Hoi An Nighttime

After four days of non-stop activity, we took a short flight North to Hoi An. Hoi An, is a very much a vacation area for Vietnamese and foreigners alike. It is a World Heritage site and will provide us with some very welcome down time. Maybe more down time than we planned on since it is supposed to rain the next two days, and I don’t think we will do our bike ride if it is raining.

Long took us to the airport and escorted us through the checkin process and all the way to security where we bid him goodbye. It is really comforting traveling with a well trained guide in a country where you can barely say, hello and thank you. They make everything go smoothly. After a short flight to Danang, we were met by our guide Binh who will be with us for our time in Hoi An.

After checking in to the beautiful Ananantara Resort Hotel we went with Binh for some lunch and a walking tour of the old city. This is definitely a shopping destination, and I have a feeling we will be buying (and shipping home) some embroidered artwork. It is so finely done it is nearly photo realistic quality.

After resting up in our room we went out for a walk through the markets and shops at night. It is really beautiful here at night. The gallery below gives you a good idea of the colors here at night.

We totally enjoyed a long walk through the old town. After a while we stopped at a restaurant called the Seafood Garden. It didn’t look particularly great as a place to eat, and without a data plan we couldn’t just pop up trip advisor. Well we do have a data plan but it is ridiculously expensive (thanks Verizon), and it seemed obvious just by looking. (Update: TripAdvisor confirms our suspicions) But they had an upstairs balcony that we could sit at and have a drink and look out over the river. The drinks were cheap, and it was entertaining to watch the old gentleman who was waiting tables hustle tours from all of the other people around us for the next day.

We wanted to go back to the restaurant where we had lunch, as I think we spend a few days just happily working our way through the menu, however they were booked for the night. Who knew you needed reservations in this place. We ended up eating at the Hai Cafe where we had some nice Vietnamese barbecue. This is the restaurant where we will meet for our cooking class tomorrow.

The Meekong Delta

The Meekong Delta

The picture pretty much sums up our experience here the last two days. We have both pushed ourselves outside our comfort zone, we have tried many new foods, and even took a sip of rice wine that had been marinating with cobra! Where do you go after a day like that?

Yesterday we left our hotel in the city and headed out to the Meekong Delta. This is an extremely fertile area where the Meekong river flows into the Sea. We started our day loading our bikes onto a boat and we headed up the river into the delta.

We made a stop along the way at a brick factory. It is such a step back in time, to visit a factory like this in Vietnam. We simply got off the boat and wandered around talking to a few of the workers. No badges required, no hard helmets, no insurance waivers. Its a pretty simple process, clay comes out of the river, and goes into a little hand operated machine that mikes the clay and extrudes the bricks. After drying on their own for a few weeks they eventually make it into a big kiln which is fired by rice husks.

We got off the boat, along with our bikes at another small factory, this time they were making all kinds of things out of coconuts. Coconut water, candy, coconut milk, shaved coconut. If it was possible to squeeze another product out of coconut they would find a way to do it. Before we set off on our bikes we had a whole plate of fruit to try. Including dipping your fresh pineapple into a mixture of salt and chile peppers -- delicious. I ate more fruit yesterday than I have in a year. Which isn’t saying much good about my diet, I know.

After an hour or so of biking through the tiny backroads of the delta we stopped for lunch. A great outdoor restaurant that basically appeared out of nowhere. One minute we were biking through the trees and the next we were pulling into a “neighborhood restaurant.” Our first course was fried spring rolls. Love em. Our second consisted of a whole Elephant Ear fish, fried and presented standup style for us. For you aquarium keepers this is also known as a Giant Gourami. I’ve had gouramis in my aquarium before, but I never thought I’d eat one. Anyway, we learned how to eat this by rolling the fish, along with some rice noodles and some pineapple and cucumber and mint, and basil in rice paper. The third course was a noodle soup which also had two giant prawns for us to try. Then came a course which consisted of a bowl of rice and some chicken curry. Of course by this time we were totally stuffed, and leaving all kinds of food on the table. So of course they have to bring dessert. Well, more fruit at least.

I honestly do not know how all of the vietnamese people stay so healthy and slim. From what I have observed in the last three days they eat insane quantities of food.

After lunch we do a bunch more biking, and then end up at our “homestay” house. This was the part of the trip that had me the most nervous. Honestly, I like my nice hotels, I’m really more of an introvert when it comes to meeting new people, so showing up at someone’s house in the middle of the delta, knowing in advance that the house did not have air conditioning, internet, or hot water seemed like a bad idea. But it all worked out.

One of the great highlights of the evening was our spring roll lesson. Yep, in a real Vietnamese kitchen I got to learn first hand how to make one of my all time favorite foods.

It was a pretty early night, and as it turned out pretty sleepless as well. We were hot, and our mattress was pretty hard, “softer than cement” according to Jane. So it was early to bed early to rise. We had a quick breakfast, and then biked to the local market. In the delta, locally grown is not a “movement,” it is a way of life, and has been for years. The pork that is sold fresh at the market was butchered just hours ago, and it will all be consumed before the day is out. Fish, eel, frogs, etc. are all still alive and swimming when you get there, when you pick out what you want they will fillet them for you. It was all caught today, and it will all be eaten today. The produce is a similar story with more kinds of fruits and vegetables available than I can even think about.

After the local market we meet up with our driver again, and we head somewhere else on the delta to visit the Cai Be floating market. This is similar to the local market but here things come, by boat, from further away. Each boat sells its specialty, and you can tell what they are selling because they have it flying from a flagpole on the boat!

Here is where things take a turn for the weird. It seems that Long has decided we need to be challenged. So after we get off the boat and bike for a few feet, he stops and says he wants to show us “how they make honey” OK, fine we get to see a beehive, but thats not enough, as he wants me to hold it. There must be a thousand bees on this thing and he wants me to just stay calm and hold the thing.

That turned out to be easy compared to the next lesson: a big jar, whats in the jar? Looks like snakes to me. Gross. Have I mentioned my lifelong fear of snakes? OK, so its a jar full of rice wine and snakes. Lets see what kind of snake? Oooooh a Cobra, glad its dead and pickled. Glad he didn’t tell me they were lurking around on the delta until now. Lets have a toast shall we? Um, really? you want me to drink rice wine that has been marinating a dead cobra? Fine. Well, it mostly tasted like strong rice wine, but apparently I’m going to be stronger tomorrow. Yes, just in case you were wondering, they do have a similar variety featuring a scorpion.

Which brings us to the giant Python. After pulling it out of its cage, and informing us that it is not poisonous, but does bite. He says, ok Brad, your turn. Really! I can assure you that holding a giant Python has never been on my list of things I want to try. I can also assure you that I had not consumed enough rice wine and cobra to give me the courage to do this. But, something deep inside me said, if you are going to teach Python you ought to have a picture of yourself holding a giant one. So there you have it. More on the Meekong Delta later.

My Life as a Tunnel Rat

For Sale: Spacious multi-bedroom dwelling, Over 150,000 square kilometers. three levels, the lowest will withstand even the heaviest B-52 bombing. Includes meeting rooms and hospitals. Miles of short narrow corridors, ideal for hobbits. Secret underwater entrance.

How would you like to live for nine years in an underground house? Yesterday we met Mr. Nam, who did just that. Mr. Nam fought for the Viet Cong. First against the French, then against the Americans. The Cu Chi area is now a park where you can learn about the Viet Cong, including a very one-sided video produced in 1967.

Then you can actually tour the tunnels. In the gallery below you can see me entering the tunnel through one of the many hidden entrances. I emerge again a few minutes later at another hidden entrance about 20 feet away from the first. At 6 feet tall I am definitely not built for climbing around in these tunnels.

The whole Cu Chi area really gave you a good sense for what the jungle was like. Bamboo trees, vines, paths through the trees, lots of overgrown bomb craters. The only thing missing from the war movies (thankfully!) was pounding rain.

Here are links to a couple of videos Jane took of me getting into and leaving the tunnel.

• Part 1, into the tunnel
• Part 2 out of the tunnel

Ten Thousand Things you can Haul on a Motorbike

To say that there is a motorbike culture here in Saigon is a bit of an understatement. The population of Saigon is around seven million people and there are about four million motorbikes. Today we got to be a part of it all.

I’ll spare you the details of our journey to get here, suffice to say that we started by leaving our hotel in Bloomington, MN at 5AM on New Years Day, and we arrived at our hotel in Saigon at 1:05AM on January 3rd. All of the first and second were a spent in airports on or on planes. I’m just going to say one time how happy we were to use our American frequent flier miles to upgrade to business class. Although we may be spoiled for life, and never travel any other way again.

Today was our first day of touring with Long, our Saigon guide. Our tour itinerary said that we were going to have a cultural and culinary experience by motorbike. For some reason I had a vision in my head of Jane and I sitting side by side in some kind of three wheel arrangement with the driver in front of us. This was not the case.

When we met Long this morning in the hotel lobby, he immediately brought us outside and introduced us to his assistant! Now there are four of us, my vision for the day was changing rapidly. In the end, we each got a helmet, and hopped on the motor cycle behind them. Off we went.

Our first stops of the day were the post office, the Catholic cathedral, the Reunification Palace, and the war museum. I’m still trying to process the war museum, so a post about that will have to wait. Then lunch at a traditional family Pho restaurant. Beef noodle soup and spring rolls. Yum.

For me the day really got fun when we just toured through the markets on the motorbikes. We drove down hundreds of narrow streets that no car or tour bus would ever venture down, and we noticed that there is almost nothing you can not carry on the back of a motorbike. The first thing that caused me to do a double take was a motorbike carrying 50 bags of goldfish! Then I noticed the man with five 20 liter water bottles balanced. Next was big plastic tub full of live lobster. The gallery below has some of our favorites.

Now I know some of you are wondering about our sanity. Arriving in a big city and jumping on the back of a motorbike for a day of touring. I have to say that I felt like I was not totally safe the entire time. There is something very interesting about sitting knee to knee with a stranger at a stoplight in a new city that makes you feel like you are getting to know the people.

Turning left at a busy intersection is a somewhat intricate dance. The first thing you do is get in the left lane and drive straight at the oncoming traffic, which magically veers around you as if you were not even there. Then when you turn left you can do it at almost any time. My preferred time is when the bus in front of you also turns left and acts as a giant shield. But it turns out that oncoming traffic slows, and traffic coming from the right also makes way and suddenly you are just going left. Its kind of like they can all read each others minds and just know when to slow down, when to speed up, and when to merge. I have some suspicion that this is accomplished by a secret code that is communicated by honking your horn, but I have yet to break the code.

I keep thinking to myself how this would never work in America. Someone would surely run into someone else just to prove the point that they had the right of way. A day on one corner of riding like this in America would surely beget a thousand lawsuits.

Here’s an inadvertent selfie I got as I was taking a photo as we were driving down the street.

The marketplaces we visited are just mind boggling. Street after street of motorbike parts, electronics, cookware, you name it. At one stall there were hundreds and hundreds of television remotes. If you need a replacement, and can find this stall I’m sure they would have just what you need. I’m not sure how this economy works. It seems like total chaos to me, but it was clear that people were doing business. Orders were taken, things were being welded or cut, and things were delivered.

In the food marketplace there were thousands of stalls. Everything was jammed so close together you could hardly walk down the aisles. The merchants must show about about 5am every morning to lay out their wares, and then put everything away again at the end of the night. Some stalls are so specialized you can’t imagine that they could possibly make it, but there they are, taking orders on their phones, doing their books, and scooping out things to deliver.

At the end of the day we sent off two more loaded down motorbikes. Our guides took off carrying our large suitcases. We had planned to travel light for the rest of our time in Vietnam, and so we will catch up with our bags in Cambodia.

The Gang’s all here

All of our students arrived safely by 11:00 last night. We got them up early this morning for a bit of sightseeing and wandering around Valletta. We all did The Malta Experience, which gave us an amazing overview of the history of this island dating back to 4000 BC. It is really incredible, Malta has been ruled by: Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Swabian, Aragonese, The Knights of St. John, French, and British! I’m sure I left out a few! A lot of it has to do with the fact that Malta is right on the trade route from the eastern to the western Mediterranean and beyond. I am really looking forward to our history class which starts this week.

In the meantime, we are enjoying the sunshine, and the Amazing views that are everywhere!