Vietnam/Thailand 16

As we approach the holiday season and people’s minds turn towards the table, I thought I’d share a little advice gleaned from our time in Southeast Asia. Most particularly, our time spent at the buffet table. Even more particularly, our time at the Four Seasons brunch in Bangkok, though I suppose it can have more general application wherever in the world yet set before the trough. I call this a guide to gluttony

How best to approach the Sunday brunch at the Four Seasons in Bangkok? It is a question that takes some thought. After all, you need to focus on quality and quantity, while trying to manage beverage intake and the all important protein to fat ratio required for a truly memorable dining experience. Though we have friends that swear by the buffets they enjoyed at other fine establishments around the world, nothing I have experienced to date comes close to what is on offer when we return to our favorite weekend repast.

First, you need a game plan. You cannot simply show up and start eating. No, you must strategize and prepare. After years of practice, I have developed a simple, yet, I think, elegant approach, which I call “eating a lot.” Preparation actually begins the day before. Get plenty of exercise and try to spend some time out of doors. You won’t be doing either the next day. In the evening, eat a large but plain meal. You want to stretch your stomach. Do not try anything new, raw, or spicy. There is too much at stake to risk indigestion or other indisposition. Go easy on the alcohol and get some rest. Instructions for pre-meal preparations on the day are equally simple. Don’t eat anything. You’ve gone to the trouble of adding open space to your gut, why fill it up with cheap knick knacks when you’re about to put a Van Gogh on the walls. Also, be careful about exercise. A little early in the morning can help but don’t get carried away and start feeling all health conscious. There’s a time and a place for that. The Four Seasons at 11:30 am on Sunday is not that time and it most definitely is not that place.

Clothing. Of course you’re going to be wearing it, but is there a proper way to dress for the upcoming events? Yes, and no. Look, you’re not a snake about to devour a goat. Your anatomy is not going to change in any major way, so please no sweats or fat pants. Dress appropriately. This is a five-star hotel for God’s sake. Still, at the same time, ensuring you’ve got an extra notch or two left on your belt might be a good idea to maintain continued comfort as you head towards dessert.

Okay, you’re approaching brunch. What should you do? Rule 1 is eat whatever you want. If you like it, put it on your plate. Rule 2: Rule 1 is ridiculous and should be ignored. Even in Bangkok, you’re paying a good amount of cash for this meal (damn you ever-weakening dollar!), so you need to ensure good-value for money. Even those who most assiduously follow my game plan do not have endless internal capacity and so you need to stay focused. If you’re a vegetarian or overly-attracted to salads and fruit, this may not be the place for you. Sorry, but I’m sure the all-you-can eat Indian hole-in-the-wall has plenty of empty tables. Similarly, if you’re excited by Belgian waffles and eggs (which the Four Seasons has, by the way), you really should be booking yourself at your local IHOP. No, the focus here is on proteins, rare and exotic dishes, and high-caloric desserts. All else is superfluous.

It’s interesting that my wife and I approach the geography of the brunch so differently. She concentrates on reserving a table in the nicest area (you can choose between the Madison steakhouse, the Spice Garden Thai restaurant, or the Aqua lounge in the midst of the food stations – Liz prefers the Madison), while I can tell you exactly what delicacy is located where. Anyway, after you are seated take a minute to acquaint yourself with your surroundings. Don’t rush yourself and make a decision you will regret. While the purpose of the day is to eat until total satiation, that is not an excuse for waste and you should eat whatever you put on your plate. We’re not Romans, there is no vomitorium, so be prepared to enjoy what you put in your mouth only once. The genius of the Four Seasons is that the food will come to you. You are not limited by the size of your plate so be careful that your eyes aren’t bigger than your stomach. On your table you will find a basket filled with numbered cards. Hand one of these cards to a server at any food station, explain what you want and it will appear on your table within minutes. Magic.

Right. The food itself. In the Madison, you will find the salads, breads, and cheeses. Thailand is not renowned for its dairy products, so you might select a small slice of reblochon or manchengo, but don’t go overboard. Yes, the salads look great, but please control yourself. There is bigger game to catch. The Spice Market now appears to contain some Thai dishes. I don’t go there because there are other places for better Thai food. The Madison kitchen is the heart of the protein beast. There, you will find the meats and seafood you have come to enjoy. From chilled oysters, rock lobster and scallops, to prawns and crab on ice, this is a required (and possibly, frequent) stop. Turn around and you’re facing the grill. Sirloin, beef medallions, Lamb chops, tuna, trout, sausages. All grilled to your specifications.

Open to the sky (when not rainy or too hot), the courtyard area contains the largest concentration of food options. This is where you go for your exotics. A man wearing knee-high waders stands in a pond dishing out several varieties of caviar and traditional accompaniments. Like foie gras? There’s an entire station serving different preparations: pan seared with port wine sauce, as part of a custard with truffle oil. Around the corner, is an entire salmon with asparagus and béarnaise. Next to that, a variety of Middle Eastern dips and sauces, along with spicy lamb. I usually amble over to the Chinese section, where I spend some time with the dim sum before focusing like a laser on the roast pork and Peking duck. There’s now an Indian tandoor in the corner and it looks good, but I’ve yet to sample. On the other side of the door are your breakfast meats, eggs, and carbohydrates. All fine examples of the field, but should only be sampled as necessary. Take a few extra steps and you come to the sushi/shabu shabu stage. Tuna, salmon, eel, all fresh. Feeling Italian? There is a risotto station (I occasionally make an exception to my no-carbs-until-dessert to sample some).

Of course you’ll need something with which to wash this down. If you like champagne, you might try a Kir Royale or a Bellini. For vodka drinkers, an excellent selection of martinis. Careful – these are designed to complement the meal, not cause regurgitation. Drink in moderation. If you are not up to alcohol, you can order a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables to be juiced into your selected mix.

Still have room? You’d better, because now we approach the desserts. All along the outer wall of the Madison stretch tables filled with pastries, cakes, tortes, mousses, puddings, pies, candies, donuts and other baked products. And none of those mass produced somewhat stale selections you see at many other brunches. These taste as good as they look. The problem, again, is how to ensure variety when you just want to stuff your face with the bread pudding with homemade ice cream. Plus, you cannot forget the individual soufflé station. Chocolate, banana, chocolate-banana, grand marnier Your own personalized soufflé (or more accurately, soufflés). Five or six and you’ve successfully capped off a memorable experience. OK, now if you must, you can look at the salads.

The rest of the day. Don’t worry about it. This is not the day to sightsee. You should’ve cleared your schedule already.

Vietnam 15

Can Tho and the Delta

On occasion, I get away from the office on a work trip. Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit several provinces in the Mekong Delta with a delegation from the Department of the Interior (photos here). Three days of long drives, but a great opportunity to see a unique part of the country.

To get to Can Tho in the heart of the Delta, we drove south from Ho Chi Minh City for about 4 hours. It’s not that far as the crow flies, but as the van drives (along narrow and overcrowded roads), it’s much further. Plus, the scenery is largely ugly for much of the first three hours. Though you fairly quickly enter the “Mekong Delta,” you remain on VN 1, the main road. Like most developing countries, the Vietnamese built up all around the road and instead of vistas of paddy field and palm trees, you get shophouses, banks, food stalls, and, increasingly, industrial zones. Built in wetlands or in what was prime rice growing areas, these zones were created by local governments wishing to cash in on the export boom. Unfortunately, many are undersubscribed, pollute horribly, and disrupt the natural rhythms of the Delta. And it is only getting worse. Those who frequently drive south (the new airport in Can Tho is not yet operational) note dramatic changes in the landscape as more buildings go up and more farmland disappears.

Still, as we drove along, I noticed a difference from Ho Chi Minh City. We traveled over more and more canals as the land grew more marshy. We sped through a small town, in which over 1/3 of Vietnam’s rice exports pass through every year. The sun began to set, softening the tones of the road and we passed schoolgirls clad in ao dais and wearing floppy, floral hats pedaling their bikes along the side of the road. A few strands of fruit trees peaked through the buildings. When I rolled down the window, the heat and humidity reminded that this was not chilly, fall Hanoi. I was once again in the tropics.

To reach Can Tho, we passed over two of the seven arms of the Mekong (known in Vietnamese as the Nine Dragons, though two of them, evidently, have dried up). The first is traversed by a modern suspension bridge, while the second, just north of town, is still crossed by ferry. A section of the still-under-construction Japanese-supported bridge collapsed last year, killing 50 people, and delaying completion until 2010. The lines for the ferry can last for kilometers, adding hours to the drive. Fortunately, our hosts were well connected and we cut to the front of the line, just in time to cross as the sunset, with the Mekong’s rivers disappearing into the haze as distant lightning illuminated far off thunderheads.

Can Tho is a pleasant city. As the main metropolis in the Mekong Delta, this city of about 1 million people (I’ve heard widely variant population numbers, but people agree it is Vietnam’s fifth most populous city), is the jumping off point for trips into the Delta itself. Therefore, it hosts a surprisingly large number of tourists, most of which, it seemed, were staying at my hotel, the Victoria Can Tho. An elegant, 19th century hotel, it was packed with middle-aged Germans, French, and Israelis, as were many of the city’s restaurants. As an expat myself, I can hardly complain. But, still . . . I like to pretend sometimes that I’m a real adventurer. 60 year old hausfraus kibitzing over the black forest ham on the buffet tend to deflate that image. Anyhow, the waterways still serve as the region’s main connectors and boats can take you wherever you want. I ventured into the city by boat taxi. Every town has a floating market, where farmers bring produce, fish, and meat to sell and look over processed goods for purchase. However, you’ve got to get there soon after sun up to see them in action.

I ventured to Can Tho to take part in the opening ceremony for a USG supported climate change institute at Can Tho University. With 32,000 students, Can Tho U. is almost as large as a Big Ten school. It’s a safe bet that its endowment is much smaller, though the campus boasts a beautiful, modern library (funded by a US philanthropist) and several new buildings. The rector told me that it grants degrees in 114 fields and it specializes in marine and agricultural sciences.

The day after the ceremony, we visited Soc Trang and Bac Lieu provinces in the far south. These provinces have large Chinese and Khmer minorities and we passed numerous Khmer temples, which appear much like Buddhist temples from Thailand. Indeed, like Thailand, the Khmer culture looks back to India for its early influences, unlike Vietnam, which looks north to China. Many signs were in Khmer and I noted a growing number of people with strong Cambodian features. At the same time, the area also boasted many Chinese-style temples and the doorways of many houses were festooned with banners in Chinese.

Inland, most of the locals farm rice and we visited one small landholder, who showed off his 6 hectare farm, from which he derived a net income each year of about $1,200. Closer to the sea, most people turn to aquaculture, particularly shrimp farming. We stopped by one such small farm to check out the owner’s ponds. From a small pond, he can raise about 1.5 tons of shrimp each year, the prawns literally covering the entire bottom of the man-made habitat. Still, as the population of this part of the Delta has increased, it has created new stresses on the environment as mangrove swamps and wetlands are turned into farmland. Salinization, lack of storm cover, and other environmental problems threaten this area, the remaining wildlife, and the livelihoods of its locals. Climate change will exacerbate this process, and this has finally gotten the Government of Vietnam’s attention. There is hope, but climate change adaptation is going to be tough for a country so desperate to maintain economic growth.

Vietnam 14

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival, or Tet Trung Thu, recently took place throughout Vietnam. The Festival occurs on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. The 15th day of any lunar month coincides with the full moon, and this festival is also known as the Moon Festival. A third name for the festival is the Children’s Festival, as this is the holiday in the year most devoted to children. When asking Vietnamese friends at the Embassy about their plans with the festival, most said “it’s for kids.” Those who had kids winced as they knew they would have to brave the crowds out celebrating. Traditionally, the festival came at harvest time, when parents have finished their hard agricultural labor for the time being and can focus on their children. While still true in many rural areas, in cities like Hanoi, there’s no let up in the normal urban schedule – unlike New Year’s Tet, in which big cities basically shut down for two weeks while everyone heads to their ancestral villages.


Parents give their children special food during the holiday, in particular fresh fruit and moon cakes. (Though I think more and more the focus is on more modern sweets and sugary drinks). Temporary stalls spring up all over Hanoi in the weeks leading up to the festival, with red and gold boxes containing moon cakes of various sizes and shapes on offer. Moon cakes are very dense (think Christmas fruit-cake mass and weight), and come with a variety of fillings, including lotus seeds, ground beans, and orange peels, with an egg yolk in the center to continue the moon symbolism. However, more unconventional flavors can also be found, like chocolate and strawberry. I’ve tried some of the traditional flavors and like them, but find that a little goes a long way. They certainly are rib-sticking.


Besides the moon cake, the most frequently-seen symbol of the holiday is the lantern. Lanterns, like moon cakes, come in a variety of shapes. These include fish, dragons, and boats, but probably the most common shape is the star. For days leading up to the holiday, you can see kids on the back of motorbikes carrying these lanterns home in anticipation of the festival parties. Another type of lantern spins around when a candle is placed inside it. According to the experts at the Embassy, this is said to symbolize the earth rotating around the sun. Lanterns, toys, masks, and all the other items associated with the festival are concentrated in the area around Hang Ma in the Old Quarter (about a 15 minute walk from our apartment), but many other shops will carry a small selection of items in the days before the festival. On the night of the Moon Festival, children supposedly parade through the streets carrying lighted lanterns and wearing masks, singing and making noise with drums and cymbals. I’ve seen the masks, costumes, and noisemakers. I have yet to see a parade. Troupes of dancers perform lion and dragon dances (I’ve seen preparations, but always seem to get to the event too early or too late). In fact, in some areas, the troupes go door-to-door, even dancing in people’s houses.
Families also gather together at a party to welcome the moon. According to the Embassy newsletter, at this party, a “doctor” is one of the decorations, as a reminder of what can be achieved by the children if they work hard at their studies. The children also have a chance to play with the new toys they have received. Though the festival has its public aspects, at heart, it is a chance to celebrate the importance of family ties.



OK, so how did the holiday appear to me (Liz was in Hong Kong, so I ventured out solo this year. Last year, it rained and we got lost)? Lots of flashy stands (many just opened up in the week prior to the holiday, like fireworks stands in the US prior to the Fourth of July). A wide range of moon cakes, from the mundane on the street to the truly expensive available at the five-star hotels.

Last year, as we walked around the center of town, we passed many little girls in party dresses with butterfly wings and antennae out with their families shopping for the holiday. This year, I saw a larger number of kids dressed up, many in Halloween style costumes, including a few spidermen. In the evening, teens wearing glow in the dark horns cruise down the streets on their scooters. In 2007, Liz and I headed to old town to join in the festivities despite the steady rain. I’m not sure we ever found the center of the party. It seemed like it was always a street or so away. Anyway, we passed through a couple of streets brightly lit with colorful lanterns displaying a variety of party wear, toys, and games. Someplace, groups of Vietnamese lit paper balloons powered by candles that floated off into the sky. We missed that.

2008 was different. No aimless wandering. I found the party quickly enough, just north of Hoan Kiem lake. (photos here:)

Several blocks of street stalls jammed with crowds of (mostly) Vietnamese walking and (to my fury) sometimes driving prohibited scooters while police largely looked on placidly – except to chase away certain balloon vendors. Why single them out? I don’t know. Anyway, packed might be too mild a term. Really, really jammed for several blocks. Stalls selling every variety of toy, costume, light, drum, food, novelty. Little kids running around with mom and dad trying to keep them from dashing into the crush of motorbike and biped. Hawkers displaying their newest gadgets, including flying wheels, mechanical drums (what sane parent would ever shell out for that?), and fright wigs.



Unlike such an event in the U.S., I saw no public drunkenness, though a few foreign tourists might have been working their way towards that goal. I’d like to say no public urination, but this is Hanoi and that’s just the way that goes. By 8:30, I’d had my fill. A few good pictures and it was time to rest.

Vietnam 13

Once again accompanying my wife on a Baker retreat to a seaside destination. How much devotion can one man show? This time to Nha Trang, or to be more specific, the vast Vinpearl resort carved out of an island about 1 mile off the coast.

The hotel certainly was not an eco-resort with the facilities blasted out of the hillside – the hotel thrust upon the landscape. It was giant, including a cable car across the bay (we took the speedboat) modern amusement park and what was billed as the largest pool in Southeast Asia (it was really big). It was also expensive – must have cost $250 million. Not overtly tacky, but not warm either. Like one of the big Disney resorts. However, over time I came to grudgingly admire the place. Everything was built well and everything worked. Someone clearly wanted their investment to succeed. Plus, like Disney, whether your consider it an authentic experience or not, the dozens of kids squealing happily in the water shows that many people enjoy their time there.

Speaking of investors. The owners apparently are Vietnamese who moved to Ukraine and started a giant instant noodle business. The hotel attracts many Russian speaking guests, which explains the smoked fish on the breakfast buffet, the Russian speaking women in Ao dais greeting guests, and the 13 year old girls wearing “Daddy’s little hootchie momma” outfits sauntering by the pool.

We visited Nha Trang one week after the completion of the 2008 Miss Universe pageant. From the airport to the resort convention center, signs and billboards proudly highlighted the world beauty event of the year. Even in Hanoi, we had been assaulted by breathless news coverage of the pageant (not enough photos for my taste, however). Vietnam really was proud to host this event and treated it as further proof of their emergence onto the world scene. I’m not sure that they have a firm grasp on where the Miss Universe pageant stands on the global cultural scene, but it’s a start.

Following Nha Trang, I headed down south for a slightly different experience – visiting rural chicken and duck farms. I cover avian influenza at work and I coordinated a trip with our Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City to visit some of the newest and most modern facilities in provinces north of the city to look at their efforts to limit possible exposure to the disease. We spent two days visiting local officials and farms in Binh Phuoc, Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces. Much of Binh Duong and Dong Nai close to the city are flat, but Binh Phuoc marks the start of low, forested hills that eventually lead to the Cambodian border to the west or the Central Highlands to the north. Lots of traffic leaving Ho Chi Minh City, which seems to go on forever, but finally we got to more rural areas.

The farms themselves are located far away from urban centers, among vast rubber plantations. Turning off the tarmac, we traveled along red dirt roads (fortunately, it had not rained in a few days), past thousands and thousands of rubber trees lined up row by row. As each row stretched thousands of feet into the distance, the interlocking branches made it look like we were passing green-hued cathedrals. We also traveled by pepper trees (plants, I’m not sure), strung up along wooden posts or brick chimneys.

The chicken farms themselves stand out. One, they’re typically the only buildings for miles and miles. Two, they are surrounded by high, broken-glass topped walls, to keep people out and chickens in. Once inside, we took tours of the facilities, complete with automated feeding and cooling systems. They raise up to 180,000 birds at one time. Very impressive. And clean. For some reason, I seem to have spent relatively little time at U.S. chicken farms, so I’m not sure how they compare, but I’d definitely eat chicken from these places.

Vietnam 12

Ok, this entry is a bit long, but it’s hard not to be long-winded talking about Hanoi traffic.

Traffic in Hanoi is zany. I’d say crazy or insane, but to Hanoi drivers, it actually makes sense. There is a pattern, or at least a recognizable style of driving, that enables commuters to get where they are going, usually unscratched. At the same time, to an outsider, it first seems like a dizzying, whirling flood. Now, among foreign service officers (and probably among any group of people that has done some traveling), there always appears to be a bit of one-upsmanship when it comes to traffic. “Oh, you think traffic in X is bad/dangerous, let me tell you about Y. Coffin cars routinely prowl the streets to pick up the scores of traffic fatalities littering the road” and that sort of thing. So, I understand that many people have their own tales of traffic madness. But, I think Hanoi can go toe to toe (or wheel to wheel) with most cities when it comes to roadway mayhem.

You can roughly break traffic in Hanoi down into the following proportions: 80% scooters, 10% (but growing) automobiles, and 10% bikes. Actually, the numbers for scooters also continue to skyrocket – up to 20% new scooters (roughly 1 million) on Vietnamese roads every year, adding to the already crushing masses on the city streets. Purchasing a new scooter is a sign of entering the middle class and Hanoi has dozens of dealerships selling Japanese, Italian, Chinese and local brands. Scooters aren’t that cheap, running from $700 to over $8,000 - a big chunk of change in a country with a per capita income below $1,000. With import taxes now at 83%, purchasing an imported car can take a lot of money. That hasn’t stopped people and we frequently see Porsche Cayennes, BMW 7-series sedans, and Lexuses (Lexi?) on the roadways. These are $150,000 cars. Hanoi even has a banana-yellow Ferrari prowling the streets.

The huge number of scooters creates a traffic pattern unlike anyplace I’ve ever visited – a seeming free for all in which stop lights are considered advisory measures and stop signs completely ignored. There is no such thing as a one way street and each lane may be filled with several mini-lanes of scooter drivers zooming this way and that. At first glance, intersections are complete mayhem as drivers weave their way in between other bikers, pedestrians, and cars to make turns (never from the proper lane) or continue straight ahead. Waves of scooters (think school of fish) enter an intersection, meet waves heading in other directions, seemingly merge for a little bit, and then break free again. Unlike Bangkok (or even Kampala), where cars ruled the road, the preponderance of scooters keeps traffic moving. Things slow down at intersections or traffic circles, but the mobility of the scooters usually prevents total gridlock – except during rainstorms in which the traffic system seizes up. During rush hours, gas stations have queues of scooters several dozen deep, lined up to fill their tanks and many small shops around town advertise oil changes, tire patching, and other maintenance for the small motorcycles. Other individuals set up shop on sidewalks and street corners waiting for the inevitable flat or breakdown to set to work.

With this laissez faire traffic system, car and scooter drivers rely heavily on their horns to let people know where they are, if they are passing or slowing down. Almost like a new form of sentient life. There are short beeps, long hoots, and powerful bursts. Scooters bleat out high pitched yelps, taxis drivers lean on their horns, and trucks put out loud and deep roars. Some car owners seem to have modified their horns to sound like train whistles, which can be quite disconcerting to listen to as you venture out into the street. Speaking of walking into the street, Hanoi is not very pedestrian friendly. Or at least not friendly to pedestrians who want to get to cross the street. No pedestrian flyovers, oft ignored traffic lights, and mysterious traffic patterns make every journey an adventure. The Hanoi style is to just step out into the street (usually in the middle of the block to better see oncoming traffic) and just keep going. Don’t run, don’t stop, and never, never turn back. Pick a time when traffic is mostly scooters and take the plunge. Look both ways and track where the scooters are going. They will see you and plot their routes accordingly. Keep following them with your eyes and keep moving. You may need to pause briefly to let a car zoom by, but then quickly get on your way again. My God! Did you just see that bus! Never take on a bus. Don’t forget about the bicycles or peddlers walking down the street carrying their wares on poles. Whew, it just missed. It’d be a shame to escape the traffic only to get poked to death. There, you’ve made it. No problem.

Scooter drivers display a striking nonchalance while edging between buses and cars. Pairs of girls drive side by side laughing and talking or chatting on cell phones, texting or applying make up. Schoolgirls pedal bicycles sedately on their way to and from class, with Mickey Mouse or Barbie bookbags over their shoulders and red scarves tied loosely around their necks. I have seen kids eat breakfast, do homework and fall asleep on the back of a scooter. When classes let out, rows of parents onboard their Hondas or Vespas wait to pick up kids, almost like the carpools I remember from elementary school.

Motorbikes have a dramatic influence on Vietnamese fashion. Since people spend much of the day on the back of a bike, exposed to the elements, their clothing reflects this. In a vain attempt to block out the ever-present fine particles of dust, women and children wear mouth coverings while navigating Hanoi streets. However, instead of plain white or grey, you can choose from dozens of designs, flowers, abstract, funky, chic. Vietnam scooter attire, aside from its lack of safety benefits, has some interesting characteristics. In the daytime, for many women, either a man’s dress shirt loosely draped across the body and over the actual outfit or a combination shirt/mask/gloves, sewed together to form one garment. Men have fewer scooter-specific fashion accoutrements, but often seem to wear the flimsiest of flipflops to navigate Hanoi’s roads. Parents of both sexes (though usually women) will wear fabric that wraps around their wastes and swaddles the youngest passengers behind them so they won’t fall off. Teenage boys zoom in and out of traffic with gelled hair slicked back following the latest Korean fashions. Young girls perch sideways keeping their mini-skirts in place, while chatting with their friends on the next bike.

Like the Thais, Vietnamese treat scooters as multiple person vehicles, sort of like Americans treat the mini-van or pick up truck. Plenty of room for the wife and kids, plus the shopping. I’ve seen more goods loaded on the back of a scooter than in many SUVs. Things I’ve seen on the back of a scooter: dead goats, dogs, and pigs, palm trees (live and plastic), industrial supplies, beer kegs (not just one, but three at a time), vases. It’s not exactly “pimp my motorbike”, but Hanoians more and more are personalizing their motorbikes to stand out from the crowd. Chic women now sport designer seat cushions or feature elaborate, floral designs on their bikes. Around the corner, a block of small shops will craft leopard skin pattern motorbike bodies.

Government officials acknowledge that about 15,000 Vietnamese die each year from traffic accidents. My only question is: that’s it? I have to admit my amazement at the talent many Vietnamese bring to the road and have seen very few traffic incidents in our first year here. However, nearly 35 Vietnamese die every die, overburdening its few trauma hospitals and causing economic losses estimated at over $1 billion per year. When we first got here, we would see parents drive their bare-headed toddlers to nursery school, pregnant women primly ride side-saddle on the back of Hondas or Suzukis, with cloth caps to keep their hair in place, but nothing else. Many drivers do don masks to protect their lungs from the fumes and a few women wear gloves to protect their skin from the sun, but almost no one protects their heads. Maddening . . . and deadly.

Last December, Vietnam finally instituted a mandatory helmet law requiring each person on a motorbike to wear protective headgear. Overnight, the number of persons wearing helmets jumped from 3% to over 95%. Since then, compliance has been remarkably stable, with one exception. The authorities continue to allow children under 14 to go without helmets as some parents believe the weight of the helmets may injure children’s cranial development. You know what will impact a child’s cranial development? Plowing headfirst into the pavement at 40 kmh, without a helmet. So, now you see a scooter with mom and dad wearing helmets, but the kids bareheaded. Needless to say, there have been many accidents with the parents surviving and the kids dying of head trauma.

Many people believe that as the temperature heats up, compliance will plummet. However, one new trend points otherwise. When out during the sunny, summer months, Vietnamese women typically wear broad, floppy hats to protect their faces from the sun. Some were concerned that helmets do not provide the same sun-shade and women would switch back to the flimsy cloth tops. But, I’ve recently seen a new trend. Stalls now are selling cloth brims that can attached to the outside of helmets to provide full sun covering. In many colors and designs, I think this indicates a recognition by consumers and manufacturers that helmets are here to stay and they need to adapt. After the advent of helmet laws (more on this below), many women began to wear helmet bonnets that they fasten to their helmets to turn them into multi-functional headpieces. Not only for safety, but now to be worn when marketing or socializing. Teenagers have taken to wearing smaller caps that look like jockey’s helmets or flimsy plastic pieces shaped like bowler hats. Of no use in an accident, but I suppose they think they look good.

Vietnam/China 11

Where to go on a long weekend? Bangkok? Already lived there. Angkor Wat? Done that. Well, that, of course, left only one place, Kunming.

I had never been to China proper before, having only visited Hong Kong and Macao 17 years ago before they reverted to mainland control. Kunming is the capital of southwestern Yunnan province and China’s gateway city to Southeast Asia. The Chinese call it the Spring City, because of its lovely weather and the fact that, perhaps alone among Chinese metropolises, it actually has fairly clean air. What’s amazing is that for a city of over 5 million people in a province of over 44 million, it gets so little attention. I mean Hanoi has 3.5 million people. Maybe it’s just because China has so many giant cities that we know so little about. Kunming doesn’t even make the top 20, behind such well-known spots as Tianjin, Changchun, Jinan, and Hangzhou. At the same time, it’s quite convenient for us. Only an hour and fifteen minute flight, closer than Ho Chi Minh City or Bangkok.

Anyway, regardless of size or global notoriety, we had a great time (photos here). Coming from hot, crowded, and noisy Hanoi, it was a wonderful change. Cool evenings, modern infrastructure, mercifully few scooters. And almost no English. I guess it reflects my underlying prejudices, but it really was surprising to walk through a modern, seemingly cosmopolitan city center, and realize that we could communicate with virtually no one. I take it as a given that big, bustling cities have some people who speak my language. But in Kunming, all the signs were in Chinese characters and few people could speak anything other than Mandarin or local dialects. In our hotel and a few higher end shops, we noticed a few signs in mangled English syntax like someone had looked up a collection of words in a dictionary and just plopped them down on paper “for water savings must keep clean do not overuse thankfully.” Hard to criticize when I can’t speak the local tongue, however, I’ve always wondered why an enterprising recent college grad doesn’t fly over a big Asian city (pick one) and offer up his or her services to any type of establishment seeking foreign customers to help them with their grammar and vocabulary. You won’t strike your fortune, but I can see it paying for room and board for a year or two before grad school.



We arrived on May Day to a city ready to have some fun. Our hotel was in a great location, right on Green Lake Park and walking distance to Yunnan University. We headed out into the park to see several gatherings of locals singing and dancing. Some were collections of minority tribes (Yunnan has at least 26 minorities with over 5,000 members) in traditional costume participating in the “Kunming Tourism Carnival,” while many others were older (and some younger) Kunming residents playing traditional instruments while singing with friends. Over the three days we were there, we must have seen thirty groups with friends and strangers wandering over to appreciate the show. We bought some steamed rice cakes with sesame and peanuts and enjoyed the spectacle.

In the evening, we joined a throng downtown to watch the May Day parade. I didn’t know what to expect. Some sort of Soviet-era pageant of missiles and weapons? No. A very professional collection of floats representing various regions and cities in China, many of which had an Olympic theme. Actually, somewhat similar to the Rose Bowl parade, with smiling princesses or dancers cheerfully waving to the crowds, kids sitting on parents shoulders, and, of course, Uighur vendors selling grilled lamb sausages. I was very happy to be a well-fed American as my towering 5 foot 11 inch frame made it easy to peer over my somewhat shorter Chinese counterparts. Of course, I was the only well-fed American in the group (waiflike Liz no longer counts as well-fed) -- a fact which caused our fellow Yunnanese parade-watchers some astonishment.

Kunming apparently has one street filled with western restaurants and cafes – appropriately known as Western Street. To get there we had to pass through Liz heaven – two blocks of fashion boutiques where she could try size 4 dresses on her svelte frame. After dragging (literally) Liz away from clothing, we visited a few of the small restaurants that cater to backpackers on their way to the mountain cities of Dali or Lijiang, Yunnan University students, and local English teachers. Despite the temptations of Yunnanese food, we actually had dinner one night at an excellent pizza place.

Now, let’s discuss the local dishes. We had a couple of terrific meals. Great local cuisine. Well-prepared and presented. Spicy and savory. At one modern and chic spot overlooking the lake, we enjoyed goat cheese curds and cilantro, Yunnanese ham, marinated and fermented tofu with fungus, and shrimp marinated in tea. Great stuff and there were many other tempting dishes on the menu. Of course there were some other dishes that were not so tempting. Example? Braised, dried frog sperm with sweetened ginger milk. That plate begs many questions, most of which you don’t want the answers to. For example, who was the first person who said, “That looks tasty. I have to try some of that.” Or “How do they get their supplies?” I picture a bunch of amphibians lounging around reading PlayFrog. Actually, I picture some kitchen worker doing horrible things to the beasts. Another night, we chose to eat at a traditional restaurant in an alley near our hotel. Beautiful architecture, wooden structure. No English whatsoever. At first, I tried to rely on pointing at pictures. That nearly resulted in a meal of minced donkey (no joke) until another patron with some English skills took pity on us and guided us to Yunnanese duck, spicy tofu, Tibetan cheese rolls, and Yunnanese buns.

Wanting to get out of the city, we arranged a car to take us 75 miles east to the Stone Forest, a several acre site of wind-etched and erosion-worn limestone shaped into sometimes fantastical shapes. Sadly, the ride out there was decidedly unspectacular. Kunming may be booming, but outside of the city we passed numerous small towns that at best seemed to be scraping by and at worst seemed largely abandoned. Too small a sample size to draw much of a conclusion, but I could see why people would be seduced by the bright lights of the big city.

The Stone Forest itself was an experience – part positive and part negative. It is as touristy as it gets, but it’s primarily focused on the local market. We snagged one of the only English speaking guides and of the few thousand people we saw at the park, only 5 or 6 could have come from anywhere but China. The parking lot was full of tour buses and touts trying to lure you into overpriced (and probably crappy) restaurants. The guides were primarily drawn from the local Yi tribe and all wore traditional garments. Single women in colorful attire, with two “horns” on their hats indicating their lack of partner. Men also wore bright headware. The Stone Forest itself actually was impressive. Huge blocks chiseled by the elements, narrow winding passages and flooded grottos. Great for photos. We avoided purchases at the local gift shop but couldn’t avoid getting hit up for some tea (it’s a small consolation that it actually tasted quite good). We then were sent to the traditional dance (“totally free”), at which all the men were selected for a round of public humili. . . dancing with Yi women. As anyone who knows me can attest, there is nothing I like more than the opportunity to look foolish in public. Yes, that’s right in my comfort zone. Anyway, they dressed me in and outlandish outfit (with hat!), made me dance, pick up women, and down a shot of God knows what – all while instructing me in a language I don’t understand. On top of that, I got hit up for 100 Yuan (about $14). Good times. Good times.

As the holiday continued, we took a taxi cross town to Daguan park where we again mingled with the crowd enjoying a long weekend. Larger than Green Park, Daguan included an amusement area, where we watched a group of Uighur women with headcoverings board the log flume, numerous food stalls, and broad grassy areas where families picnicked and older men flew giant kites high into the sky. We also stumbled across what appeared to be the filming of a commercial with four young ladies in traditional costumes pedaling a four seated bicycle. No idea what product they could have been pitching – Quadruplemint gum? We took a small boat across the lake to the Western Hills where we strolled about in the heat a peered up at temples carved out of near vertical rock.

The next morning, it was back to the airport and onto the plane back to Vietnam.

Vietnam 10

Small world alert: Through friends, Liz met a Ugandan woman who recently moved to Vietnam with whom we have several friends in common in Kampala. One Friday night, we went out to meet her and her husband at a bar. She brought along a friend, a British aid worker in from Chiang Mai who supervises a Vietnamese marine coastal management project. We started talking and he said that he and his Thai wife used to sell locally-manufactured quilts in the Chiang Mai night market. Turns out, I bought a wall hanging (still on display in my parents’ house) from him in the summer of 1991 when I was backpacking through Southeast Asia after taking the Bar Exam. Small world, indeed.

I recently finished a run and was walking down the street looking to find a taxi. A woman was walking the other way carrying a mesh sack over her shoulder. She would walk up to passersby or shopkeepers and gesture at her sack asking them if they were interested in its contents. Then she almost bumped into me and I got a look into her sack. It was filled with live scorpions, dozens of them crawling all over themselves. Not sure why I’d ever need a bag of live scorpions. But, if I do, I now know where I can get them.

Speaking of the animal kingdom, I have had a few up close and personal encounters of the vermin kind in my office. The other week, I returned to work after a short break to find that a rat had gnawed through my bag to get to a banana I had stupidly left behind. Next, I noticed a few fecal gifts on my desk. Well, if that was how they were going to play it, game on. Before I set out for lunch, we set a sticky trap baited with a cookie on top of my filing cabinet. An hour later, back in front of my desk, I heard a shuffling squeak, turned around, and saw a rat glaring at me, stuck to the board. After removing my rodent friend, we set out a new board. Within 30 minutes, two additional rats had been captured. We don’t need an exterminator, we need a pied piper. It was like the movie Willard. The next time someone tells you how cushy we foreign service officers have it, ask them how many rats they caught on their desks today.

Hoan Kiem at night. Hanoians are increasingly affluent and most teens have access to a motorbike or at least to a friend who has a motorbike. At the same time, there are few places to go to on that motorbike. So what to do? Like small towns throughout the US, you cruise. And what better place to cruise that to Hoan Kiem lake in the center of town. If the weather is nice on a Saturday night around 11 o’clock the circuit around the lake is packed, and I mean packed with kids sitting on their scooters. Hundreds of them. One, two, or three to a bike, just sitting there looking out over the street. Then, suddenly, on some unknown signal, a bunch take off, off on another circuit. Just like a herd of wilderbeasts following a leader they all move in union. And then they stop and park. And start again.

Vietnamese wedding. Earlier this year, my Vietnamese language teacher invited Liz and me to attend the wedding of her brother in-law. First, we joined close family members at the actual exchange of vows. We were the only Westerners crowded into the downstairs and front yard of an urban townhouse. Several neighbors stopped by to see what was going on. Though excited to participate, I was hoping to blend into the background, sort of like a fly on the wall. Instead, we were seated at the head table, with the parents and family elders. More like an elephant in the middle of the room. Still, it was a great chance to practice Vietnamese and see wedding traditions up close. Many of the bride’s older relatives were farmers from Nghe An province (Ho Chi Minh’s place of birth). They would ask questions. I would try to figure out what they asked and then respond. Not sure if we actually had a meeting of the minds, but they got a kick out of my attempts. The bride and groom wore western garb as they posed for photos with family (and a special photo with us). In the background, we watched the wedding video, containing several sets of photos of the couple – in traditional garb, playing instruments, in the park, in front of a sports car. It must have taken days for all those photos. While running in the park, we often pass couples taking their wedding shots – brides changing from dress to dress, grooms in tuxes, hair gelled into place. Photographers and lighting assistants running around, primping the bride in the heat. Then a couple of sweaty American joggers pass by to ruin the picture.

The actual wedding party was at a nearby restaurant, with several hundred guests. Unlike western weddings, there was no elaborate cocktail hour or mingling of relatives and friends. Instead, the waitstaff placed large plates of food on the tables for communal dining. We ate quickly while the bride and groom drank celebratory toasts on a stage in front of the room and then walked around greeting guests. From time to time, our neighbors would lift up a glass and we would all take a sip in honor of the newlyweds. One hour later, it was over. Everyone said their goodbyes and hurried home by 6 pm.

Nutz. Hanoi is not a late-night town. While there are plenty of restaurants, bars, and outdoor beer venues, most shut down by 11 pm. I’m sure there are clubs and other venues that I don’t know about, but, really, there aren’t that many places to go if you want to dance. Hanoi used to have one giant dance club, but it was closed right before we got to town (darn). Now, if you’re a young upwardly mobile Vietnamese looking for a place to strut your stuff you go to “Nutz,” the bar at the Sheraton. Seems a little funny, but it’s true. The Sheraton sports bar turns into one of Hanoi’s top clubs on Saturday evenings. Unlike bars in Bangkok, this one featured many young Vietnamese women AND Vietnamese men. A few older white guys (not me, I was with friends in the corner) wandered around looking bewildered wondering why the women weren’t all over them.

It was a young crowd, in its early 20s. Men in jeans and patterned shirts. Women wore low rise jeans or shorts. A few women smoked, which is quite rare for northern Vietnam. Some of the men wore shades despite the dimmed lights. I was curious to find out their backgrounds. Students? Probably with wealthy or well-connected parents. Too young to have their own money. The music was mostly Techno. People danced at the bar, danced in the aisles, danced with their friends. A few made it to the dance floor. Everyone was having a good time – even the security guards who checked our bags at the door and patrolled the premises throughout the night. Not sure why the Sheraton, of all places, became the gathering place for the young and hot, but so be it.

Liz turned 33 and we hosted a birthday party at “Five”, a new bistro/bar in the middle of the old quarter. This being Liz, the room overflowed with friends from the Embassy, her job, and from around town. We even had a special guest from the States, Liz’s good friend from her FCC days, John Giusti. People drank a lot of wine and stayed late. As is usual with Liz, she also became quite close with the owner of the restaurant, who now loves her. She’s well on her way to becoming queen of the Hanoi expat social scene.

Vietnam 9

More Photos Here

Quy Nhon

Liz has traveled all over the world for my job, so the least I could do was join her for her firm retreat at a five-star resort in Quy Nhon, on the Vietnamese coast. If nothing else, I am a supportive husband.

Quy Nhon is located about 250 miles north of HCMC, requiring us to fly all the way down to HCMC to catch a puddle jumper back north. The resort is about one hour south of the airport, the former U.S. air base at Phu Cat, nestled in a small bay, immediately off the main north-south highway. We passed signs on the way to the resort saying HCMC 400 km and on the way back saying Hanoi 1000 km.

I had a great time as a trailing spouse, meeting Liz’s work colleagues. Mostly Vietnamese attorneys, with a few Americans, Singaporeans, and Koreans. While they had their meetings, I relaxed at the beach. The water was a beautiful and clear blue, which blended in with the tree-clad mountains that rose up almost from the shore to their cloud-shrouded peaks. Squid traps bobbed in the water during the day and provided bright lights in the evenings as they lured the squid upwards. I also spied some fishermen taking a more direct approach, jumping into the water at night with flashlights. Not sure what they were targeting, but it was very strange watching the lights pan around underwater.

While Liz was conference bound, I booked a taxi to visit some Cham temples in the region. Vestiges of the kingdom of Champa, which flourished in the 9th and 10th centuries, several temples remain standing in town and on isolated hills like eerie beacons, clearly visible on the flight in. Though the government has started some restoration work, related infrastructure is thin, typically a chain-linked fence and a sleeping (at noon) watchman. At one site, a museum is under construction, yet nothing to date to guide a lone visitor. I wandered around the sites, looking at the remarkable construction. I passed a corrugated shack in which a few restoration workers had gathered for lunch. They waved me in and I saw an opportunity to practice my Vietnamese. They saw an opportunity to get a foreigner drunk, passing me a shot glass full of the local rotgut. I managed to escape having downed only two shots (plus some tea). Very hospitable, if not very knowledgeable about the Cham Empire.

Lang Son

As many of you know, Vietnam has been at the epicenter of the avian influenza outbreak. Don’t panic Mom N. – we’re fine. However, over the years Vietnam has suffered from hundreds of poultry outbreaks and over 50 deaths. Vietnam’s response has been largely effective, with a strong domestic program designed to prevent animal outbreaks and human infections. Nevertheless, outbreaks continue to pop up, some of them (apparently) due to chickens smuggled in from China. At first, it sounds funny: a bunch of poor villagers running across the border with a bunch of chickens under each arm. But, then its not: several birds captured by customs and animal health have tested positive for AI. I traveled to Lang Son, along the Chinese border to investigate.

Lang Son is about 150 kilometers north of Hanoi. The road is good, though single lane, so we made good (though heart-wrenching) time weaving around buses, trucks, and scooters. North of Hanoi is good rice farming land and the early spring rice stalks shone a vivid green as we drove past, with farmers wading between the rows to weed and fertilize. Though it was cloudy and misty, we could vaguely make up the hills as they began to rise in the distance.

The mountains really begin at the 100 kilometer mark, with sharply cut limestone cliffs looming a thousand plus feet overhead on the left, while more rounded hills stretched to the right. The road began to wind as traffic decreased slightly. With less arable land, the peasants terraced their rice crops, while growing other vegetables on non-level land. Water buffalos grazed placidly.

Lang Son itself is fairly non-descript, I guess about 100,000 people in a growing town, nestled up against some low, but steep, hills. The higher latitude and altitude cooled the air, which remained in the low sixties in early April, compared to Hanoi, which already has begun to warm up. Though surrounded by natural beauty and close to several minority tribe villages, tourism has been slow to develop. We stayed at one of the nicest hotels in town – the two-star Van Xuan. Bed was clean, but hot water cut off after 90 seconds and I could hear everything (Everything!) from neighboring rooms and floors.

Before and after meeting with local officials, we visited some local dining establishments to try the local specialties: roast duck, sautéed greens, and pickled bamboo shoots w/peppers. Not bad, but not a special find. It seems like many of locals like a little liquor with their meal. Fine. A glass of wine or a mug of beer usually sounds nice. Not what they had in mind. Most restaurants contain a rack of shelves on which sit a variety of large glass jugs containing lizards, bees, cocoons, and other assorted insects and reptiles pickled in local white lighting, supposedly for their medicinal purposes. Decaying animal parts in unfiltered booze. It was culture clash. I did try one shot of the local brew, minus the animal parts. Like a cross between vermouth and tequila and about as easy going down. We also tried a place that served ga doi (“hill chicken”), which means free range chicken. We chose the place by the number of motorbikes parked in front. It seemed quite popular, so why not? Upstairs, we found one party of local men happily in their cups apparently debating ancient Vietnamese royal lineages (as explained by my assistant, my Vietnamese skills are not up to tackling inebriated, local dialects). Across the room was a group of local women. Also imbibing, but less enthusiastically, and encouraging their friends to eat more.

I walked around the city early in the morning and in the evening. With few tourists, people were a bit surprised to see me, but more in the “hey, look at that, a Westerner, we don’t get many of those in these parts” way than the goggle-eyed shock you can get when you travel in the back of beyond. Anyway, they got a kick out of it when I responded to their greetings in Vietnamese or asked the costs of things in the market. Close to the Chinese border, the night market was packed with Chinese products (legitimate and not-so-legitimate). I was offered an IPod mini for about $25 and turned it down. What do you think, good move?

Vietnam 8

Tet

During the weeks leading up to Tet, preparations slowly built to a pre-holiday crescendo. First, stores began to stock up on food products, sodas and beer. Then, gift baskets and cards. Small road-side stalls appeared bedecked in red paper, selling gift baskets, streamers, and cases of beer. Soon, virtual orchards of kumquat trees, peach blossoms, and apricot blossoms bloomed along the streets. On the dike road heading out from the city to the airport, the floral vendors were packed so tight for several miles that traffic slowed to an absolute crawl as drivers stopped in the middle of the street to get out and haggle for the best foliage. Urban streetsides turned green, orange, grey and pink with all the fruits and flowers. I am particularly fond of the kumquat trees, which seem so summer-like with their many bright orange fruit standing out against their dense, dark green leaves, particularly during this chilly season (the longest cold snap on record according to the local media). Like the Christmas tree in the US, almost all Vietnamese homes (including ours) feature kumquat trees during Tet. They vary in size from mere bushes to large, bulky 8 foot high masses, usually stuffed into equally large clay pots. Yet, they are all transported the same way – on the back of motorbikes. In the last few days prior to Tet, thousands of scooters zoom through the streets carrying heavy green cargo precariously balanced on their backs. I can’t imagine how the drivers stop or turn without toppling over. (Tet photos here)

The run-up to Tet comes with a few downsides. Traffic, which is always bad, gets out of control, with jams at all times and in all places. At times, you don’t move and can only watch as motorbike drivers vie for precious space on the sidewalks. Taxi drivers refuse to pick you up or seek exorbitant fees. Prices rise for all consumer goods, despite government efforts to crack down on price gauging.

During Tet, people travel home to be with their families, which, for many Vietnamese, means heading out to the countryside. Hanoi doesn’t exactly empty out, but it’s much less crowded during the holiday. The streets are sane, and the sidewalk vendors have packed up, allowing pedestrians to walk freely. Those who remain in the city are focused on welcoming in the New Year so people are in a good mood. Many have waited for months for the holiday as the one solid block of time they can take off from work and be with their loved ones.

At the same time, many of my Vietnamese friends note that Tet preparations are much different – much easier—than before and therefore Tet has lost a bit of what made it so special. When economic times were tough – as little as 10 years ago – it took weeks to prepare for Tet. You had to go and wait in lines for special treats or save up for months to by expensive food products. Perhaps you raised your own chickens or pigs to slaughter for the Tet meal. In a time without many amenities, Tet stood out as a unique time during the year. Now, Tet has changed. It’s still special. People take off up to two weeks to travel back to their home villages, amazing amounts of food and liquor are consumed, and the temples, pagodas, and cemeteries are packed. But, it’s so easy to prepare now. Families can do all their Tet shopping in a few days, not weeks or months. With the economy booming, foods that used to be special to Tet are consumed year round.

The Vietnamese employees at the Embassy sponsored a Tet celebration, which attracted a large crowd. The table was packed with Tet specialties, especially banh trung cakes, made of sticky rice, pork, and green bean, and a variety of drinks. A dragon dance team came to entertain, with beating drums and pounding cymbals. Two pairs of very agile young men donned the costumes and thrashed and leapt their way in front of the crowd.

The Lunar New Year’s Eve in Hanoi featured a fireworks display at Hoan Kiem lake in the center of the city. We’re fortunate that we live about a 15 minute walk away, so Liz and I, Joaquin, Ryan and a few hundred thousand of our closest friends wandered down at around 10:30 on the eve of Tet. Crowds surrounded the lake in a festive, party atmosphere. Mostly young people, with packs of well-coiffed and well-dressed teens forming impromptu conga lines to wade through the masses. Restaurants around the lake were packed and sidewalk vendors did a great business with popcorn, cotton candy, roasted squid and other snacks. A fashion and variety show attracted a mob causing a standstill. We stopped to watch and chat with a few of our neighbors and ended up getting completely stuck. No room to move at all. Though the crowd generally was friendly, we had to push our way though an uncooperative wedge. In the mini-scrum that ensued, I noted several attempted pick pockets and I caught two or three hands on my camera. Someone managed to snag Joaquin’s pack of cigars – not a tremendous loss in my view.

Once the fireworks started at midnight, everyone’s eyes lifted towards the heavens. Lasting about 15 minutes, the display was quite impressive – and loud. I got a few photos of dozens of locals peering upward aiming their cellphone cameras at the explosions. As soon as the fireworks ended, people scattered like a shot on their way home. No hesitating or lingering. Time to go home. We passed numerous homes, apartments, stores and businesses fronted by offerings for the kitchen gods – whole boiled chickens with a rose in the beak, candies, beer, special Tet cakes stuffed with fatty pork and peas. Families remained outside to welcome in the new year.

On Friday, the second day of Tet, during our run in Tong Nhat park, we saw hundreds of families promenading in their New Year’s best after visiting friends and relations. Parents posed their little boys in suits and girls in dresses and hair ribbons in front of flowers for photos. Buying balloons, figurines, and sausage on sticks, the families strolled around laughing at Liz and me in our shorts and t-shirts.

One of Liz’s Vietnamese colleagues invited us to his apartment on the third day of the holiday for a Tet lunch. He, his wife (a professor at Hanoi University) and their three children, live in a tidy, but somewhat packed 3-room apartment. His wife created a multi-course feast filled with traditional Tet dishes (boiled chicken, bamboo shoot soup, and special rice dishes), along with some family favorites – all in a kitchen approximately 3 feet by 3 feet. I like to cook and am not bad at it, but I need seemingly endless counter space for the simplest tasks. No way I could have managed a single dish in that space without a major accident or fire (or, at the very least, a lot of cursing). During the meal, friends of theirs stopped by as part of the Tet visiting process. The kids were given small amounts of money and everyone enjoyed some tea and snacks. It was a nice introduction to Vietnamese holiday customs.

Vietnam 7

OK, now starting to recover from parental cohabitation. Here are a couple of highlights from their visit. Links to photos from both places can be found at drewandliz.blogspot.com

Ha Long Bay

Depending on traffic, it takes about 3 hours to get to Ha Long Bay. That is, if you can avoid the tourist bric-a-brac that assaults you on the way there. If you can go by private car, do it, as all the tourist vans refuse to go non-stop, forcing you to wade through stalls of cheap lacquerwear, silk weaving and post cards.

When we arrived at the dock to catch our boat, I was not sure what to expect. We were the first to arrive in what appeared to be a semi-industrial area with not too many obvious trappings of the upscale tour we had signed up for. After a few minutes, some guy wheeled up on a motorbike with a cage filled with scorpions and bottles of scorpion wine. Hmm. That wasn’t in the brochure. Anyway, soon thereafter several fellow passengers arrived, our tender pulled up to shore, and we were headed to the Bhaya Boat, a new 20 cabin junk that was to take us out into the Bay.

Once underway, we left the stress of the car ride and the uncertainty of a possible scorpion induced hangover, and could concentrate on the beauty of Ha Long. Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site, is dotted with almost two thousand islands, most jutting straight out of the water, and (before the age of mass tourism brought so many visitors – like us) clear waters full of fish.

Every day, hundreds of boats leave the docks to bring day trippers, overnighters, and longer-term visitors out to the caves, grottos and beaches. The inner islands teem with the chatter of a dozen foreign languages, as boats line up to dock at popular spots, and locals paddle up to sell trinkets, shells, and sodas. It is also somewhat disconcerting to be admiring the vistas only to watch an oil tanker pass by in the distance as it heads into or out of the nearby commercial port.

At the same time, there is a reason for the Bay’s continued popularity. The islands are beautiful (photos here), many topped with a jungle-fringe, or weathered by rain and wind into fantastical shapes. Others have been hollowed out or undercut and look like they are ready to collapse into the waters. Some of the caves are spectacular, whether empty or occupied by hordes of camera-toting visitors, with great arched roofs dripping stalactites or broad floors bursting forth with stalagmites. The water is cool and a beautiful blue-green. Sunsets and sunrises are spectacular with light from the pinky-orange sun shimmering through the haze over small fishing boats throwing out their nets. Once away from the masses, it is quiet, with a refreshing ocean breeze. Slowly sailing between the islands is a terrific way to spend a weekend. For the more active, like Liz and me, there is the option to sea kayak around the smaller islets. I can honestly report no capsizing and limited intra-boat squabbling. Mom tried to take photos of our rendevous with nature, but her lack of familiarity with the zoom function on my camera rendered most photos useless, unless you like squinting at black specks on yellow dots that kind-of, sort-of resemble something human.

I absolutely recommend spending at least one night, particularly if the weather is good. It is wonderfully quiet at night with a nice view of the stars. You wake up to the sunrise and steam back to port through island after island trailed by seabirds. Then, it is back to traffic.

Phu Quoc

After spending a couple of days in Ho Chi Minh City, my folks, Liz and I flew to Phu Quoc Island to relax on the beach. It actually is quite cold in Hanoi this time of year (as low as the upper 40s -- requiring jackets, not just sweaters), and a break in the warmth of the south sounded good. Vietnam’s largest island, Phu Quoc sits in the Gulf of Thailand close to the Cambodian coast (photos here). Mountainous and still largely-forested, it is now attracting increasing numbers of tourists. Most hotels are still small-scale cabanas on the beach, reminiscent of Ko Samui 15 years ago, but new upmarket places are going up and the Vietnamese government has targeted the island for major tourist development. That has its downsides and I’m glad we got to see the island now, before the changes speed up.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I go to the beach in Vietnam, I think about one thing – fish sauce. Phu Quoc is famous throughout Vietnam for its fish sauce (and for its pepper) and it exports its product throughout the region. Taking advantage of the opportunity at hand, Liz and I visited a few local fish sauce (nuoc maam, in Vietnamese) factories.

Factories might actually be a bit of an exaggeration. The island has dozens of these establishments, usually set up next to the coast or a river to ease the unloading of the charcoal anchovies that are the primary ingredient of Vietnam’s national condiment. To make fish sauce, local businesses first construct giant wooden vats, tightly supported by thick ropes to protect against leakage. Phu Quoc fish sauce contains two ingredients: fish and salt. And by fish, I mean fish. Not fillets or gutted carcasses. No, the entire fish, packed tightly into layers, each covered by salt. The process continues until the vats are filled and then covered by a loose plastic canvas to prevent any contaminants from disturbing the magic occurring below.

Once packing the fish in, fish sauce manufacturers let the fish ferment (or, if you prefer, rot) for a year, dissolving and liquefying (or, if you prefer, putrefying) until a deep, viscous amber liquid can be drained. Liz and I got an up close look (and smell) at the process, climbing up rickety wooden ladders to peer into the dark interiors of the barrels while the plastic hoses tapped the vats to allow that caramel fluid to flow into plastic vats prior to bottling. We got to sample some of the “first grade” fish sauce. I enjoy fish sauce and thought this tasted particularly good (though a little goes a long way when taken straight). However, it got me thinking. What is “second grade” fish sauce like? I mean this stuff basically is decomposed fish viscera. I probably don’t want to know the answer to my question. Anyway, we ordered a case of the stuff to give as gifts to our Vietnamese friends for Tet, or Vietnamese New Year. Surprisingly, Vietnam Airlines prohibits passengers from bringing fish sauce onto its planes, even in checked luggage, so we shipped it by boat. I’m counting the days until it arrives.

Vietnam 6

Ninh Binh

Mom and Dad just left after their three and a half mon . . . I mean, week visit. They exhausted us and I have found myself unable to tap out anything witty. Therefore, I’m including a previously unpublished write up of my visit to Ninh Binh from last fall. Photos will be attached on the blog (here).

While my wife spent a week last fall in the Middle Kingdom, I traveled with my friend Gordon to Ninh Binh. While Ninh Binh is not Beijing, it was an interesting trip.

Ninh Binh is located about 100 km south of Hanoi on national highway 1A. The city itself doesn’t stand out, it’s a provincial capital of about 90,000, but it’s near a national park, some breathtaking limestone cliffs, and several historical sites. It was also in the midst of a flood.

That didn’t stop me and Gordon, the Embassy Regional Security Officer, from driving down Friday morning. After navigating through Hanoi traffic, we finally came to highway 1A, which for 30 blissful kilometers was a two-lane dual carriage way. We zoomed ahead into the wet clouds. Suddenly, our bliss was shattered. The highway, which, by the way, goes all the way to Ho Chi Minh City, shrank into a 2 lane road reminiscent of Ugandan thoroughfares. Only here, traffic was much heavier, with bus after bus cannon balling down the road, passing slower cars with horns blaring. It made for a somewhat stressful hour and a half.

We stayed at Ninh Binh’s best hotel, the two-star Tuy Anh. In actuality, we were very pleased with the hotel. Air conditioning, hot showers, sparklingly clean bathrooms, and not-particularly lumpy beds. A rooftop bar with cheap Tiger beers and a tidy restaurant with perfectly acceptable (and in the case of the whole steamed fish, pretty good) food exceeded our expectations. We spent some time practicing our Vietnamese talking to the owner, Toan Anh De, and his wife. He had just returned for a visit to the U.S. and couldn’t stop talking about it – he showed us a picture of himself in front of the Capitol that he planned to blow up and put next to the front desk in place of the current photo of him and the Deputy Prime Minister. He has studied U.S. hotels for his plans to build a new resort complex and talks about his wonderful trip to all his friends and fellow businessmen. Better public diplomacy than any Embassy officer can provide.

Our first day, we headed out through showers to the cathedral at Phat Diem, about 30 km south. Before the country’s split in 1954, the surrounding area was home to many Catholics, a large portion of which subsequently fled south. Over the past few years, the Catholic community seemingly has become re-energized and we saw many new or renovated churches on our way down. The cathedral was closed for a while but is again operational and attracts many Vietnamese and foreign tourists. Its architecture is a mixture of Asian and western, with Chinese-style stone carvings dotting the exterior. Inside, huge wooden piers hold up the roof, with a bright altar place shining out of the gloom. A Vietnamese tour group was in front when I walked in, so I didn’t get a close look, but it appeared that many of the Saints in the paintings were costumed in Vietnamese clothing.

The next day we headed to Tam Coc, described in tour books as Ha Long Bay on land. Indeed, the limestone karsts loomed up out of the rice paddies as we boarded a small rowboat to travel along the Ngo Dong river (with the rains, more like a bay) around the cliffs and through the grottos. The scenery is stunning; green, gray cliffs, occasionally topped by a temple or peopled by a few mountain goats rummaging for food on the nearly vertical slopes. I enjoyed chatting with our oarswoman and her husband who paddled using his feet. Perhaps my semi-proficiency helped us a bit. The guidebooks warn about the incessant attempts to hawk embroidery and soft drinks to tourists, but they quickly stopped and even waived away other boat vendors. More likely, it was because we were the first boat of the day in the water or possibly chance, but maybe 44 weeks of intensive study paid a small dividend.

Following the boat ride, we visited Thai Ti temple, which has a spectacular green mountainous backdrop. The wet weather kept most tourists away and we wandered into a local gathering with several elderly villagers playing musical accompaniment to what appeared to be a harvest ritual. I didn’t get the details as I wasn’t sure we were supposed to be there, but we took some discreet photos and left. My mediocre language skills didn’t help us at the next stop, Bich Dong pagoda, or at the remains of an ancient capital at Hoa Luu. Interesting historical sites marred by incessant hawkers, peddlers, and amateur guides. While they’re just trying to make a living, I can’t see that it enhances the experience. Our attempts to visit Cuc Phuong national park were thwarted by nature. The flood that devastated parts of the province blocked off all roads to the Park. You know it’s not a good sign when you turn a corner to see small motorboats carrying motorscooters for about a kilometer over what used to be the local road. At other points, we were threatened not by water, but by rice. With the rains finally over, villagers had begun to harvest the crop, which many then spread out on the side of the road to dry and sort, narrowing the pavement to a few feet at times.

We ventured out of the Thuy Anh one night for dinner and ended up at the Trau Vang or Golden Buffalo, a two story wooden structure hosting Vietnamese families eating hotpots and groups of friends enjoying beer and dinner. Noting the name of the restaurant, Gordon opted for stir-fried water buffalo. I thought I’d be a little more conservative and ordered Com Chay, what I thought was an offshoot of fried rice. The waitress brought a bowl filled with rice-cakes and ladled over a light, seemingly-mushroom filled stew. I like mushrooms and had a taste. Hmm, that didn’t taste like any mushroom I’d had before. I called the waitress over and asked what it was. “Heart.” Gulp. I forgot to ask of what animal, but probably pig or cow. Now, I agree that if you are going to kill an animal for food, you probably should use as much of it as possible, but I grew up an internal organ coward and still like to think that steak is a vegetable and the bones just very hard stems. After a few more weak attempts at the heart (though I am proud that I devoured quite a bit of the heart-flavored broth), I gave up and concentrated on my beer.