Grand Excursion - Sapa

View from our hotel in Sapa.

 The night train to Sapa was an adventure by itself.  None of us got much sleep since the train was really loud and very bumpy so the next morning we were all pretty exhausted. We left around 8:30 p.m. and arrived around 6 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 3.  Following the train ride, we had an hour-long bus ride into Sapa along a very windy path.  Luckily, we were able to pile into two hotel rooms and nap for an hour before hiking through the neighboring villages.

Sapa is located in northwestern Vietnam, close to the border with China.  Most of the people who live in Sapa are from four ethnic minority groups of Vietnam: Hmong, Dao, Pho Lu, and Tay.  There are 54 total ethnic minority groups in Vietnam.  Each group has a very distinctive style of dress and specific cultural traditions. 

After our nap, we explored the market then hiked for four hours to reach a small village where we all stayed in a home stay together for the night.  We walked on dirt roads, through rice paddies, above waterfalls, and through a bamboo forest so the scenary was spectacular!  Sapa is definitely one of the most beautiful places I have ever been! Our home stay was basically a large building with twelve mattresses and mosquito nets on the second floor.  We were all really tired and actually had one of our best nights sleep in Vietnam.   The next morning we trekked back to the main city in Sapa, stopping along the way to have lunch with a shaman and his family.

The following day, Nov. 5, we hiked for an hour to reach an elementary school where we passed out sweatshirts and pants to the kids.  Many of the kids did not have shoes and they were really excited to get their new clothes. The classrooms looked similar to those in the US.  They were covered in colorful posters and each student had their own desk, which was surprising to me since it is a really poor area.  Some of the students were practicing their penmanship and their handwriting definitely put mine to shame.  Vietnam has a staggeringly high percentage of the population that is literate, the number is somewhere around 95%.  But, the school only went up to the fifth grade and still did not have a sanitary toilet.  Buying and constructing the toilet costs about $1,000, which is most people's yearly salary in Vietnam.  Some of the students from the school we visited will continue their education in neighboring towns, but many will just start working after they finish.  A few students from Sapa go to Hanoi for university, but it is very rare.  

In the afternoon, we explored more of the markets in Sapa before heading back to Hanoi on the night train. 

A quick note about the weather, it was wonderful.  On average, it has been 90 degrees Fahrenheit with about 100% humidity everywhere we have traveled: hot, hot, hot.  In Sapa it was 57 degrees at night, which at first was a shock.  People were buying scarves, hats, and North Face gear to stay warm, but I thought it finally felt like it was fall.  It was a tease though because Hanoi was boiling when we returned.  (My season's are really going to feel messed up when I return home on Christmas Eve in Northern NY to (hopefully) tons of snow.)

Enjoy the pics below:

Market in Sapa.

Mother and daughter.

This little girl is sewing!

Anna looks truly scared, but I think she was just about to sneeze.  Trying to bargain in the market was chaotic to say the least...

This woman was 21 years old and had a one year old little boy. She was a tour guide, but also made and sold handicrafts at the market.

Dying fabric.

Our hiking companions.

Rice paddies.

Eliza on our hike.

Mother and child.

Tom, me, Libie, and Ethan

Passing by a small village. To the left you can see a child sitting in the front of a motorbike.  That is how everyone rides with their kids.  Sometimes, if the vehicle has space in front of the seat, there will be a plastic seat for a baby to sit on while they are riding.

The guys with traditional hats.

Libie, Eliza, Molly, and me on top of a waterfall.

Lunch at a shaman's house. The purple and yellow food in the lower right corner is sticky rice. The purple potatoes are yams and the meat in the middle is pork with lemongrass.

This woman is 22 and wearing her wedding outfit.  She was engaged to be married. Most of the women marry between the ages of 17-22, which is a lot older than in the past. 

Outside of the shaman's house.

The guys casually trying to touch a water buffalo that was walking down the street.

Grand Excursion - Da Nang, Hue

We only spent a few hours in Da Nang, but it is definitely a place I would want to return to.  We hiked up a mountain to see a pagoda where one of the emperors use to travel to, explored some caves, and enjoyed the view.  Da Nang is a tourist town.  We passed countless huge beach resorts, which all looked like they had few to no people staying in them.  My friend Tom is going back to Da Nang to study tourism for his ISP.  Thinking back to how the infrastructure of Vietnam was in the 1980s after they won their independence and seeing the country now is really interesting.  The amount of new buildings and resorts that have been built is quite impressive for the number of years Vietnam has had access to international trade markets and foreign investors. 

View from the mountain with the pagoda.

Monks praying and lighting incense.  My professor, Co Thanh, is on the left.

Inside one of the caves.

From Da Nang, we drove to Hue.  It was one of the most spectacular drives I have ever been on, but unfortunately my camera broke so you will just have to imagine driving on curving roads around the edge of mountains with the blue ocean below. 

Hue is famous because it was the former capital of Vietnam and the last emperors all resided within the Hue citadel. During our time in Hue we learned about the royal family, went on a "dragon" boat in the Perfume River, and finished up some classwork.  I am headed back to Hue to do my Independent Study Project (ISP) about Hue cuisine.  My professor got me an internship at a hotel restaurant for two weeks in November, which I am so excited for!  I will be able to interview chefs and learn how to cook traditional Hue dishes.  I also have a project adviser who has the title of "Culinary Artist of Hue".  She is the sweetest woman and teaches cooking classes and judges cooking competitions for a living. 

After Hue, we flew north to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.  We had one day in the city before we took a night train even further north to Sapa.  Pics to follow!

Grand Excursion - Hoi An

For the last three weeks my class has been touring around central and northern Vietnam on our "Grand Excursion".  We flew from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang then immediately drove to Hoi An.  Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site famous for tailor shops, old buildings, and French architecture.  As my friend Libie described Hoi An, it's a very quaint town.  After being in noisy HCM City, it was nice to be in a quiet place. 

Because the weather was nice during our first full day in Hoi An, our professor decided to take us to the beach on Cham Island.  We took a motorboat to reach the island and spent the morning and afternoon hiking around, snorkeling, and relaxing on the beach. The beach was by far the best I have ever been to.  There were a few other tourists, but we mainly had the entire beach to ourselves.  Some people live on the island, but most still do not have electricity.  Like all parts of Vietnam, the island is trying to cater to tourists so it will be interesting to see if the island becomes a popular tourist destination in the coming years.

Lotus Flower outside of a pagoda on Cham Island.  Lotus flower salad is a popular dish in Vietnam.

Fishing boats at Cham Island.

Back on the mainland, my friends and I scouted out places to have dinner.  Molly was in Vietnam four years ago and she wanted to take us to a restaurant where she had the best spring rolls in the world.  Molly is incredibly good at finding awesome places to eat so we knew that finding these spring rolls would be our top priority.  We walked about ten minutes and finally found the restaurant, but to our dismay it was closed.  People working at a spa next door saw us and said they knew the woman who owned it.  They said during the evenings she goes to her other restaurant, which is located in a more touristy section of Hoi An.  They could have just stopped there and told us the name of the restaurant, but instead they called the woman to make sure she was at the other restaurant and then offered to drive us there for free.  If I was alone, I probably wouldn't have jumped into a random stranger's car, but since there was six of us total (four girls and two guys) we figured it was safe.

 At the restaurant, we sat outside at a table on the sidewalk.  The owner came bustling over in a sparkly blue dress and a huge smile. She hugged Molly enthusiastically when she said she was there four years previously.  We flipped through the menu trying to decide what to order, but the woman waved the menus away and said she would order for us.  A few minutes later, our table was covered with green papaya salad, crispy wontons with warm vegetables, and of course the famous spring rolls. Instead of being smooth, the rice paper on the outside of the spring rolls had a lattice texture.  On the inside, they were filled with chopped vegetables and shrimp.  Dipped in fish and soy sauce, the spring rolls just melted in our mouths.

Lanterns for sale.

The best spring rolls in the world!

The owner of To Dung Restaurant

 The next day we had cao lau, a typical dish from Hoi An.  It consists of noodles, thinly sliced beef, fried wonton-like crackers, bean sprouts, lettuce, and fresh herbs.  It is served with a little sweet and salty broth, just enough to coat all of the ingredients.

Cao Lau

 Hoi An is also famous for a pottery village.  We borrowed bicycles from our hotel and biked ten minutes to a section of town that had lots of pottery shops.  I did not buy anything (I don't think anything would stay in one piece while being transported all around), but it was neat to see all of the people working on their pottery wheels.

 Later in the week, we went to My Son Sanctuary, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The temples and buildings were built from the 4th to the 13th centuries A.D. by the Champa people whose roots can be traced back to India.  However, during the American War, the U.S. bombed the site so there are only remnants of buildings left.  There were some restoration projects, but they are progressing slowly because they have limited funds.

Before we left Hoi An, we were able to borrow the hotel's bicycles again and ride to a close beach.  We spent the afternoon jumping in the waves and headed back into town as the sun was setting.  After spending a few days in Hoi An, we drove through Da Nang and onto Hue. Pics to follow soon!

Rice paddies outside of Hoi An

Catching Up, Last Two Weeks with my Host Family

 Sorry I've been absent these last few weeks. My group has been traveling all over central and northern Vietnam.  The last time I wrote, I was still living with my host family in Ho Chi Minh City.  Here's a summary of my last two weeks in HCM,

View of Ho Chi Minh City from Hoa Sen University in District 3.

During the second weekend back in Ho Chi Minh City, my group traveled to Cat Tien National Park.  We took a three hour bus ride then a ferry across a river to reach the park, which is on an island.  Once we arrived at the main park buildings we were told to put on leech socks and leech cream.  The "socks" looked like Christmas stockings and we were very skeptical that we actually needed them to trek into the jungle. After we were convinced we were leech-proof, we climbed into the back of a truck that drove us to the edge of the forest trail.

 Once we started hiking, we realized that the leech socks had been a very, very good idea.  The leeches were small, but they were everywhere along the ground.  Along the way to the rangers' station, where we spent the night, we saw a tree that was over 600 years old!

 The rangers' station looked like a group of connected tree houses that overlooked Crocodile Lake. 

 And yes, Crocodile Lake is home to hundreds of crocodiles.  After the sun went down, the rangers shined flashlights into the lake and we could see the crocodiles glittering eyes. We all had dinner with the rangers, which was a very lively event.  Mostly because the guides had forgotten to bring up bottles of water so we were left instead with a very large stash of the rangers' rice wine.  Rice wine in Vietnam is pretty much their national drink.  Whenever we meet new people, we are often asked to take shots of rice wine, yelling "mot, hai, ba, yo" (one, two, three, in) before each one.  The farmers in the Mekong Delta loved to drink with our group during our meals and the rangers were no different.  They even had thought of a drinking game "Sing or Drink".  Basically, you had to sing a song or take a shot.  Just so you understand, rice wine does not really taste like wine.  Depending on the quality and strength, the flavor is somewhere between rubbing alcohol and gasoline.  After a couple of rounds we all went back to our tree house cabins to sleep.  Thankfully, we had large mosquito nets to cover our beds because there were bats flying into our rooms all night.

The next morning, some of our group ventured out into Crocodile Lake hoping to catch a glimpse of a crocodile.  I stayed safely on the land and saw a couple of crocodiles moving through the water.

The grey bump to the left of the sign is the head of a crocodile.

 After breakfast, we put our leech socks on and hiked back to the main lodge.  We arrived back in HCM City Saturday night and spent the rest of the weekend with our host families.

Full native.  The Ao Dai is a traditional Vietnamese dress for women.  It includes loose fitting pants and a dress part that has long slits up each side that extend to the bottom of your rib cage. Every women gets them custom-made, so this one was not very comfortable to wear since I borrowed it from my host sister.

On Sunday, I went to my host sister's English Club meeting.  There was a man from Singapore who was presenting a program about interviewing skills.  He discussed topics like how you should dress, how to correctly give and receive business cards, and how to introduce yourself.  In Vietnam, the universities often do not have courses or extra programs to learn these skills so the students were really interested in what he had to say.

Here are a few foodie highlights from the last two weeks in HCM:

Durians.  They are really one of the most repulsive fruits known to man.  My friend Molly refers to the smell and taste as "an onion and vomit milkshake".  The fruit has a very mushy texture and a pale yellow color.  I actually like durian in mooncakes, but eating it plain is an acquired taste that I don't think I will get use to before I leave. 

Breakfast at my host family.  My host mother is a wonderful cook and every morning I would be served a huge, hot breakfast.  This dish consisted of thick noodles (I think they are made from tapioca starch), veggies, shrimp, and chicken.

Magenta dragon fruits.  Dragon fruit comes in two colors: grey and magenta.  Both types look the same from the outside and taste the same, but the inside colors are starkly different. Dragon fruit does not have much flavor.  I think the taste and texture is similar to the very inside white part of a kiwi.

Soft-shell crab with tamarind sauce. Mmmmmmm

Organ stew.  My host sister took me to a street vendor who served organ stew with bread and fresh herbs.  The broth was one of the most delicious broths I have ever eaten!  My host sister said she never asked what types of organs were used, but if anyone can identify anything let me know!

My host mother taught me how to make lemongrass beef wrapped in green leaves. 

Seahorse and ginger wine. This is the one thing I did not try.  I almost did, then my host family told me that it had been sitting there for three years.  It is suppose to be a medicinal wine to cure any sickness.  Thankfully, I wasn't sick that day.

 My host family was the most welcoming family. They let me join right in with everything they were doing and took me to experience lots of new foods and new places.  I met their aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.  For one school assignment, I had to interview my host mother's mother, Bien.  She was born in 1942 in Northern Vietnam to a family of rice farmers.  Bien moved to Hanoi to continue her education when she was fourteen and eventually became a government official.  She lived through the occupation of French and American troops and raised four children. A large part of her village and her husband's village was destroyed during the American War.  In the late seventies, she was transferred to Ho Chi Minh City to continue working in a government office. Her story was fascinating and all the history we had been learning about in class was expanded on with her personal narrative.  For example, marriage "rules" have changed a lot from Bien's generation to the present. Bien's parents had an arranged marriage, but she was able to freely choose her husband.  She married in her early twenties, but none of her grandchildren are married yet (the oldest grandchild is 27).

Even though people are marrying later, family is still an important structure in society.  Children usually live with their parents until they get married.  My host sister graduated, but still lives with her family because it is what is expected and it is easier.  Some university students live in dorms or with friends, but only if their families live in another region.

I became very close with my host sister and could talk to her about anything.  After my program ends, I am planning on traveling around SE Asia, but my flight home is from HCM City so I hope to come back and visit my host family before I fly home.

My host mother, sister, and me at the farewell dinner.