Most Memorable Moments: Vietnam

•Adding Singapore—one more country added to our trip
•Waking up on overnight train to see lush green Northern Vietnam with a rich grey sky and fog low over the fields
•Vietnamese couples showing actual public affection in the parks (what would have otherwise gone unnoted was particularly welcomed after five weeks in India)
•All of the parks, period: beautifully kept parks in both Hanoi and Sapa
•My favorite porter on the trek offering me his hand on steep terrain (a roughly 65 year old tiny man with two gold teeth, hiking circles around the rest of us, carrying our food, making our food, throwing back rice wine, and taking more hits of tobacco on the water bong than any of the other hilltribe men combined.)
(That same porter showing Zack how to use the bamboo water bong)



•Trekking through fields and fields of rice paddies…with nothing in view but fields and fields of rice paddies.
•Mid-hike jumping in the stream

•Crossing Indiana Jones-like bridges
•Vietnamese lady at train station selling “sexy lady lighters”
•Playing Frisbee in the park in Sapa with Mike, Tate, and four Vietnamese school boys


•Vietnamese faces
•Vietnamese children: hands down, the cutest children in the world
•Cave spelunking

•Eating phoo with chopsticks on tiny, wobbly plastic stools on the street with Vietnamese instead of in restaurants with tourists for a quarter the price
.Walking through the market



•Watching Vietnamese exercise at sunrise in the park and the next day joining in for aerobics
•My birthday! -balloons, seven dollar hair cut with twenty minute head massage, water puppet show, birthday gifts, birthday pig, and the “Funky Monkey” nightclub
•Being given a pair of earrings from a woman in a shop because it was my birthday
•Asiana Airlines (always a pleasure with Asiana—not to be confused with Air Asia which is atrocious)



•The glory that is the Korean airport: comfortable for sleeping, pristinely clean, free internet, showers, food vouchers for long layover, complimentary musical performances and cultural museum with free crafts

Memories of Thailand

-Eating a fried chicken foot
-Eating meat, period (who has the heart to tell a host mom that "vegetarian" means chicken, too, after she has already cooked it?)
-Eating a live bamboo worm (and then more bamboo worms later mashed into a pasty dip)
-Fried bananas!
-Mixing mud with our bare feet for building adobe house
Laughing hysterically as Pee Noi (our host mom) tried to explain something to us with body language…and then realizing that she was describing the village woman who had just died and the arrangements for her funeral
-Trek in Northern Vietnam with Mirror Art Group and our machete wielding tour guides (“Are you Reaaddyy?!”)
-On last day of Thai trek, panorama of descending on the two foot wide path along the side of a cliff with a vast, crisp and clear sky of blue and white, and then later tramping through the jungle with bamboo walking sticks as our tour guides tried to remember the way
-The fresh, delicious vegetables that we ate with Thai and hilltribe families: pumpkin, broccoli rabe, kale, bamboo, spinach, garlic, tomato, hot pepper…
-Celebrations/ rituals in Ahka village during very first night of our trek and being dressed up in Ahka traditional garb…and then realizing that the rituals would continue all night long
-Watching our hilltribe leaders do anything with a machete, from finding bamboo worms to fashioning a pot out of bamboo to cook rice for lunch
-Biking around the ruins in the city of Ayuthaya


-Bowling with American dance music and flashing lights and then Karaoke in the “erotic” room atop a Thai mall in Bangkok
During trek, going to waterfall and eating pad thai out of banana leaf packaging (now that is biodegradable, Hofstra Food Services; don’t give me “we still need to use styrofoam!”)


-The Bangkok food market smells. The Bangkok food market, period.
-Eating durian fruit (it smells like armpit)
-Peer (aliases: Tornado of Destruction, Disap-Peer) jumping out of boat in Ko Lao, missing the landing by a longshot, and after he had climbed out to drip dry realizing that his camera had been in his pocket
-The drunk Moken village chief. Pee Now (the woman who really was what held the village together and did all of the duties a chief should have done) slapping him back into order

-Lifting the first Moken kid with such good intentions…and realizing what we had started. Then for the rest of the week having a constant line of tireless Moken kids lined up, ready to be airplaned around again and again
-Going to Burma (Myanmar). When we arrived, them turning the big screen television to a channel with 60’s disco music videos playing as soon as we arrived. A man with six fingers who called himself “Lucky” trying to exchange 1000’s of Burmese money with us for about 30 Baht (which is like exchanging a few cents for a dollar)
-Naked kids everywhere in Moken village
-Final group meal in Ko Payam, buffet style. Watching Peer eat mounds (plural) of food during final meal
-Cooking class in Chiang Mai
-Our cross-dressing train attendant on our very first Thai train. Who sang to us.
-Fishing and swimming off of boat with Moken men
-Margot acquiring the name, “Barbie”
-Street smoothies
-Going to a pharmacy to get medicines and supplies for Moken village, and being given it all for free when the pharmacist realized for what it was
-Snorkling in Ko Payam
-Enjoying afternoons at “You Sabai” (organic café with delicious coconut, banana, and passion fruit smoothies) and in the resevoir
-Playing and/or watching tecraw (game played by Thais; a volleyball with the feet, of sorts)
-In hilltribe villages, bamboo home on stilts, watching adults push food scraps through the bamboo floor (instead of using a trash) down to the pigs and chickens beneath the house
-Watching the pigs and chickens.
-Figuring out strategy to squat toilets
-Painting walls with mud at Pun Pun
-Breaking open coconuts to eat whenever we pleased
-In Mae Joo, shampooing our hair with eight year olds in the resevoir
-in Mae Joo, continuously watching Nong Ti (approx. 3 years old) get into all sorts of dangers that would be unthinkable in the states but that do not even register there (playing alone on tractor, playing with hammer, being put on a motorcycle standing up and wet, playing with giant bugs)
-Boxing with a professional Muay Thai trainer in Mae Joo
-Attending a formal cremation ceremony in Mae Joo. Also attending the visitation and constantly being fed, with a particular memory of a dessert of cold condensed milk soup filled with potato, kidney beans, jelly worms, toffee, tomato and only the gods knows what else and laughing uncontrollably (in a completely inappropriate environment) as we tried to swallow it down
-Constantly being fed.
-Elephant ride with Nong (Dianna from MI.) Our non-English speaking elephant driver/ guide taking us off of the course to his house so that he could get something…and temporarily sending us into panic driven hysterics that we may never leave again.

December 6, 2008...My 21st Birthday!

I celebrated my 21st birthday in Hanoi, Vietnam!

It was an awesome day, full to the brim with excitement and surprises.
It was also long.
It began at five a.m., when our overnight train arrived two hours early to Hanoi from Sapa (where we began the trek.) Four of the other girls came bursting through the train compartment door throwing in colorful balloons and yelling “Surprise!” and “Happy Birthday!” As unappreciated as I’m sure it was at 5:00 am by the other passengers, for me the day could not have started better. We spent the next 45 minutes walking to our hotel (rather than pay for six taxis we put all of our stuff into two and walked—Vietnam is significantly more expensive than India or Thailand.)

So at 5:30 a.m. on my 21st birthday, I was to be found wandering the streets of Hanoi, a balloon in one hand. It could not have been better, though, because I never would have experienced the pre-dawn life of Vietnam otherwise. This culture wakes up early! The market was booming, people were already perched on the little, wobbly plastic stools at noodle stands, and the park was alive with energy. People of all ages wake up early for mass exercising in the parks around the lake. Jogging, stretching, bouncing awkwardly, in groups listening to a tape recording of Tai Chi or aerobics, lifting weights that are brought out everyday apparently by someone, playing badminton mid-sidewalk, and doing any other sort of movement imaginable. It was beautiful! There was no embarrassment; everyone had amnesty to do whatever exercise or stretch they liked without feeling silly. We passed a group of about six women in a close circle, each giving the woman to the right a fast, karate-chopping back muscle massage. Abby and I went out the following morning at 6:00 to jog around the lake and stopped to do aerobics with a group of at least sixty women who were following an instructor and a tape. There is nothing like bouncing around to pop music remixes, throwing arms in the air, and doing pelvic thrusts in a public park with a bunch of old Vietnamese women and without a concern in the world. I love it all. Rather than run on a treadmill alone in front of a television or run alone with an ipod, you can be with an entire community of people every morning, life and fellow motivators all around. You do not feel alone, nor do you feel self-conscious (trust me: they do not.) Mattie said that this is left over from more overtly communist times when the government organized community exercise in the main parks and squares. (google it: I don’t know her source.)

When the sixteen of us arrived to the hotel, there naturally were not enough rooms open for us yet (standard check out usually is not before five a.m., even in Vietnam) so we stashed bags and were left to wander until noon.

I went with several of the girls to a salon; we had decided that we would have ourselves tweaked and polished back to normal society’s standards after our three months of no mirrors, no real homes, no real showers, no good laundry detergent, and no cares. Between the lot of us, there was hair to be cut, nails to be polished, feet to be pumiced, and hair to be waxed. For seven dollars, I had my hair washed with a half dozen products and massaged, blow-dried as if it were an art form, and cut. The Vietnamese girl who washed my hair spent at least a half an hour washing my hair, massaging my head, tugging on my roots, pulling my hair taught and flicking it (stimulates hair growth??) and then over another half an hour blow-drying my hair, more time accumulatively than I spend on my hair in a month.

As she finished, out of nowhere, appeared this glorious figure with a popped collar and a pristinely fashioned hairstyle with highlights. His name was, “my gorgeous Vietnamese hair man” and I spent the next half an hour awing over his glowing skin and eyes and welcoming smile as he cut my hair. He does good work, too.

I left my birthday balloon for the toddlers waiting in the salon and spent the afternoon wandering the city with Jordan, Emma and Nong (Dianna, but forever known as the Thai word for “little one” to me.) I stepped off the curb in my tennis shoes into a ditch one foot deep of putrid, I-don’t-even-want-to-know-what-is-in-it water, but not even that could rain on my birthday parade. I gave a big smile to all of the shocked and whispering Vietnamese who had seen, and carried on in my slushy shoe.

We met the group in the evening to see a performance of Vietnamese water puppets, and I was surprised with a big, pink, helium filled pig by Zac and John (my excited squeals of joy every time I see pigs must have cued them to something) and with Milano cookies, Vietnamese coffee, and a Vietnamese coffee maker by Mattie.

Vietnamese water puppets were traditionally used during flood time as a form of entertainment. When the rice paddies flooded peasants were unable to tend to the fields and were left with nothing to do, so they would dance puppets—people, dragons, dogs, water snakes, fish, etc.—on top of the water with long poles to tell stories of everyday life, from a drunk fisherman to a dog chasing the ducks. All of the animals were made with dragon-like interpretations, and they along with the rest of the scenery were of red, gold, and bright colors. The architecture reminded me very much of our idea of Eastern architecture that I saw in Thai temples or architecture in China—I do not know how much of this is from cross-over influence or just due to my untrained western eye. Live music, utilizing many unfamiliar eastern instruments such as the danbo, was accompanying the slapstick puppet humor.


We enjoyed the evening by walking around the lake and trying on black coats in a store—for me a sequiny Dolce and Gabana coat and for Abby a stylin’ leather one—but unfortunately as we have come to learn our sizes often are not even carried here. An entire store can run successfully here and only carry XS and S. So we walked away empty-handed (as if we were going to purchase Dolce & Gabana coats anyway) and we went out to the Funky Monkey so I could get in my birthday dancing.
Not to worry, as I said, I was up again the next morning at six to run!

Readjusting to US Life

It is not usually too exciting to return to the States after traveling, no matter how long we are away. At the airport everyone has the same, boring accent again and faces, dress, and the writing on signs are all too familiar. However, it seems that there is always that American character who makes me glad to be home. About the United States, I can say that many of us are extraordinarily friendly to strangers. I walked up to the customs official dragging my luggage and he beamed me a great big smile, "Good morning! How are you today?" "You weren't near Mumbai, were you?" making conversation the whole time. "Have a great day!" This uber-congenial, treat-everyone-as-a-friend American type I hope I never grow weary of.


Aside from that, there are some cultural adjustments that I still need to make.

-On the flights and in the American airports, I kept looking for a trash for my toilet paper. We have septic systems in this country, Alex.
-Once home, while brushing my teeth the first several times an internal alarm went off in my head telling me not to use the faucet but to get my filtered water. Here, Alex, they are one and the same.
-Along those lines, when I rinsed out a bowl to use, the same internal alarm told me to be sure to wipe out ALL of the water so as to prevent giardia again. No giardia here, Alex.
-Jet lag. Now that I am home, my internal clock is faulty and having trouble catching up.

Home again!

I've made it safely home! I am back to cold, dreary Ohio, four different planes and about 40 hours later. Now that I have a shiny, healthy computer, good internet, and time to spare, I will continue writing on and adding pictures even though this journey is finished. It will be out of order as I backtrack, but late and out of order is better than not included at all. I will also go back and add pictures to articles where I was not able to add them before, so keep that in mind and maybe scroll and peruse a bit.

Sa Pa Trek

We exited the overnight train just South of the Chinese border for our stay in Sapa and our trek in the surrounding mountains. We spent a day in Sapa before leaving on our four-day trek. Sapa is another lovely Vietnamese city with a lively market, quite a few tourists, and wonderfully planned community spaces such as a large square and a park with a man-made lake.































The trek was through the hills and valleys of the Sapa region, passing many unique hill tribe groups along the way with the trekking company Topas Tours. It was uniquely different from the Thai trek in that the villages did not seem that they were putting on any sort of show for us. They all still wear their traditional clothing regularly; there was not the sense that they were dressing up merely because we were there.

We began our trek Monday morning with our group, three guides, and several porters. The porters were hill tribe men that carried food for us and cooked our meals--I know: we had pristine treatment. On our first day, we stopped before lunch at a quiet little lagoon below a waterfall. "Swim, if you like!" they said with a smile, knowing that as beautiful and clear as it was it was far from pleasantly swimmable water. This water makes 55 degree Lake Michigan seem like a hot spring. So naturally, I jumped in all the way and swam around. In a sense it wasn't so bad: it was beyond a cold that the body could register, but getting out the feeling of acute stabbing pains lingered. Thank goodness for the hot, midday Vietnamese sun! Day two and day three were both six to seven hours of solid trekking, and these Vietnamese keep a monster pace. It was worth it though; in four days my eyes have rarely before been blasted with such beauty.



--Much of the trek we spent walking through mountains of wet rice paddies. They scale the mountains and hills in every direction, appearing as Aztec pyramids, staired like the ruins at Teotihuacan. We would walk along the ledge of a level or paddy, looking down out at the mountains and green all around and at the reflection of the sky in the perfectly channeled water sitting around the rice on all of the levels.


--We also spent much time walking through rain forest. Think Vietnam movies or Jurassic Park minus the fear. Shades of greens were all around, rich and varied, the forest was thick, and there were always streams of water to be seen or heard. While walking to keep our minds busy we tried to play "I Spy," but quickly learned there was not much more than the one color from which to choose, and it's difficult to guess shades. Now into December, it is much drier than it was during our trek in Thailand. So although much of the walking in the jungle is either steep up or down as in Thailand, it hasn't been quite as much of a slip-and-slide experience. All the same, at times the path becomes pretty thin and if the person in front of you gets more than 15 feet ahead you may have to play "Marco, Polo" to find your way.








Memorable moments:
--Sporadically, walking through tiny villages, sometimes of literally only a few houses, and see the smiling, waving children, the staring adults, and--my favorite--the piggies. I have a peculiar, unexplainable fascination for pigs that I have for no other animal. Perhaps it is because as a child it was one of the only animals that did not send me into an allergic asthma attack.



--Walking past grazing water buffalo (give me pigs, water buffalo, and monkeys and I will be contented for life) who stare with their enormous eyes until you completely pass, shuddering intermittently and slowly eating grass.

--Walking back and forth up a winding mountain, pushing forest out of the way to pass.

--Lying on a boulder in the middle of a big, flowing river waiting for our Vietnamese guides and porters to make us our lunch. As I was taking in the sun lying back with my eyes closed, I lifted my head to look up and realized how absolutely awesome this all is. There were rocks and boulders all around with water flowing through them--water clear and fast with reflections of the sun and the sky--a mini waterfall right in front of me. Layers of mountains spread straight ahead beyond them, and green trees framed the picture on both sides. To top it all off, while I was taking it all in, one of the cooks hopped rock to rock to carry a plate of food out to me with hot sauce and limes, all followed by fresh dragon fruit. Life is sweet.
**All of this was good build up for what was to come: treacherous, steep, never ending incline.

--Immaculate meals! I expected noodle soup and eggs. Instead we got apples, bananas, pears, dragon fruit, spinach, mushrooms, tomato, corn, pumpkin, red pepper, tofu...the list is endless. We trekked like refugees but we ate like kings!

--My favorite Vietnamese porter, a tiny bald man who must have been at least sixty five, offering me his hand on the steep and slick declines. He had a big smile, two gold teeth, and more stamina on these hikes than any of us prime young adults. He did the entire trek carrying our food on his back in a wicker basket, made all of our meals and the meals for the porters, and took more hits of tobacco in the huge water bong than any of the other porters combined.

--On day three, toward the end of the hike we came to where a dam was being built. First there was a noticeable change from barely-there paths to freshly bulldozed roads, and then we came upon the immense valley of machines and workers. They used big "CAT" ground movers and big power tools. There were fresh electric lines and simple, new complexes for offices, storage, and likely living spaces. It was strange coming from jungle, not having seen other people or man made elements for hours, to this. The sounds of the work and machinery shocked the ear after the previous six hours of hearing nothing but water flowing, leaves rustling, and the sound of my own breathing.

--That night, we camped out! The previous nights we had stayed in community centers in villages, but here we were in a huge valley in tents. We spent the evening--which pretty much began at 4:15 after the sun went behind the mountains--by the fire escaping the cold. We had another great meal that your typical American baked beans, grilled cheese and s'mores campers could not even imagine. I suppose that for these hill tribe men, cooking at a fire outside while camping is little different than cooking at the fire at their homes. They have lots of rice wine every night to fight the cold, but unfortunately I am on giardia meds again so cannot partake in the group warming traditions of throwing back shots. Luckily, though, it took me a while to remember that alcohol does not mix well with parasite blasting medications, so at least I got to try it before the connection occurred to me. The nights here are freezing cold, but surprisingly the tents kept us warmer inside than the drafty hill-tribe wood houses had where we had stayed the previous nights. Before entering my tent I took one last look up into the immense sky saturated with starlight, smiled, and slept well in my wool layers and sleeping bag.




--We hiked 60 km in four days, in total! I feel tired, well-exercised, and wonderful. But in spite of the extreme exercise, I ate like a hound to counterbalance, and then some, all of the calories burned.

My Vietnamese Good News

I am acquiring great agility with chopsticks.