chinese captain.  The main part of the house is built of teak and includes both Chinese and Japanese elements.  There are some lovely carved walls and Japanese-style roof beams in sets of three progressively shorter beams.  Out at the back of a house there are two women making ‘White Roses’, small pastry cases filled with a shrimp paste and looking, with a bit of imagination, like white roses.  They sell this Hoi An culinary speciality to the local restaurants. We grab some lunch in a restaurant by the market where, of course, we decide to try ‘White Roses’ – which are delicious and who knows, may be the very ones we saw being made earlier.

The flight is uneventful apart from being delayed for half-an-hour coming into land due to bad weather.  Liz has been erroneously directed to International arrivals;  a fire in the domestic arrivals hall a few days earlier had resulted in domestic flights being diverted to the International arrivals hall, but all is back to normal today.  Liz and Andy have a lovely 2-bed flat  with balcony and a fabulous view of the city.  They are on the 17th floor of a 28-storey apartment block situated in the Cholon (meaning Big Market) district.  This is district 5,  the huge Chinese quarter to the west of the city centre.  Apparently the area is much less Chinese than formerly due to the anti-capitalist and anti-Chinese campaign from 1978 to 1979 when many Chinese left the country.

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