A Day in the Life

Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) designates one day on each of their itineraries as "A Day in the Life." We have already been in several private homes on this trip and have had a lot of interaction with individuals. But the company likes to make sure such things happen at least once in every tour.

View from our hotel room window.

This hotel is very oriented to Chinese tourists, so breakfast wasn't very appealing to us. When we arrived in the breakfast room at 6:30 a.m. there were a lot of things not even set up yet (even though they advertise that breakfast is served beginning at 6). What there was, was more along the lines of fried rice, noodles, and rice gruel. We ate what we could. Too bad they didn't begin the "day in the life" by taking us to a genuine Vietnamese pho restaurant!

As soon as breakfast was over we departed the hotel, but not by bus. Rather, we went the way most Vietnamese get to work in the mornings: by motorbike. A bike, driver, and helmet had been arranged for each of us. The helmets were too small, but we wore them anyway. This was an OAT rule. Vietnam does have a helmet law, but it is scarcely enforced.

These are not big motorcycles. Most are about 100cc engines, with the bigger and newer bikes sporting all of 110 or 125cc. OAT insisted that the drivers are safe and that the bikes have all basic equipment functioning. From our observations, this would not be universally true in Vietnam.

For example, my driver was scrupulous about using his turn signals (something rarely seen) but he had his rear view mirror twisted to an odd angle that made it clear he didn't use it. Breakdowns are common. My bike developed a flat tire late in the trip. But OAT had hired an extra bike, just for such eventualities.

Our first stop was a house where two women were weaving mats. These women were both in their 60s, but apparently could sit all day in the lotus position to weave!

Next was a public market -- not the kind tourists shop in, but the sort of place locals go to buy meat, fish, and produce. The group was divided into two groups, and each group was given 50,000 Vietnamese Dong (roughly $2.25) and told to buy fruits or vegetables we hadn't yet eaten.

We picked out a couple of zucchini-like squash, and the woman at the stand signaled "five," generally 5,000 Dong, or roughly a quarter. But the guy who was carrying our group's money pulled out his entire wallet and started counting through all of his bills. The woman's eyes lit up, and the price of the squash suddenly became 20,000 Dong (almost a dollar). Special deal for rich Americans!

When we had spent all our Dong, we brought the produce to our guide, then remounted our bikes for a trip out of town, through the rice paddies, to a village called Dien Phu. Here we visited a kindergarten where 30+ four- and five-year-olds and two teachers were anxiously awaiting our arrival.

The kindergarten is government run, but the building is small -- basically a single room -- and it is almost completely surrounded by water. Much of Vietnam is flat and wet (which makes it the rice-growing breadbasket of Asia). This is normally the dry season, but it has been abnormally wet, so the village was mud and puddles everywhere. Thus, there was no place outdoors for the children to play. The playground equipment was only accessible by wading.

Our group brought gifts for the children, crayons, pencils, books, balloons, etc. Some were appropriate, others perhaps not so much. The kids were all over us, climbing up, wanting to be held, holding our hands, etc. Their teachers had them sing a couple songs in Vietnamese, but it was generally pretty chaotic.

Water six inches deep covered the school yard.

After our visit, stools were set up for us on the front step and the principle, using our guide as interpreter, conducted a Q&A about the school and Vietnamese education in general.

No more motorbikes. Our bus had arrived and took us a short distance to a different part of the village. The roads were so narrow, I think we'd have been better off with the motorbikes. We were met by Mr. Tu, who is the chief of the village -- probably what we would call the mayor.

Mr. Tu greeted us warmly, and wanted to show us some of the things that OAT's foundation has done to improve the area. One addition was a raised sidewalk that allowed foot traffic and motorbikes to come and go above the water line. The walkway also was lighted at night, which was a big thing.

We stopped by several homes where people were working on the front porch. Bamboo is plentiful here, and many families make their living creating things from bamboo.

We were also shown the home of a woman who proudly invited us in. It was brick construction with a corrugated steel roof, essentially two rooms plus a tiny indoor toilet. She showed us photos of her previous home, which was bamboo walls and a thatched roof. She was very thankful to OAT for her new house.

We were told that bamboo houses were typical in Vietnam up until 15-20 years ago, but they are rare now. Only the poorest of the poor still live in such structures. We later learned that the woman with the new house is the mayor's sister-in-law. No indication if that helped her get her new house.

Baskets on their way to market by motorbike

We went on to another family that was making bamboo baskets, and some of us got to try our hand at basket weaving. The process was interesting, and the finished products were shipped off to the city to be sold by a middle man.

Finally we reached Mr. Tu's home. It was, as one might expect of the mayor, one of the nicer homes in the village. However, it too was only about four rooms: A sitting room, a sleeping room, a kitchen, and sort of a utility room for storage of important things, like the family china and the motorbike.

The first thing he wished to show his guests, of course, was the family altar. Every home and business has one, but this one was larger and more ornate than most. He wanted to offer a prayer for our visit to Buddha and his ancestors, and incense sticks were passed out to several in the group so that they could join in the brief ceremony.

Mr. Tu's wife organized the women in the kitchen, where they cut up the vegetables we had bought in the market. Mr. Tu took the men to the front of the house and put us to work making the drink.

My job was to crush mint leaves in a mortar with a large stainless steel pestle. Another guy had the job of crushing the ends of lemon grass stalks and slicing the ends into glasses. The stalk became the stir stick. Yet another guy was cutting and squeezing limes, and another putting ice in glasses. Some sugar and 7-Up were added to the lime juice, the mint leaves and a shot of rum were added to each glass, along with the ice and the lemon grass. The result was a "Vietnamese Mojito," and it was pretty good.

The women joined us for drinks, and Mr. Tu delighted in pouring more rum for everyone while our guide came around with the pitcher of 7-Up and lime juice. I think I had about four shots of rum before it was all over, and I was feeling the buzz.

Mr. Tu had been a paratrooper in the ARVN, the South Vietnamese army, during the war. He was delighted to meet the one guy in our group who was a Vietnam vet, and when introduced snapped to attention and gave him a smart salute. He insisted they share in shots of rum.

The meal consisted of far more than the vegetables we had brought, and Mrs. Tu and the sister-in-law were busy serving course after course. It was a good meal.

After eating, Mr. and Mrs. Tu sat for another Q&A with our guide interpreting. Mr. Tu told of his time in a "re-education" camp after the fall of Saigon, and clearly was proud of both his service and the progress that his country has made more recently since the abandonment of pure Communism.

When it was time to go, Mr. Tu walked the group all the way back to the bus and shook everyone's hand individually as we boarded, thanking us for coming, in heavily accented English.

Upon return to the hotel, we decided to stroll along the seaside promenade for a bit. We also walked through the high-end shopping center next to our hotel. Most of the price tags here are in Russian. We entertained ourselves in the aisles of a supermarket and visited a bakery, before returning to our room for a little down time.

Streets are brightly lighted in anticipation of Tet, the New Year celebration.

We walked the opposite direction along the shore at dusk. There were still lots of people enjoying the beach including, improbably, a large group of Buddhist nuns. Then we took a side street through a park with a delightful lighted fountain, and walked back along the parallel street just a block off the main tourist strip. The atmosphere was much different, even this short distance away.

Nuns on the beach.

We had been given coupons for a free drink at the bar on the top floor of the hotel, so we went up to enjoy the view. There was really only a choice of two cocktails, so we enjoyed a "Sunflower," which had absolutely nothing about it reminiscent of sunflowers. After lingering over our drinks, we called it a night.

The lighted fountain.

On the Road Again

Today we had the opportunity to sleep in (though most of the group reported being awake early anyway). Hoi An is a nice place, but it seems we had too much down time there, and the late departure this morning just added to it.

The bus finally left at 10 a.m. and drove us to Da Nang. This time, on the way through town, we had opportunity to visit the Champa Museum, which contains a number of artifacts from the My Son site we had visited yesterday.

The museum is not large. While there were some interesting pieces, we saw all of it in about 15 minutes.

The museum happens to be located just at the tail end of the "Yellow Dragon Bridge." This relatively new structure gets its name from the fact that it was designed to look like a yellow dragon. No surprise there.

The bus delivered us to the Da Nang airport once again, where we checked in for the flight to Nha Trang. We actually landed at Cam Ranh airport, near the famous seaport at Cam Ranh Bay. This was a major supply depot for the U.S. during the Vietnam War. It is now leased by the Russian navy. We immediately noticed signs in Russian everywhere.

The bus ride from Cam Ranh to Nha Trang was actually quite scenic. There are huge sand dunes near the coast, and high-end tourist resorts line the road along the seaside. This isn't rice paddy country as we've seen elsewhere.ets

First stop was a boat ride to the island of Hon Mieu in Nha Trang Bay to visit a fairly typical fishing village. The contrasts here were quite amazing, with abject poverty sitting alongside comfortable middle class houses, and some clearly upper class homes.

Our guide allowed us to taste some carefully chosen street food. Young children followed our group through the streets.

As we walked, the boat moved around to the other side of the peninsula to meet us. However, it could not dock on that side. Rather, it docked next to one of the many dozens of floating fish farm structures just off shore.

Some in our group braved the tiny, round "basket boats" made of woven bamboo to get out to the boat that would take us back across the bay.

The rest of us walked and very tipsy floating dock out to a raft, which two boys pulled across to the fish farms with a rope.

Our trip back to the mainland took us under the high gondola that takes visitors across the bay to another island, known as the Vietnamese DisneyLand.

Nha Trang is a bigger place than it initially appears. It's also a fairly prosperous place, at least along the seaside, there huge new tourist hotels line the streets.

Dinner tonight was at a place that was definitely outside the fancy tourist zone. Meat and seafood were brought to our table raw, along with buckets of burning charcoal over which we grilled our own dinner. It was very entertaining, but probably not fine dining.

Our hotel here is a high rise by the sea. Our very modern room looks out toward the ocean. We hope we get some time to walk along the beach tomorrow.

My Son

We had an early wake up and departure by bus to the hill country west of Hoi An to visit the ruins of My Son (pronounced Mee Sun). This is a temple complex for the Champa people. Today they are one of 50+ ethnic minority groups in this country. A thousand years ago, the Kingdom of Cham extended over all of the area that is now central Vietnam. It was conquered by Hanoi, and incorporated into Vietnam in the 13th century C.E. After the expansion, the Vietnamese capital was later moved to Hue as a more central location.

The temple site dates from the 4th century C.E., but the ruins here now date from the 10th to 13th centuries. Some portions are well preserved, others have been reconstructed, and the rest are in pretty bad shape. This area came under heavy bombardment from the Americans during the war, and large bomb craters are still visible. Some well-preserved structures were destroyed.

Hindu "yoni," a symbol of the goddess of female creative energy.

A headless statue of a Hindu god stands guard.

The existing ruins are mostly brick. The bricks fit together perfectly, and there is absolutely no mortar. One theory is that the bricks were laid still as clay, and that fires were then stoked in and around the buildings to bake them in place. No one really knows for sure.

There was no local guide for this excursion, and it was clear that some other tour groups were getting a much more thorough explanation of the Champa culture and the meanings of these temples. Our guide is a nice guy, but I don't think he really knows much about this place (or just doesn't care).

The Champa are ethnically more related to the Thai or Burmese than to the Viets. They practiced a form of Hinduism, brought from India, mixed with local animism. Once a thriving kingdom, there are said to be fewer than 100,000 ethnic Champa remaining in Vietnam today.

In addition to viewing the ruins (and enjoying a lovely walk through the natural surroundings in doing so), we had opportunity to view a video about the site and the culture. Also, there was a brief program of live music and dancing.

The first dance involved costumes and music that actually could have been Western. The second act featured a primitive oboe, and could easily have been Middle Eastern. The third act was very reminiscent of ancient Siam.

Returning to Hoi An, we were served lunch near the city center. This meal wasn't terribly interesting and wasn't of as high a quality as some of the rest. The food has been so good on this trip, that an average meal is disappointing.

Some group members elected to remain in the city center. We took the bus back to the hotel. Though we had excellent weather for the excursion, light rain and drizzle sort of dampened plans for the free afternoon. We relaxed for awhile, then as the afternoon before, we took the hotel shuttle to the city center.

After walking around a bit, we settled at one of the many bars with outdoor tables advertising "2 for 1" cocktails. We had expected watered down drinks, but the alcohol was actually quite generously proportioned. Again, we enjoyed the long walk back to the hotel, but this time we had to watch out for mud and puddles. The drizzle started up again just as we reached the hotel, so no more adventures today.

Peddlers and Pedaling

The hotel provided what is becoming a fairly typical breakfast, then we were off once again to the city center. Our guide had not taken us into the actual heritage area yesterday, only to the areas very near to it. There isn't a great deal of difference: Outside the heritage area there are shops and restaurants with proprietors out on the sidewalk, beckoning tourists to come in and spend money.

Inside the heritage area there are shops and restaurants with proprietors out on the sidewalk, beckoning tourists to come in and spend money, except there are no cars allowed in the streets and there are more Chinese lanterns hanging.

To be fair, the buildings in the heritage area are a little better kept, there is music piped into loudspeakers on every street corner, and there are several temples and pagodas that, while no longer functioning, are preserved for tourists.

There are also "museums" here. While most museums in the world have a small museum shop at the exit, in this case the museum shop is the main event, and a small exhibit space happens to be attached.

One traditional house did have some fascinating decorative poetry. From a distance, it appeared to be merely Chinese characters inlaid into the wood with mother-of-pearl. Up close, one could see that the characters were actually ornate images of birds created by even more delicate work with the mother-of-pearl.

With all this commerce going on, it was difficult for our guide to keep the group together. So after a couple hours we were turned loose with a meeting point and time. Uncharacteristically for us, we actually did some shopping and made some purchases.

Our included lunch was yet another excellent meal. There has been so much variety in the menus, I doubt if we have had the exact same dish twice (except for the rice, of course).

After lunch we returned to the hotel, where we and another couple from our group -- Pat and Mimi, a retired college professor and his wife from Fort Collins, Colorado -- rented bicycles. Bikes rent here for the exorbitant price of one U.S. dollar per bike for the entire day! However, one gets what one pays for -- an old, undersized, single speed bike with poor brakes.

We rode in the opposite direction from town, out into the rice paddies to the sea, about two miles. At least the land here is flat! From the beach we could see across the bay to Da Nang, and observe some islands farther out to sea. There were people fishing from tiny boats in rather rough water, sometimes quite a ways from shore.

On the way back we became even more adventurous and cut off the main road onto side streets. Kids waved and dogs barked at us, and we hit a dead end at one point. But we made it back to the main road once again via the road less traveled, and saw some areas that tourists probably never see.

In the evening, we caught a ride on the hotel's shuttle bus, which follows an odd and somewhat erratic schedule, to return once again to the city center for dinner on our own. After a big lunch, our goal was a particular sandwich shop Mary had read about.

 It turned out to be something of a hole in the wall -- street food that we would ordinarily avoid. But the place was packed with Asians and non-Asians alike. We ordered two sandwiches and a beer, all really good, and paid roughly the equivalent of $2.50 in Vietnamese Dhong!

After walking around in the heritage area for awhile, enjoying the bright lanterns and the even more brightly lit shops, we found a restaurant near the river that was offering 2 for 1 beers and sat down for some people watching. This area is almost entirely tourists: Lots of Australians, a fair number of Europeans, but tons of Japanese and Chinese. When we had tired of that, we walked back to the hotel for an early evening.

Hoi An

The bus took us south from Hue, along the shore of the South China Sea to our left, and emerald green mountains on the right. In the flat lands in between we saw people and water buffalo working in the rice paddies.

 We stopped briefly at a rest stop along the shore of a shallow lake or lagoon used for fish farming. It was quite scenic spot, and about a dozen tour buses were crammed in. A Japanese woman chatted up Mary in broken English, and was impressed the Mary had visited her country.

Continuing back through Da Nang — a bustling city, the third largest in the country after Saigon and Hanoi. We stopped briefly at China Beach, so named by the American GIs who came here for R&R during the war (the Vietnamese do not call it by that name).

Just 15 or so miles south of Da Nang we entered the city of Hoi An. Our guide described it as a “small town,” with a population of “only” about 125,000. The old city center is well-preserved in the early French colonial style, and a river enters the sea here.

First stop was a restaurant said to feature traditional foods of the region. Since almost every customer in the place had a Western face, and all signs and menus were in English, our expectations were very low. They did have quite a display for benefit of tourists around the perimeter of the dining room, featuring foods like lemongrass frog (whole, not just the legs) and silkworm salad (yes, real worms).

 When the soup was served, our expectations rose immediately. It turned out to be a great meal. One guy in our group added a side order of the silkworm salad, he and one other woman, along with Mary and I, were the only four to give it a try. (The sauce was tasty, but the silk worms really didn’t have much flavor at all.) The rest of the meal proved to be as excellent as the soup.

After checking into our hotel, we took the bus back to the city center where our guide took us quickly through some of the high-end fashion stores where clothing is made to order within a day or two. It was interesting to see, but we aren’t buying. The group dispersed to shop, and we made our way back to the hotel on foot. It is only about a mile.

In the afternoon, our guide hosted a discussion of Vietnam’s political structure. It was somewhat enlightening, but what is clear here is that since the economic reforms of the 1990s, this is a Communist country in name only.

Dinner in the evening consisted of a cooking class. These are done all over Hoi An, at nearly every restaurant in town. Ours was conducted at a resort on the edge of the city and was mildly entertaining, but the food was very, very good. We didn't actually do that much to contribute to the preparation, but when we all admired the knife the chef was using, he offered to order them for us and have them delivered to our hotel -- U.S. $2 each -- yes, just two bucks.