In Nha Trang

We arrived in Nha Trang two nights ago, and we're leaving for Ha Noi tonight on the train. It's been raining ever since we left Da Lat. We haven't seen much because of the rain, but we have eaten some good seafood. We'll have to come back sometime when the weather is better. We did go to the Oceanographic Institute, which has a pretty nice aquarium, yesterday. We walked about three miles to get there and got pretty much soaked in the rain. We took a cab back to town and went to a restaurant the cab driver recommended, which probably wasn't a good way to find a place to eat, but it was delicious. We had a seafood hot pot -- lau, the kind you cook at your table -- with a crab and squid and fish and who knows what else.

We had a very interesting trip from Da Lat to Buon Me Thuot. We took a bus, and the scenery was absolutely spectacular the whole way. Things got interesting when we got within about 25 km of Buon Me Thuot. The road was so flooded, vehicles could not get through. We waited on the bus for only about 10 minutes before we were told to get on a boat that would take us to the other side of the flooding. The boat was a little scary -- overcrowded and no guard rails to prevent us from falling or being bumped overboard. We got to the other side safely though. We waded through some more water, then came to a van that was already overcrowded -- there was no way the three of us -- we were travelling with Sonne, a Dutch woman we met in Cat Tien Nat'l Park -- could get on the bus. The driver apparently said he would be back in 45 minutes, but that couldn't have been possible. We started looking for another ride. We ended up riding on the back of an open-bed transport truck with a few Vietnamese people, but the driver stopped about half way and went into a cafe. We learned he was afraid of getting in trouble with the police for hauling passengers -- I don't know why. One of the Vietnamese women had a cell phone and called for a cab, which worked out fine.

We spent the night in Buon Me Thuot at a hotel, because it was too late for Hoa's family to come get us. They live on a farm about 30 km or so outside town. The next morning we went to the farm. Hoa's aunt Khanh has 10 kids, all adults. Most are married and have children, so it's a huge family. I think Hoa wants to talk about the time we spent in BMT, so I'll just say that although life on the farm is more difficult than in other places we've been in Vietnam we had a great time, the family was very nice, and I enjoyed my short time of picking coffee.

Tom

Cat Tien National Park

We arrived in Cat Tien Saturday and left yesterday afternoon. Cat Tien is absolutely spectacular, but I'm a little reluctant to tell our full story about the trip. The full story makes us sound like idiots and is likely to worry our mothers. [Note to moms: we learned our lesson and will never do this again]. Here's what happened. We got to Cat Tien Saturday afteroon too late to do any big trips, so we decided to go for a short walk down the narrow paved road that runs through the park. We weren't planning on going far and planned on staying on this main path. So (and here's where our stupidity began) we took only a camera and binoculars and wore sandals. No food, water, map, headlamp, rain jacket, etc. And no decent shoes, and certainly no leech socks.

We were having a great time and had seen some pretty spectacular birds and butterflies. I got pretty excited and wanted to start hiking down the first marked trail we came to. There was a sign and the sign said the trail was only something like 21 meters long. We figured we'd walk down the trail a little ways and then come back the way we'd gone in. So even though we were completely unprepared for hiking, we thought it would be OK. After all, how can you get lost on a 21-meter trail? Well, the trail continued further than we expected, and we kept hiking, thrilled with the sights and sounds of the tropical forest. We finally came to the huge tree that was the end of the trail, and the trail looped back. Or at least we thought it looped back. I never doubted that we were on the same trail we'd come in on and heading back to the road. By now it was starting to get dark. But we knew the trail was very distinct and there was no way we could get off the trail, given the dense forest on either side. We walked further than it seemed necessary to get back to the road, and soon our trail simply came to a dead end in the forest. It was obvious now that we had somehow gotten off the main trail. We started to back track but soon found ourselves off the trail, bushwhacking through the forest. By now, it was almost completely dark, and we were close to panicking. I knew the road had to be close because we just hadn't walked that far, but we had no idea which way to go. We knew we had to get back on the trail but couldn't find it, and didn't want to walk too far, possibly in the wrong direction, leading us deeper into the forest. I felt squishy stuff between my toes, and suspected leeches (I'd never had a leech before) but didn't even want to check. When Hoa realized there were leeches on her feet, she freaked out. Eventually she calmed down a little, but we still didn't know what to do. We decided to find a relatively open place to sit and think and calm down, knowing panicking was the worst thing we could do. We found a place beneath a huge tree and sat on some fallen limbs, out of reach of the leeches, we hoped. I got a few more leeches here, but Hoa managed to avoid picking up any more. I think throughout the course of the night I probably picked up 15-20 leeches, and Hoa probably had about 10. I had wondered in the past how disturbing it would be to have leeches sucking your blood and if I would really freak out. But eventually you get used to it, to some extent. But you don't get used to the ant bites because they hurt so bad.

While sitting beneath the tree, we were both pretty scared, and Hoa wasn't very happy with the idea of spending the night in the forest. But I was starting to think that would be our best bet. Travelling through the forest was very difficult, usually within 15 yards or so we'd hit thick vegetation that was nearly impossible to get through. We had no water, and I, at least, had been sweating a lot while walking because it was so humid and so tiring trying to get through the dense forest. And I was very concerned about going the wrong direction and getting deeper into the forest. I knew we were probably less than 200 meters from the road. We tried yelling for help throughout the evening, but got no response. I walked a short distance in each direction, always staying within calling distance of Hoa, hoping to find the trail, but without luck. I became resigned to the idea of staying where we were for the night. I knew it would be miserable given the leeches and ants and who knows what else, but I was pretty sure we'd survive. Hoa was very relucant to spend the night, but, on the other hand, was afraid of moving through the forest. Where she was sitting on the fallen tree limb, she hadn't gotten any leeches or ant bites. And by now it had been a while since any more bats had flown over her head. But after sitting there an hour or more, and calming down and cooling off, we eventually decided to walk a little to see if we could find the trail. I was OK with this because we weren't going to go far -- even if we wanted to it would be almost impossible to get through the forest. While getting ready to start walking, Hoa realized that the screen of the camera gives off a little light. We hoped it would be enough light to figure out whether we had found a trail or not. The use of the light from the camera screen turn out to be very helpful, and Hoa would like for her discovery of this to be referred to as her "pulling a MacGyver."

We started to walk and hit a lot of dead ends, usually dense vegetation and once a deep ravine. We got ourselves into some pretty thick vegetation and found ourselves surrouned by thorny vines at times. We walked through a relatively clear area and hoped it was a trail. Soon we found ourselves standing on a trail, "paved" with stones. We thought we recognized this stretch of trail and were thrilled to have found it. We were pretty sure which way to go on the trail, because we thought we could hear the rapids on the river near the park headquarters. But I was concerned that now that we were on a trail, it was possible to cover a lot of distance. And if we were going in the wrong direction, we might find ourselves far from the headquarters. I wasn't sure how far we should walk if we didn't soon reach the road. The ants were really bad on the trail. Hoa was screaming in pain, and I was worried that she was close again to panicking. And I dropped the camera, our only source of light, trying to swat the damn things after they bit me on the feet. Fortunately we did soon hit the road, and saw that we were where we thought we'd been heading, right at the trailhead, only a half mile or less from the headquarters and our room. I've never been so relieved to know where I am.

I don't know that I've really described just how scared we were. I know we both were worried about animals. Those fears probably were mostly unjustified, but there are some extremely venomous snakes in Cat Tien. Another worry I had, that I never mentioned to Hoa, was unexploded ordinance left over from the war. Again, this may not have been warranted in Cat Tien, but I didn't know how much of a risk this was. I hadn't looked into it, because I hadn't planned to do any off-trail hiking. This was one of the scariest experiences either of us have ever had, and I still can't believe it happened on the very first day of our 4-6 week long trip, after having spent roughly a month in Vinh Long and a month in Ho Chi Minh City. It certainly got our attention though, and we've vowed to be more careful.

We'd been in the forest longer than we'd thought -- it was after midnight when we got back. At our room, we spent quite a bit of time checking for and removing leeches, mostly on our feet but I had a couple on my waist and Hoa had a couple on her back and one on her upper thigh. My feet were a bloody mess, there was a small pool of blood at the bottom of my right sandal. Fortunately, leeches aren't really much of a health hazard, they're just very disgusting.

I thought this experience might just ruin the trip for us and make us want to leave Cat Tien immediately. But the next morning, we were happy to be at Cat Tien and went for a short walk. We were much more careful, though, taking water, headlamps, rainjackets, etc., even though we knew we would not leave the main road again without a guide and even more gear.

That afternoon we began an overnight trip to Crocodile Lake with an English-speaking guide, two German women and their Vietnamese guide from HCMC, and a Dutch woman. We had a great time. Everyone was really nice, and we had great food, mostly fish from the lake our guide said had been seized from poachers. The German womens' Vietnamese guide was funny -- she'd never been in any forest before and was screaming about every insect she saw, it seemed for a while. We drove part of the way to the lake, then walked on a trail for the last 5 km or so. There's no road to the lake. The lake was spectactular. We saw the Siamese crocodiles, reintroduced to the lake a few years ago after have been killed off, in the early 90's I think. We saw some really amazing birds, including green peafowl (a male, a "peacock"), red junglefowl (which is basically a wild chicken), a couple different species of kingfishers, many different herons and egrets, purple swamphens, and I don't remember what else. We spent the night there -- there were a few, pretty decent rooms, and the next morning we paddled boats around the lake and saw a lot of birds, and even a few monkeys, although I don't know what species. Hoa and I had our own boat, and were able to go off on our own. We really had a great time. We got a closer look at a lot of the birds we'd seen from the observation deck the night before. I hope some of the photos turn out OK; regardless I will try to get more photos up on www.pbase.com/tcholz today.

So, despite the misadventure of our first night, we had a great time at Cat Tien. We're now at Da Lat, which is beautiful. We had dinner with a Vietnamese couple we met on the bus, who are on their honeymoon, and the Dutch woman, who travelled with us from Cat Tien to Da Lat. We're taking it easy today, in part because it's raining.

Transportation has been interesting. We took a bus from Mien Dong bus station in HCMC to get to Cat Tien. The bus was headed to "Cat Tien," and we assumed this meant Cat Tien National Park, but after getting on the bus I realized that it may actually be heading to Cat Tien District and perhaps would not even get us very close to the park. It turned out I was right -- the bus was going to the district not the park. But the people on the bus told us they had made an arrangement for another bus to take us to Cat Tien from the junction of Hwy 20 and the road to the National Park and that it would only cost us only 20,000 dong (a little over $1) for both of us for the rest of the trip. At least that's what we thought they were saying. The bus stopped and the driver and his assistant told us the bus on the road in front of us was our bus to the park. We got on the new bus and were the only passengers -- there was only the driver, another man who appeard to be working with the driver, and a load of fruit on this bus. I didn't see any sign for Cat Tien at the turnoff and was starting to worry a little. I was afraid they were taking us to some other guesthouse, outside the park boundaries, and perhaps some distance from the park, where they would get a commission. I asked again if we were heading directly to the park, and they said we were. After 20 km or so, the bus stopped at an intersection, and they told us to take a motorbike 11 km down this road to get to the park. Hoa tried to pay them, but they said they didn't need any money. Which made me feel bad for suspecting them of scamming us. (This is one of the difficult things about travelling in Vietnam: it's hard to know when people are being helpful and when they're trying to rip you off, although we haven't really had many try to rip us off.) After a little negotiating with the motorbike drivers who quickly swarmed around us, we were on our way and soon arrived at the Park.

Better get something to eat. Probably will do another entry while in Da Lat -- this cafe has pretty fast internet service.

Tom

Leaving Vinh Long

We're leaving tomorrow. We plan to travel for the next 4-6 weeks. Our first stop will be Cat Tien National Park. We're really looking forward to seeing Cat Tien because visiting the natural areas of Vietnam has been one of our favorite things to do here.

A couple of days ago we went with three of Hoa's cousins to a very small forest/swamp preserve in Dong Thap province near Cao Lanh called Rung Tram, which seems to mean "indigo forest." "Rung," anyway, does mean "forest." I wasn't able to get a lot of information from the people at the preserve given the language barrier. We took a short boat tour through the swamps into what I think was a melalueca forest where egrets and herons were nesting. It was very cool. But our photos, as usual, don't do the place justice. We also saw a bird called a "watercock" (chim trich) that was very beautiful, it's a type of rail. I'll try to attach a photo. I'm having trouble uploading photos this morning -- I don't know if the problem is here at the internet cafe or at pbase. I'll try again later.

Yesterday we went to visit Hoa's aunts. We're staying with Hoa's cousin Bich Thuy and her family, and for some reason we don't get together with Hoa's aunts. We had a very nice time, and Hoa's uncle Thuan was grilling beef and huge prawns on a grill on the floor in the house. A couple of other drivers Thuan works with were there. The food was great, as usual.

I'm going to make it short because I still want to try to upload photos to clear the memory card so I'm ready to travel. And I need to pack this afternoon, because we're going to Bich Thuy's daughter Tram's birthday party tonight.

Back in Vinh Long / Correction

OK, I'm back. A little frustrated though, after the power went out here at the internet cafe and I lost about 20 minutes of work on a new posting. I went and got a fresh sugarcane juice down the street, came back to the internet cafe, and the power is back on. I need to remember to occasionally save drafts so I don't lose all my writing.

So let's try this again. First the correction: our photos are at www.pbase.com/tcholz. I really bungled the address in the last post. Pbase will be easier for us and for those who want to look at the photos. For example, you can just click on the above link to go straight to our galleries, and you don't have join pbase or log in, unlike Flickr.com. I'm hoping to start taking more photos, now that we're going to be travelling. I really should start carrying the camera with me most of the time because you never know when great photos ops will present themselves.

I may also start trying to shoot video; I forget my camera has video capability. I did shoot some video of the crazy street scene in District 1, HCMC, after Vietnam beat Malaysia in the soccer semifinals of the SEA Games (Southeast Asia Games). The SEA Games are big deal here, especially the soccer games. After a win, the people take to the streets with flags and red headbands, and in Saigon, at least, it's quite a spectacle. I don't know what to do with the video though. I don't think I can post it on pbase, but I'll check. Some of the internet cafes in Saigon can burn CDs, but this cafe I'm at now can't. I need to get the video off my camera's memory card because video takes up a lot of memory.

We just got back to Vinh Long a couple of days ago. It seems really beautiful and quiet after having been in HCMC for the past several weeks. And it's good to be with the family here again. Yesterday Hoa and I took the ferry to An Binh island with Hoa's cousin Le and one of the children. Hoa and I went fishing, and I caught a pretty good-sized fish -- it think it was the one that's called "elephant ear fish" in English. I took it to the restaurant, and they fried it up for us and brought it back to us. We had a great meal and a lot of fun.

Then we rode our bikes -- and I took a turn riding Le's motorbike -- about 5-6 km to Hoa's Uncle Hoi's place on the island. It was very beautiful, and like everywhere on the island, there are lots of fruit trees. They fed us fresh fruit, including cham cham (don't remember the English), grapefruit, and another fruit I don't remember the English or Vietnamese word for that looks like a lychee. It was all delicious.

And last night I went to a party for the men at Uncle Han's place for the soccer final, Vietnam vs. Thailand. Thailand won, but we had a great time anyway. It was a pretty interesting event. Only the men were present -- I didn't see a woman there, although I assume one of the women did the cooking. We sat on the floor in a semicircle around the TV, with the food in the middle. When I first got there, I thought the beautiful golden brown fried food was chicken wings for a moment, before I realized they were frog legs. They were excellent. We also had shrimp, vegetables, and french bread, all of which could be dipped in the soy sauce with diced chilis.

As usual, drinking was an important part of this party. But we didn't just get a glass of beer of our own to sip while we ate and watched the game. Instead, two of the men were responsible for opening the bottles of Saigon Beer and dumping them into a cooler with a big block of ice inside. Then they'd fill the two glasses we used and hand each to one of the men. Usually, one glass would be shared by two men, each drinking "50%," which is the toast that's made. Occasionally, you'd get a glass with the instructions, "100%," but fortunately for me that only happened once or twice. When I got back to the guesthouse, everyone was sitting outside with a few guests, including a man in "cong an" (police) uniform, who appeared to be fairly high-ranking given the stars on his shoulders. He wanted me to drink 100 % with him, but I had to stop being polite and go to bed.

We're leaving to begin our 4-6 trip around Vietnam soon, probably Saturday or Sunday. I'm sure we'll be near intenet cafes most of the time, except when we're at the National Parks. One of our first stops probably will be Cat Tien National Park, north of Ho Chi Minh City. After reading a little about the park on the internet, I'm sure it's going to be amazing. I hope I get some nice photos, because I haven't really seen very many photos online of the natural areas of Vietnam.

I'm reading one of the cheap photocopied editions (about the only English language books you can find in Vietnam) of Neil Jamieson's "Understanding Vietnam." I've only read the first chapter or so, but it seems like a great book so far. Right now, I'm reading about the role of women in Vietnamese culture. It's confusing because in traditional Vietnamese culture, women are expected to respect and obey their fathers, then their husbands, and then, if widowed, their oldest sons. But, the Vietnamese don't seem to have any tradition of seeing woman as gullible or incompent, as I think we do in the west. More often, apparently, men have been portrayed in the folklore as being bumbling and imcompent. So how did it come about that the shrewd and responsible women had to obey the sometimes incompetent men? Maybe Jamieson will have some answers.

PS for Aunt Sharon: sorry we haven't responded to your last e-mail, we lost your address, if you get a chance please let us know. Thanks.

Beach Vacation/Leaving Saigon

We wrapped up our initial, month-long Vietnamese language course last Friday and left Saturday for a four-day weekend at the beach. We went to Ho Coc by bus, which took about 2 1/2 hours. Where is Ho Coc? If you headed down the Saigon River, when you reached the ocean, you'd be at Vung Tau. Head up the coast about -- well I don't know how far, 100km? -- and you're at Ho Coc. We chose Ho Coc because we heard it was very quiet, unlike Vung Tau, and has a 11,000 hectare forest reserve, Phuoc Buu, with lots of birds and monkeys. It was beatiful. We're now posting photos on pbase -- see www.pbase.com/tcholz for photos of the beach and forest.

We had a great time. Getting there was a bit of a challenge -- Lonely Planet wasn't helpful and the Saigon tour agencies don't go there and said you have to go to Vung Tau, then by motorbike to Ho Coc. So that's what we planned to do. But when we got to the bus station in Saigon that has buses to the central highlands and the coast, including Vung Tau, we found a bus going directly to Binh Chau, which is only about 10 km or so from Ho Coc. It would have been a very long motorbike ride from Vung Tau to Ho Coc, so this worked out great.

We stayed at a resort right on the beach, paid about $10 a night, and stayed three nights. The beach and the forest were wonderful. The first afternoon we just swam and hung out on the beach. The next morning we went to the forest reserve. There were no English speaking guides so we went for a hike on our own. It was late morning by the time we got there, and we didn't have much luck spotting the birds we could hear in the trees. But the butterflies were spectacular. I posted one photo of a butterfly at pbase -- it's not very good, the butterflies were not being very cooperative, but it gives some idea what the things looked like. Some of them were huge.

The next day we hiked along the beach and into the dunes. We walked into the dunes until we reached the forest border -- we had a great view of the forest from the top of the dunes. Hoa spotted some pretty cool birds -- we tried to look them up when we got back to Saigon, and we think they were a "thick-knee" or something like that.

Each evening we ate very well, although we never tried the crab being peddled along the beach. There was almost no one else staying overnight at the resort -- the only people there were usually Vietnamese people who came only for the day. So at night we sang karaoke with the people who worked at the resort. One night, we met a Swedish man who spoke better English than most Americans. He sang very well -- mostly Elton John and the Beatles. I did my usual "Hotel California" -- I think I need to try some new songs.

On the motorbike ride back to the main highway where we'd catch the bus, we rode through the forest. It was early morning and we saw lots of birds. I even saw one monkey. We'd seen monkeys when we visited the headquarters, but they seemed pretty tame. While waiting for the bus, I took a little walk and saw some green pidgeons. A drunk motorbike driver tried to tell us the bus didn't come until 2 pm -- it was 10 am, but we didn't believe him. And the bus showed up right on time at 10 am. All the seats were taken so we had to sit on little plastic stools in the aisle, but for $2 a piece I can't complain. Lonely Planet makes it sound like these buses, and the on-board Karaoke, are a nightmare, but we don't mind. In fact, we like Karaoke -- it's a good way to study Vietnamese.

We're leaving HCM City Saturday and going to Vinh Long for a few days before heading on to Da Lat, Ba Me Thuot, Cat Tien and Yok Don National Parks, Nha Trang, and perhaps on to Hue, Ha Noi, and who knows where else. We'll probably be on the road for 4-6 weeks, but we don't really know. Hoa has family in Ba Me Thuot who live on a farm, mostly coffee, apparently, but also black pepper and some fruits and vegetables. We could end up staying there a while, but our tentative plan is to stay one week.

It was hard to come back to HCM City. The traffic and pollution seem worse after finally having experienced the natural world of Vietnam. And it's not that easy to escape the city. So we're now thinking it's less likely we'll settle here. We'll see what we think of the rest of Vietnam. What HCM City has to offer us is jobs and good Vietnamese language instruction. If we can find these things elsewhere, we probably won't come back. Ha Noi is sounding pretty good, with it's four-season climate and cool winters, but it's a long ways from Hoa's family in Vinh Long. And we certainly would like to see more of them.