Kathryn & Rick's Blog

Happy Birthday Mai 🎉🎁🥳🎊

Today was a travel day. Before leaving the hotel the staff had arranged a small cake for Mai because it was her birthday!

We were flying out of Da Nang and we stopped at the dragon bridge on our way to the airport. The bridge crosses the river Han and was completed in 2013.

Along the water’s edge there was a statue of a carp turning into a dragon. Folklore claims that heaven once hosted a dragon competition. Only one carp succeed and it was turned into a dragon. This statue reminds one to alway strive and persevere until you succeed. It also represent luck and taking advantage of opportunities as they appear.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at 9 pm the dragon breathes fire and water.

We walked across the bridge and on the other side they were decorating for the lunar new year or Tet which is Jan 29. It will be the year of the snake.

We got back on the bus and continued to the airport where we got a flight to Nha Trang. During the late 1960s, the U.S. Army’s First Field Force, Vietnam was headquartered in Nha Trang. Nha Trang is close to Cam Ranh. In the Vietnam War, Cam Ranh was a major military stronghold of the United States and the South Vietnamese government. The US military built Cam Ranh Air Base into a major military base, with many fortifications. Four years after the fall of Saigon and the unification of North and South Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay became an important Cold War naval base for the Soviet Pacific Fleet. In 1979, the Soviet government signed an agreement with Vietnam for a 25-year lease of the base. The Vietnamese did not renew the lease in 2004. Mai told us we would see Russian signs as a result of their presence here but I haven’t seen anything yet.

After checking in at the hotel, we went for flan coffee which is like frappaccino with chucks of flan in it. Rick said it was too rich for him.

Afterwards we relaxed in the hotel for a little while before holding a small birthday celebration for Mai (our efforts yesterday were successful). The “birthday cake” was very different from our traditional birthday cake, it was very gelatinous. At the birthday party I had a little bit of bird’s nest soda. Bird’s nest soup is a delicacy in China and is made from the salvia that a swallow uses to “glue” together its nest. The soda was a little weird. One swallow (pun intended) was enough.

After our celebration we went to dinner at a barbecue restaurant. It was tasty but very smokey.

But wait there’s more. We weren’t done with our day yet. After dinner we went to see a Vietnamese grocery store. I got a snickers bar 😁😋

Today we left the hotel early because we are going to My Son sanctuary, a UNESCO site. Here’s an overview from the UNESCO website. “During the 4th to 13th centuries there was a unique culture on the coast of contemporary Vietnam, owing its spiritual origins to the Hinduism of India. This is graphically illustrated by the remains of a series of impressive tower temples in a dramatic site that was the religious and political capital of the Champa Kingdom for most of its existence.”

Until 1079 AD, Vietnam was just what is considered northern Vietnam today and the Cham Empire was in southern Vietnam. Thru a series of events the north moved south. In 1079 AD the northern Vietnamese kidnapped the Cham emperor and the Cham people gave land in order to secure his return. Then in 1305 the Cham emperor fell in love with a beautiful northern Vietnam princess and traded land for her hand in marriage. Today there are about 700,000 Cham people in Vietnam. The Cham originated from Borneo and Indonesia so they have a very distinctive look.

The My Son sanctuary was a north Viet Cong headquarters during the war so the Americans bombed it, destroying some of the temples. The French got involved to petitioned President Johnson to stop bombing this important historical site. Johnson followed through and the bombing was stopped. Here’s a bomb crater

One of the big mysteries of the site is how the temples were built. Originally the Cham built them out of wood but the temples burned. Then they tried rock and the temples collapsed under their own weight. So the final solution was bricks but they didn’t use mortar so archaeologists don’t know how they managed to build structures that have lasted over a thousand years.

There were a lot of Hindu symbols and gods. In the temples there were yonis which is a representation of the female. During their rituals they would insert a lingham, guess what that represents. There were many representations of Shiva as well as elephants.

Here are some pictures of from My Son.

After we walked around the site we saw a show of Cham dancing and music. Here are a couple of videos

We came back to Hoi An for lunch and went to a place called Street. This is a non profit started by an American to take underprivileged kids and train them to work in 4 and 5 star hotels. The kids come from orphanages, poor families, and literally from the street and go through Street’s 14 month program where they learn to cook, to serve and to speak English. Each class has 25 or 26 students and they are about to start their 20th class. The kids go through a very rigorous application process that includes staff going to meet the parents and the family. It was very uplifting to see and the food was delicious. On this page is a great short video about Street, https://www.streetsinternational.org/videos

That evening we went down to the river. Hoi An is known for lanterns, a traditional craft that dates back more than 400 years ago. We got on a boat and cruised along the river, enjoying all the lights.

Once it was completely dark we light our own paper/candle lanterns, made a wish and set them adrift.

The water is very high and we went under a bridge but we didn’t quite clear it. There were a number of loud bumps and some of us thought the canopy was going to collapse on us. Understandably the captain was quite upset. We ended up giving him some money to fix his boat.

We disembarked and walked through the night market to a fun place for dinner called Madame Vy Restaurant. It was like a food court with street food stalls. Dinner was very good but the lemongrass ice cream for dessert was absolutely delicious.

On the way back to the hotel we learned that tomorrow is Mai’s, our guide, birthday. That evening we were scrambling a bit to arrange a birthday cake for her. Stay tuned to see if we were successful.

We started the day with a walking tour of Hoi An, a registered UNESCO site. The old city is recognized as a well-preserved example of a Southeast Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century, its buildings and street plan reflecting a blend of indigenous, Chinese and Japanese influences. The town floods every year and the wet, humid atmosphere is hard on the buildings.

Our first stop was the Japanese Bridge which dates from the 16th–17th century and includes a Buddhist temple. During the 16th century, Japanese merchants began to establish residence in the port city of Faifo (now Hoi An) and established their own enclave. In 1593, one group of merchants began building a covered bridge to cross a neighborhood canal. They finished construction in 1595 and improved access to the Chinese enclave on the other side. Here are pictures of the bridge

Next we went to the Quang Trieu Assembly Hall. It is used as a place for community and religious activities of the Chinese association in the old town. It had a temple inside and a garden out back. There was a large image of three Chinese immigrants from the 2nd century. From left to right they represent strength, intelligence, and honesty. The courtyard out back had a large dragon fountain and a very large statue displaying the backend of goats, representing fertility.

We continued to Tan Ky old house which was built in 1741 and has housed seven generations of the Le family. It is a combination of Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese styles. Here are some pictures of the house.

We walked around the town a little more on our way to the silver shop where I got a necklace with the symbol of Longevity and Happiness. After everyone shopped, we made a quick stop for lychee tea and then rejoined our group for lunch.

After lunch I went to have the second fitting of my Ao Dai. It fit very well but the shoulders weren’t quite right. They tried to fix it several times but eventually told me to come back later that night. Here’s a picture of the tailor shop.

That evening we went to a show about indigenous people of the area. It had a cirque de soleil feel to it. We weren’t allow to take pictures during the show but here is a promotional video. The show was great.

Here is a picture of Rick and me with the cast after the show.

After the show, Mai got us bang mi at the restaurant that Anthony Bourdain when to in Hoi An. It was delicious!

Most people went back to the hotel but I went for a final fitting of my ao dai and it still wasn’t right but a senior tailor got involved and fixed it. I need to get pants when I get home but here’s a picture of it.

Today we left Hue so bags out at 7.  On the way out of town we stopped at Thien Mu pagoda.  This is the pagoda of the monk who self immolated in Saigon in 1963 to protest the governments treatment of Buddhists.  Here’s a video of the monks chanting in the pagoda.  

Here’s some pictures of the pagoda.

Next we took at 45 min boat ride on the perfume river.  It’s called the perfume river because in the autumn flowers from orchards upriver from Hue fall into the water giving it a perfume-like aroma.  

Then we got back on the bus to go to Hoi An. In the parking lot, we saw a sleeping bus. We have seen them on the highway but I haven’t been able to get a picture to include in the blog. So here is a sleeping bus which seems like a very popular way to travel for Vietnamese.

We stopped for lunch at a large pond where they were raising oysters.  Our restaurant had tanks of fresh fish that you could purchase.  Our meal was already cooked so we didn’t have to deal with that.  

After lunch we continued.  We went through a long tunnel to avoid going up and over a mountain.  It took 6 min to get through the tunnel, we felt like we were back in Switzerland.  

On our way to the next stop Mai told us a very emotional story.  I had asked her about the mixed blood children that were left in Vietnam after the war.  It turns out this affected her personallly.  Her beautiful aunt was raped by an American GI and ended up pregnant. The mother had a girl baby 9 months later and the GI was long gone with no consequences for his action.  This baby was largely raised by the girl’s grandmother.  She was shunned and often assaulted during to her origin (she looked big compared to the other children and had very dark skin). Eventually the US government realized that the GIs had left behind about 100,000 children and started to bring them back to the US. All of a sudden this girl who was undesirable became desirable because she was a ticket to the US. People actually tried to buy her.  Her grandmother didn’t sell her.  In 1989, the girl was 14 years old.  The government asked if her mother wanted to go with her but her mother had recently had twin babies so she decided to stay.  Therefore Mai’s cousin went to the US by herself.  It’s not clear how she survived in the US but she learned to do manicures and pedicures and worked in a nail salon.  She came back in 1998 and it was a very emotional time for the whole family.  Today the government has awarded these children of GIs Vietnamese citizenship because there is a lot of wealth in the states, a percentage of which ultimately makes its way back.  Mai got very emotional as she was telling the story and so did the rest of the bus.

Shortly thereafter we arrived at Danang Beach where we got out of the bus and walked along the beach.  This was a very popular spot for R&R during the war.  They have had 8 typhoons so far this year and the erosion on the beach is a big problem.  

We traveled for about another half hour to our hotel in Hoi An.  During the afternoon some of us went shopping. Hoi An has a large shopping district. Rick and I considered getting eye glasses but couldn’t find any we liked. Then we went to tailoring shop. It was chaos. They had books we could look through for designs. Then we were able to pick out fabric of our liking. They measured us and we were to come back the next day for a fitting. They must have an army of seamstresses sewing these clothes. I got a traditional Vietnamese dress.

We had dinner that night at a very interesting restaurant called Rêu that does farm to table dining. It was delicious. The trip to the restaurant included some very narrow streets that could not fit our bus so we needed to switch to little tuk tuk like trucks. It was a fun but bumpy ride.

We started our day with a trip to the Citadel.  Hue is considered southern Vietnam as it was south of the demilitarized zone.  The weather was overcast.  Normally the humidity is very high so there is a lot of moss and mildew on all the buildings.  

Hue was the imperial city from 1802 until 1945 during the Nguyen dynasty.  As a side note, there were 10 dynasties in Vietnam’s history.  Most of the people’s last name is one of the dynasty names because if they worked for the administration they would take the dynasty’s name. 

The Imperial City is a walled enclosure within the Citadel of the city of Hue.  It contains the palaces that housed the imperial family, as well as shrines, gardens, and villas for mandarins. Constructed in 1803 under Emperor Gia Long as a new capital, it mostly served a ceremonial function during the French colonial period. The Citadel was heavily damaged during the war. The Imperial City was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993 as part of The Complex of Huế Monuments and is undergoing restoration.

We learned about concubines and eunuches.  Eunuches would travel around the country looking for potential concubines.  Potential concubines were as young as 15 years old and needed to be a virgin.  The eunuch would take a drawing of the girl to the emperor and he would give thumbs up or thumbs down.  The girl, once chosen, would be under a lot of pressure to go to the king because if she was choosen the whole village would benefit.  If accepted she would live in the palace and be trained by her pimp, oh I mean eunuch. If she gets pregnant and it’s a boy her son could become the next emperor.  You can image there was a good deal of palace politics among the young ladies.

The emperor and empress really liked their food.  They typically had 50 different dishes at any one meal.  The food here in the south tends to be a little spicier than the food in Hanoi.  

Here are pictures of the Citadel.  

This a a ky lin, a legendary creature that is the combination of 4 mythical animals in Vietnamese culture – unicorn, phoenix, dragon, and turtle. It is supposed to bring good luck, prosperity and good fortune. It was place at entrance of the city and it was considered to have the power to protect the city from bad spirits.

Next we went to a Buddhist nunnery for a “meditation lunch”.  Only four nuns live in this nunnery.  None of them joined us for the lunch.  The nuns are vegetarians so there was no meat for lunch and we needed to be silent, giving thanks for the food that was nourishing our bodies and being thankful for the farmers who grew the food.  After lunch we met the nun.  She was 51 years old and had been there for 37 years.  As a child she wanted to become a nun. Her parents weren’t so sure about her desires, but she came for a trial. After the trial she went back home but ended up running away and going back to the nunnery.  

They start their day at 3:15am and end it at 9:30.  There are several periods for chanting and meditating.  At the end of the visit she chanted for us; it was beautiful.  

We went back to the hotel and both of us took a nap.  I got up in order to go to the orphaage but Rick stayed and napped, he is still not feeling very well.  

The orphanage receives support from the Grand Circle Foundation, a foundation established by our tour company.  It is for handicapped individuals.  It provides services for 60 people, ages 1 to 60, and is run by catholic nuns, 16 in total.  Some of the individuals are truly orphans and some come for day programs and then go home at night.  We walked around the classrooms and then talked to the nun. I found the experience to be overwhelming.  Many of us had brought presents and we gave them to the nuns.  While in Vietnam I had made at sweater for a toddler and gave it to them.  Before I left they put it on a 1 year old girl and it fit perfectly.  

When I got back to the hotel, Rick had been sleeping.  We decided not to join the group for dinner.  Mai brought some food back for us.  

Today is primarily a travel day.  We are going back to the Hanoi airport and then to Hue which is the historical capital of the country.  I was up early to do Tai Chi on the deck.  One of the members of the boat crew led us in some very simple Tai Chi moves.  The weather was very nice and it was wonderful to be on the upper deck of the boat, watching the beautiful scenery, and moving my body.  Just before our departure from the boat, the chef gave a quick demonstration of how he made the decorations for last night’s dinner.  

Here are a few pictures of Halong Bay.

We went back to the bus via the tender. Our first stop is a pearl cultivation farm.  They only grow sea pearls here.  Fresh water pearls are cheaper because a single oyster can create up to 10 pearls and they have 100% success rate.  At the farm they cultivate 3 different types of oysters which give three different colors of pearls.  First they harvest membranes from an oyster.  The membrane donating oyster is then used for food (we had cooked oysters at dinner last night.  I didn’t try them and Rick was asleep).  The membrane is cut up and inserted along with a mother of pearl seed  into another oyster’s ovary.  Oysters have both sex organs so they all have ovaries.  The membrane increases the chance of success that a pearl will grow. Some portion of the oysters die as a result of implantation process.  Then they are put in racks and put back into HaLong bay.  They are pulled out every month and cleaned.  The oyster creates a pearl in 1 to 5 years, depending on the type of oyster.  Obviously larger pearls take longer to grow.  They have about a 40% success rate.  

After the tutorial they invited us into their showroom.  I ended up getting a mother of pearl bracelet, Happy Birthday to me.  

Then we proceeded to on to the humanity center that we stopped in yesterday for lunch.  Over lunch Mai talked to me a little bit about divorce in Vietnam.  The divorce rate is 20%.  It is a patriarchal society so divorce definitely favors the man.  A woman may or may not get child support and often it will be difficult for her to remarry.  Often the man will remarry.  

Then back on the bus where Mai talked about Buddhism in Vietnam. Vietnam practices Mahayana Buddhism and followers believe in the concept of reincarnation. The end of this life is the beginning of the next and whatever we did in this life will be reflected in the next life. There are 6 levels of reincarnation nirvana, holy, human, animals, insects, and hungry ghosts. The spirit stays in the human realm for 49 days during which the family needs to cover all the reflective surfaces in the house so the ghost doesn’t see that their body is missing. Then the spirit goes across a bridge from one life to another. While on the bridge, the spirits drinks forgetting porridge. Deja vu is the result of not drinking all of your forgetting porridge.

I tried to ask question to reconcile the Buddhist beliefs with the ancestor altars, etc but I still don’t understand how they work together. My best guess is that they are merging two belief systems and they don’t merge neatly.

We arrived at the airport and it was all easy.  We arrived in Hue at 5:30 and it was 7 before we were checked into our new hotel.

That evening we had dinner in the hotel and celebrated another birthday. Happy Birthday Beverly!

We were up early today because we were leaving Hanoi and going to HaLong bay, a Unesco world heritage site.  As we were leaving Hanoi we saw many roadside shops with huge containers of orchids that are being sold for the lunar new year. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a picture but here’s a picture I downloaded of the type of flowers they were selling.  

Along the way we stopped at the Doc La war cemetery.  It contained graves men who fought in one of the wars, mostly what we call the Vietnam war but what the Vietnamese call the American war.  There are many such cemeteries around the country and they are for people who fought on the North Vietnamese side.  Mai asked us to be respectful and speak to the spirit before we took a picture of the grave.  We were supposed to introduce ourselves, tell the spirit where we are from, ask to take a picture and wish the spirit to rest in peace.  Here is a picture of a grave.  

Notice it has a hole in the stone; this is so the spirit can get in and out. Next there were 3 or 5 cups on the tomb.   One for sky, earth, and human.  They also had a pot to hold incense sticks.  As I mentioned before they give food and drink offerings and before you can remove the offering to eat it you must burn incense.  The marker listed the name, date of birth, date the person went into the army, date the person died and their hometown.  It’s not usual for families to request the remains back so they can be buried closer to the other ancestors.  

Also in the cemetery, there were a few heroic mothers, women who lost 2 or more sons to a war.  

After Mai showed us the tomb, she talked to cemetery “manager”.  This a volunteer who looks after the graves.  He was a soldier in the border war and he feels that it is his honor to look after these graves.  We went inside where there was an altar dedicated to Ho Chi Minh.  Mai lit some incense for him. 

Northern Vietnam has a different burial tradition than Southern Vietnam.  In the south, they just bury the person and it’s done.  In the north after the person dies the family consults with the local shaman on the best dates for the first burial.  The person is buried in a shallow grave for three years and at the end of that time only bones are left.  The body is dug up by a younger male family member and the bones are retrieved.  They are repackaged and reburied in the final grave (See Jan 6 for picture of terracotta caskets).  The shaman is also consulted on the date for the second burial.  Because there is more time to plan, the whole family comes to the second burial and there is a big celebration.  This is not the case for the graves at the war cemetery.

We got back on the bus and Mai went through Vietnamese history (I’m not going to recount it here. If you are interested check out wikipedia).  Our next stop was the Humanity Center which is a site for victims of agent orange to live, make, and sell their handicrafts.  They showed us how they make lacquer paintings and embroidered art.  We didn’t see anything we liked so we didn’t get anything there.  

We continued our journey and finally arrived at HaLong Bay.  The weather was overcast and not particularly great for seeing the bay.  We boarded a tender and were taken to our boat where we were served lunch.  

After lunch we had some free time.  Rick promptly curled up in the bed and took a nap.  

We reconvened at 4 to meet with Mai and she gave us information about HaLong Bay.  

The name HaLong means “descending dragon”.  It has an area of around 1,553 km2 (600 sq mi), including 1,969 islets, most of which are limestone. The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation through differing conditions and environmental impacts. The evolution of the islet in this bay has taken 20 million years under the impact of the tropical wet climate.

Next we (Rick stayed on the boat and was still napping) went to surprising cave via the tender.  The cave had three large chambers. Here are a few pictures.  

We got back to the boat and had a little time before dinner. Rick was down for the night.  We had many dinner courses. The presentation for the food was amazing.  As you can see from the pictures below we had fish under a net. The net was made from a fresh carrot.  We also had a dish that was decorated with a fish made out of carrots.  

After dinner Mai made an announcement that someone in our group is turning 21 today and guess what! It was me.  Forever 21.  They brought out a birthday a cake and sang to me.  A crew member carved a watermelon for me. Mai also gave me a card that everyone had signed.  It was a very nice way to end my birthday.  

We were able to sleep in (a tiny bit) and didn’t need to leave the hotel until 8:30.  I’m feeling surprisingly good, the drugs are working!  However Rick is coughing which he says is from the pollution (I saw an article online saying that Hanoi is the most polluted city in the world right now) but I’m wondering if he got what I had.  

We drove to Bat Trang. Our first stop was to talk with someone affected by the controversial issue of land reform.  In 1953 after the French left and Ho Chi Minh took control of the northern half of the country land was redistributed from the wealthy to the poor.  Three years later he realized he’d made a mistake and returned some of the property to the original owners.  The government does not speak of this today and the gentleman who we spoke to could get in trouble for speaking to us so I will leave the details of his story and pictures from our visit out of the blog.  

After visiting Mr Nam’s (fictitious name) house, we went to Hiep Nhung Ceramic Workshop and learned how they make ceramics.  The village of Bat Trang is strategically located along the Red River which is where the clay originally came from.  The government is concerned about erosion so they now get the clay from elsewhere.  To make the ceramics the clay is diluted and then poured into a limestone mold.  The mold sucks the water out and causes the clay to harden along the clay/ mold interface.  They leave the wet clay in the mold for 5-7 minutes, depending on how thick they want the pot.  The pot dries some before they carve a design into it and then paint it.  The final step is to glaze it before firing it.  

After seeing the process, we tried our hand at making a pot using a manual wheel.  Although I have taken pottery before I found it very hard with the manual wheel.  I gave up and just had fun with it.  Rick had better luck.  We did a little shopping and then we returned to Hanoi.  

  On our way back we saw the Hanoi ceramic mosaic mural on the walls of the red river dike system.  The mural is 4 miles long and it commemorates Hanoi’s 1000 year birthday in 2010.  Many Vietnamese artists participated as well as foreign embassies and cultural centers.  The ceramic for the mural came from Bat Trang, the village we just visited.  The content of the mosaic represents the decorative patterns from different periods in the history of Vietnam. Also incorporated on the wall are modern art works, paintings of Hanoi, and children’s drawings.  The mural is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest mural.

We went to lunch in Hanoi and on the way back to the hotel we stopped for egg coffee.  Egg coffee is prepared with egg yolks, sugar, condensed milk, and robusta coffee. Rick liked it!

That evening we had dinner on our own and so I went out for avocado ice cream with my fellow travelers, Mingjen, Nancy, and Judy.  

This is a very long post, sorry about that but it was a very busy day! And I was feeling well enough that I lasted the whole day!

We left the hotel at 8 and were headed to Tho Ha Village for what OAT calls “A Day in the Life”. During the first hour of our bus ride, Mai talked about the Vietnamese language. Vietnamese has 29 letters and many of the letters have various accents and additions, such as D and Ð or A and Ǎ. It is a tonal language, similar to Chinese, with regional variations. The Vietnamese were forced to speak Chinese during the Chinese rule from 111 BC to 938 AD. As a form of rebellion they bastardized the language and that’s the origin of today’s Vietnamese. The language has 6 different tones which means that a word can be said 6 different ways and it has at least 6 different meanings. The meaning of the word also depends on its context. For example, our guide’s name Mai can mean apricot blossom, luck, tomorrow, sharpen, female, absorber, forever, or trading depending on how it’s pronounced and how it’s used. The original language was written in Chinese style characters but in the 17th century Alexander de Rhodes introduced the romanized script which was used by the educated elite. Ho Chi Minh published a book using it in the early 20th century and the script was adopted countrywide.

During our lesson Mai had us practice some common phrases, such as hello, thank you, etc which were going to be important because we were going to stop at a market.

At the market our first stop was at a stand selling areca nuts. Areca nuts are chewed for their effects as a mild stimulant. The lady at the stand made a small phoenix out of leaves, bark, a rose petal, and the nut. Then two members of our group decided they wanted to try chewing the nuts. For chewing, a few slices of the nut are wrapped in a betel leaf along with ground limestone and sometimes spices for extra flavoring. They chewed the concoction and then split it out. Mai gave them strict instructions not to swallow any of the juice because then they would get high. You can see from the pictures the color of Jeff’s tongue as a result.

Our next stop was a breakfast stand where a woman was cooking steam rice batter (rice flour, water, and salt) to make rice paper. She scrapped the paper off the steamer and sprinkled in some cooked ground pork or dried mushrooms and made a “crepe”. She served it with pork sausage. Rick tried it and said it was just bland. There was a very cute little girl at the stand enjoying breakfast with her grandmother.

Here are a few other pictures from the market

After we walked through the market, Mai organized us into teams for a little competition. She gave each team a shopping list. Originally we thought we were buying ingredients to take to the village for our lunch but really it was a chance to interact with the locals using the words we had learned on the bus. We were teamed with Anne and Jim, a couple from California, and I used google translate to determine that we were supposed to buy tomatoes, cucumbers, and limes. The list included how much we should spend on each item.

Mai told us the rules of the game, we had to buy the product ( she gave us money), take a selfie with the vendor, and not come back early (she wanted us to use all of our time to interact with the locals). Since we really didn’t need the produce for lunch we could give back all the produce except one piece and let them keep the money. We went to three different vendors and communicated by pointing and then typing the amount of money we wanted to spend into the phone. They were often very confused when we started giving most of the produce back and tried to give us money back but we insisted they keep it. Here are selfies of us with one of the vendors. Her expression in the second picture says everything. We all had a lot of fun.

Somehow we had money left over so we bought some flowers in an effort to bribe the judge. She appreciated the flowers but was not swayed.

We got back on the bus and continued our journey to Tho Ha. We had to take a ferry to arrive at the village. Here are pictures of the ferry and the river.

The chief of the village, Mr. Viet, greeted us when we got off the ferry. The village is famous for their handmade rice paper which is used for summer rolls and rice crackers. Mr Viet walked us to his house. Here are some pictures from along the way.

When we arrived at Mr Viet’s house there was a lady making rice paper. They showed us how to make rice paper and we each got a chance to try. It’s not as easy as it looks.

Then we proceeded to make spring rolls. We combined glass noodles, pork, mushrooms, carrots, sprouts, onions, scallions and eggs (to bind it) for the stuffing.

To start the assembly process we rubbed a tomato on the rice paper to moisten it, then scooped some stuffing onto the paper and folded it like a burrito.  We rubbed the last portion of the “burrito” with tomato and sealed it shut.  It’s a Vietnam belief that you can’t get married until you can successfully make a spring roll!

After making the spring rolls we went to the living room with the chief while his wife and her helper cooked lunch.  

The family’s ancestor alter was the focal point of the room.  On the wall behind the altar were pictures of the ancestors and on the alter itself were flowers, fresh fruit and incense. The chief lit some fresh incense and showed us how he honored the ancestors.  The food on the altar can be eaten after incense is burned.  The Chief is wearing his traditional outfit for us.

Next he told us about the village, himself, and we asked questions.  The village is 700 years old.  It has about 4,000 residents and 1,000 households.  He is 68 years old and fought in the border war with China and Cambodia.  The chief was a party member.  The term of the chief is 4 years and he has served for two consecutive terms.   Each household gets one vote. His duties include taking care of the village’s medical, and educational needs, ensuring the village’s security, and managing the village’s economy.  

The village is a UNESCO intangible value site due to its unique old music. He holds weekly music tutoring sessions for the kids who are interested as a way to ensure the music tradition continues.  He had quite a few instruments on the walls and someone asked if he could play them, so he took one down and gave us a little concert (you can see one of our group joined him and we all helped him sing).   Here are a couple of videos.  

After our concert we had delicious lunch.  Before leaving they gave us a package of their famous rice paper.    

Someone had asked about the village’s medical facility so the chief arranged for us to visit his neighbor, the doctor.  The doctor and his family have been the village doctors for 6th generations.  The doctor uses only plant based products to treat a wide variety of ailments.  He doesn’t deliver babies. That’s done at the hospital. The doctor served us detox tea.

Here are some pictures from the doctor’s house.

After our visit with the doctor we left the village and went back to Hanoi.  In Hanoi we had a little down time before our optional tour of the backstreets of Hanoi while riding in a UAZ (a Russian military vehicle similar to a jeep). Here is a video I took as we drove down the street. It really sums up Hanoi.

We stopped at a food stand where we got a sandwich with grilled pork and salad. 

Next step was a working class (it’s not called lower class) neighborhood where people live in apartment buildings built the Russians in the 60s.  They were not in very good shape.  Originally there was 2 shared bathrooms on each floor but many people have expanded their apartment to add a bathroom inside their apartment.  Our guide told us that the monthly cost of these apartment would be $75/month.  Most people in Hanoi bring their scooters inside at night and in these apartment buildings, people bring their scooters into their apartment. If they come home before 10 they can use their motors to get the scooters upstairs. After 10 they must push the bike up as many as 5 flights.  One of these pictures shows how everyone has their own water tanks to ensure they have water if the electricity goes out.  

Then we drove through the sky market where they sell a lot of electrical and mechanical parts.  Our guide told us that it’s called the sky market because many of the products are hot and when you ask the vendor where the product came from, he will say it dropped out of the sky.  

Next we went to a middle class neighborhood.  In this neighborhood the houses are very slim and built up!  

This is because originally the French taxed real estate based on land square footage.   Here’s a video of neighborhood hacky sack.

While driving around we passed some road construction for the metro.  In an effort to alleviate traffic the government is installing a metro system in Hanoi.  They have been working on it for 5 years.  It seems that people are skeptical about whether it will be useful and whether people will use it.  

Next stop was train street.  There is one train line in Vietnam, built by the French, which stretches 1100 miles from the Chinese border to Ho Chi Minh City.  It passes through Hanoi.  This neighborhood became popular just before the pandemic when people started to show it on TickTock and Instagram.  As it became more popular locals started adding coffee shops next to the train tracks.  The coffee shops started encroaching on the train tracks.  We had a drink there and waited for the train to come.  When the train came, people were sitting close enough to touch the train and it was traveling pretty fast.  It was pretty cool.  Since another train from the other direction was coming in 15 minutes we decided to wait for it.  

After the excitement of the train we went to dinner and then back to the hotel.  It was a fun day and I made it all the way through!

I was feeling a little better but I opted not to go on the morning activity. They went to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, his house, the one pillar pagoda and the presidential palace.

According to Wikipedia, Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969, and as its first prime minister from 1945 to 1955. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, he founded the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 and its successor Workers’ Party of Vietnam (later the Communist Party of Vietnam) in 1951, serving as the party’s chairman until his death. I watched Ken Burn’s documentary about the Vietnam War and there he was portrayed as very focused on unifying Vietnam and getting rid of the foreigners, namely the Japanese, French and Americans.

Here’s a picture of the mausoleum and the pagoda

After lunch they went to the Hanoi Hilton which people told me was very moving. Here are some pictures from the Hanoi Hilton.

After the Hanoi Hilton the group came back to the hotel and had a little down time before going to see the water puppets. I had been resting all day to make sure I had energy for the water puppets. We went to Phan Thanh Liêm’s house to see the water puppets. Water puppets are in his genes and he represents the 7th generation of his family making water puppets and performing shows. It takes about 6 months to make a water puppet.

His house was full of puppets and puppet parts. They are made from ficus wood and have many layers of lacquer to protect them in the water. It seems that water puppetry may be a dying art because it is not lucrative enough to attract new puppeteers. The puppeteers sit behind a bamboo screen and the puppets are on sticks that extend under the water into the area where the puppets perform. Here are some pictures and videos from the visit.

The first video is two water buffalo fighting and you can hear us in the background cheering on our favorite buffalo. The second video is very short but shows phoenix (as I mentioned earlier in the blog there are 4 imaginary animals in Vietnamese culture, phoenix, unicorn, dragon, and turtle?)

That evening some of the group including Rick went to the restaurant that Anthony Boudain went with Obama. I decided to skip it because I thought I should rest up for tomorrow.

The food was delicious!!!