Chuc Mung Giang Sinh

Happy Merry Christmas to all (that's how all the locals say it in English)! It is Christmas day and yes, I am at work, but it does not bother me whatsoever as it has been a great Christmas holiday so far.

My roomies, Caroline from England and Lora from the US, and our Christmas tree

We hosted a Xmas Eve party that I think will be memorable for all. We had homemade lasagna, gingersnaps, and shortbread cookies - that might seem easy to make, but you have to remember that most houses don't have ovens and that Lora had to go to a friend's house, do all the baking, and transport it to the house! We ate well and I was stuffed by 7:30 (party started at 7) but was able to eat the whole night long ... when else am I going to get homemade baking?! We had a gift exchange where we were able to steal other people's presents, sang lots of caroles (except for some reason the only song we all knew was Oh Come All Ye Faithful ...), and played games (Team Couch Potatoes came in a respectable 2nd place). Let's just saw the party went until 3:30am and I made it to work by 9 ...


Vietnamese santa even made a showing to our party

There were people from all over the world at our place and can you believe there were 6 Nova Scotians (either from or went to university) out of about 40 people?

I think about Christmas and how normally I spend it with my mom, stepdad, and relatives in Sydney and this year I spent it with 40 strangers ... people who I never even knew I would cross paths with ... but had a special celebration with people who were away from their family, too. And now I sound mushy, but it really felt like Xmas because we didn't need extravagent gifts or expensive presents, we had a good time because of good company.

Kate and family have arrived safely and I am so impressed with their open-mindedness and sense of adventure to really see Vietnam. They are presently in Sapa for a few days and are spending Xmas in the mountains. On their first day here they surprised me at work and walked all the way from their hotel, which is a hefty hour / hour and a half walk through major arterial roads with heavy traffic. Kate lugged a huge bag of cards and presents from home and thanks to everyone who sent me greetings, I really appreciate it :) It is kind of strange having someone from home, being here with me as you can easily get stuck in a bubble which I think was happening to me. I am glad Kate and her parents can see what I see, they got to see my house, my neighbourhood, my work, where I eat, where I hang out, and meet some of my friends.

So technically I am celebrating Xmas 12 hours earlier than everyone. My sister, Michael, and Donna & Claud just phoned and wished me a Merry Christmas. It's Xmas eve for them and they just prepared food for tomorrow's big meal. I was very jealous to hear they are having a big bowl of turnip! I really miss eating root vegetables, I am more Canadian than I sometimes realize ...

Kate, Geoff, Linda, and I will be heading to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island for a few days then are off to Saigon. I am going in the NY's ultimate tournament and we will be celebrating NY's with ultimate players from around Asia. My aunt from Toronto is visiting family in Saigon right now and I will be visiting new family in the new year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone. Hope you are having a monstruous turkey and turnip.

Kampuchea

The Travelling Trio have just come back from the Kingdom of Cambodia. The idea to go there got started with running in the half marathon at the Temple of Angkor Wat. We set low expectations for ourselves, but we ended up doing alright. Sarah and I made awesome running partners and ran the whole thing (in 2h32min ... not bad since we did not train at all!), we just kept pace and it helped big time that the whole course was flat and the race started before the sun was at full blast.

But visiting Siem Reap became much more than just running a half marathon, it was tough at times to really comprehend what the Cambodian people have been through and what they are going through now. There are no landmines in Siem Reap Town but if you go outside the city boundaries you have to be cautious. There is an estimated 6 million land mines left in the country and the signs of the ones that have been discovered is obvious from all the maimed people we saw. Cambodia has been in wars until the 1980's and you wonder where will they go from here. The poverty is much more extreme than I have been seeing in Hanoi. Although in Vietnam you still see a lot of serious issues, there is a feeling in the air that things are on the upswing ... I did not feel that in Cambodia. The kids did not smile as much, they weren't in school, instead they were out of the streets selling postcards or books and following foreigners around.

One of the reasons an international half marathon started in Siem Reap was to bring Cambodia on the travelling stage to encourage tourism and the registration fee goes to landmine victimes. The Angkorian temples were amazing and pretty reasonable in price if you consider what you are seeing. We paid $40 USD for a 3-day pass and although by the last day we were templed out, the sites were spectacular. The temples have both Hindu and Buddhist influences as well as being commissioned by various kings from about 900 - 1400 AD. You really do need at least 3 days to see everything, because the sites are massive.

This is about 6am. Angkor Wat is in the background and the race starts in half an hour and the sun does rise by then.

Angkor Wat is the more famous temple, but I think I enjoyed visiting Angkor Thom which was the last capital city of the Khmer Empire and is 9 km2 in area.

I believe this is Pre Rup temple, thought to be the crematarium temple

We decided to rent bikes on our second day at the temples (yes, even though we just ran a half marathon) and biked from temple to temple. That was my favorite way of touring the sites. We got to go at our own pace and took out time. We had a lonely planet book and would read the info on each temple then would go see what we just read.



We were allowed to walk everywhere and anywhere in the temples, which we were a bit surprised by since it is a UNESCO heritage site and over a thousand years old! The temples have taken a beating, especially during the wars as there are still markings of bullets and bombs. Many of the dieties and animals' heads have been removed by bandits which they have sold on the black market. The sandstone blocks are collapsing and weathering away from the rain. And as you can see from the above picture, the jungle vegetation has taken over. Trees and plants are growing over the temples, but perhaps it is a good thing because they are also keeping the foundations standing.

Mr. Tet, our favorite tuk-tuk driver. This was our main mode of transportation and Mr.Tet even took us to visit his village and family which is about an hour (by tuk-tuk) outside of Siem Reap town.

I am back in Hanoi but Cambodia has left a lasting impression. I bought a couple of novels, a history book and 'the killing fields' which we also visited. This is my small personal plug - if you have an opportunity to make a donation to landmine victims, please do. Interestingly enough, the international treaty to ban landmines was created at the Ottawa Convention in 1999. Although Canada has signed - the US, Russia, and China are not signatories.

Just Trying to Get some Dough

So I am off to Cambodia tomorrow morning and the highlight of the trip will be running a half marathon at the Temple of Angkor Wat. I have not seriously trained, but my friends (Steve and Sarah - we have become the travelling trio) and I figure if we have to walk we will have a beautiful backdrop to walk along. Today, I am checking off my list of things to do before I go and the next item is to get some US dough, which US money coincidently in Vietnamese is called do, short for dollar but pronounced like dough-lar.

So I go the bank with some traveller's checks and my passport as well as some Vietnamese dongs to exchange for US money. I wait in line for about 30 minures and am then told that they can only cash my traveller's checks and need my plane ticket if I want to convert my dongs. Oh course, this is the first time I ever heard of this rule and oh course I did not bring my e-ticket and I feel a little bit impatient that I have to accept this state rule. I guess I have taken it for granted how easy it is for us to convert money in Canada and did not realize that getting foreign currency isn't so easy for locals even if they do have the money. Plus, for a vietnamese person to even go travelling it is quite a process for them to first get permission from the government and then applying for a visa.

It is common to go to a jewelly store to get your money converted although I am not really sure if it is legal. So I decided to go this route and the first store I go to, which has about 12 ladies working, are closed for lunch and will not serve me even though the doors are wide open and it is noon. They tell me to come back after lunch and I tell them I need to go back to work after lunch. So they turn me away and tell me to go 2 stores down. I say alright, find their recommendation and gladly give them my business. I finally got my US dollars but it just took me 2 hours to figure out how!

St. Joseph's Cathedral in the Old Quarter

There is a small catholic population in Hanoi and you can see in the pic that mass is well attended, so much so that there is a live recording on the screen for people who are sitting outside. I stayed near this Church in my first month (and so will kate and her parents) and was always amazed by how many people came to mass. Motorbike drivers and taxis would park in front of the church steps during the service.

I am spending Christmas with the Whitfields and they are coming next week. I haven't seen Kate in 3 months and am very excited to see familiar faces from home. We aren't exactly sure of our plans yet but likely be spending Xmas in Halong Bay and going to Saigon for New Year's Eve. I requested some things for them to takeover and here are some of the odd items I asked for: peanut butter, my jogging pants and sweatshirt, a wool sweater, maple products to give out as presents, chapstick, contacts, floss threaders, and a nalgene bottle.

So this is my first Xmas not being celebrated in Sydney. I have been home every year no matter where I have been living. I keep forgetting how close Xmas is coming up because I am not near any of the commercialism of the Xmas shopping which is actually very nice. There are some small decorations here and there, which I find more symbolic for the holidays. Tonight, I am attending a Xmas concert tonight at the school for the blind. I am looking really forward to it and singing Xmas caroles with the kids, although I don't know how excited they will be singing with me!

Lang Son City: Famous for their BBQ Duck

I was in Lang Son City which is on the border of China and located in a northeastern province of Vietnam. I was there for about 6 days for work and the mission went pretty well, especially since we had a really good interpreter which can make or break a project.

The trip started off with the hotel assigning my Canadian colleague and I the same room, because they just assumed we were a couple (which i quickly informed them we were not). Murray is a 52 year old man, happily married with 3 kids. However for the rest of the trip, the third question the locals kept asking me was (1st question, where are you from?; 2nd question, how old are you?) is he your husband. So really the whole town pretty much thought I was his mistress no matter how many times I told them I was there working with the City and their mayor.

We were working with the more senior officials, the chairman of the People's Council, as well as the chairman of the People's Committee. I kind of felt like we were in the mafia - the government cars are black with tinted windows and we were picked up and driven everywhere and escorted throughout the whole trip. Everytime we visited a site, the chairman would just give the ticket person a look and we would get waved in. I felt like VIP!

The population of Lang Son City is approximately 100,000 and even to me now seems like a small city. A lot of people who can't afford motorbikes, ride bicycles and I wanted to get this experience. So I asked the hotel if they knew where I could rent a bicycle and the hotel staff didn't have any idea, but the receptionist offered to go home and bring her bike and let me use it for the rest of the week. I thought that was pretty nice of her and got up early for a couple of the mornings and went for a bike ride through the city. Many people think I am crazy for the distances I walk and are always offering to take me by motorbike. For once I felt like I could blend in when I was on the bike and felt a little more Vietnamese.

One of the neat places we got to visit was the Friendship Gate which is the border entrance to China. We were only allowed to walk to the neutral zone but we could see part of the Great Wall on the other side - not sure if it was brought there or if it was actually built there.

Photo: Group at the Friendship Gate entrance

This picture is taken from the 0 Km line. Vietnam's main highway is Highway 1 which starts from this point and run from the very north of the country to the very south passing through Hanoi and Saigon.

Photo: The Underpass to China

There is quite a bit of Chinese influence here. When you go to the markets, all the items are from China and the vendors are Chinese who speak some Vietnamese. There was a 2-week war back in the late 70's (I may be wrong on the timeline) when China invaded Vietnam and it was this province that they destroyed. So much of the houses and buildings are relatively new since they have been rebuilt during the 80's and 90's.

We ate really well and if I did lose any weight while I have been here I definitely gained it back! One of Lang Son's famous dishes is its bbq duck which happens to be one of my favourite meats (just behind lobster). I gorged and ate half by myself while the interpreter and Murray barely finished the other half.

Photo: Furniture making business

On our way back to Hanoi, the Lang Son people arranged for us to visit an industrial village that was created in 1990 near Bac Ninh City that produces furniture. This was pretty eye-opening to see. All this furniture is done by hand and completely done by labor. There are no manufacturing shops or machinery creating the furniture, just people's bare hands, with a saw and sandpaper. This village exports a lot of its furniture around the world, so next time you see wood furniture made in Vietnam, it was probably made in a town like this.

Photo: When you buy furniture, people examine it pre-stained and pre-lacquered so they can examine the quality of the wood and craftmanship.

It was a pretty educational trip overall since I was able to participate in the mission and get to see Lang Son with local guides and oh course, have my bbq duck, which I bought one and brought to my office as a treat for lunch.

Never Underestimate a Mountain

So I and 2 friends, Steve and Sarah (fellow Canadians), hiked the highest mountain in Vietnam - Mount Fanxipan (kind of pronounced like 'fancy pants'). I am not sure where to begin or what part to write about but I will say it was hard, crazy, and at times scary just as my friend Melissa had warned. The height of the mountain is 3,143m and we started at around 1900m, however it was quite the distance just to get to the base of the mountain. We had a guide, who had a cigarette in his hand for almost the whole time, and a porter, who carried all our food, cooking stuff, sleeping bags and mats, and tent by himself in a pair of broken sandals and tatered clothes - and yet these 2 still whipped our butts up the mountain.

We hiked through fields, valleys, streams (which I fell in within the first hour and had wet feet for all of the first day and had to wear plastic bags around my feet on the second day), bamboo forests, rain forest, vertical rock faces, and other muddy and slippery surfaces. We indeed made it to the top but now we had to worry how we were going to make it down since it had rain during the night and there were some serious steep sections along the trek.

Sarah and I rejoicing that we finally made it.

It took us all day and the next morning to make it to the peak, but when we got there we were there less than 10 minutes because it was absolutely freezing and we couldn't see anything since we were in the clouds and the fog was thick. The frustrating part of the hike was on the way up to the peak, we would being going down a lot that we knew every step down was an additional step up that we would have to do later. A funny realization we had was when we were looking at the other mountains, someone said "wow, they are so high" and then we would realize "oh crap, we are going higher than those mountains".

Steve on top on the world, well on top of the mountain

We had some casualties along the way, I actually fell on a rock the day before and had cut open my shin which wouldn't stop bleeding since it was in a awkward spot and we didn't have much medical supplies on us. Luckily I had my good old hiking bandana and used that to tie around my leg, but had to be careful to not make it worse. Sarah is allergic to smoke and with our one pack a day smoker guide, one eye got really aggrevated that she could only wear one contact and her depth perception was slightly impaired. Steve became an old woman (just joking!) because we did so much trekking going up that going down was hard on the knees.

You can see our porter near the bottom corner of the pic.

The trek to the peak was beautiful and we did have some clear skies. If the fog lifted more often we would have been able to see China and Laos. I don't regret doing it and feel great that we did it, but I don't think I would volunteer to do it for a second time. We ached for days afterwards ...

So when I said our porter carried our tent, I should rephrase and say he carried our tarp!

We assumed we would be sleeping in a regular old tent, but when we saw them collecting bamboo wood for our campfire we noticed they had cut 4 fresh green bamboo sticks down. The frame of our sleeping accommodation was made out of bamboo, which I thought was pretty cool. Then they drapped a tarp over it and we slept on a tarp, all five of us together, my friends and I with our porter and guide at about 2400m up the mountain. It rained and was windy during the night and poor Sarah was on the edge, but our tarp didn't collapse, the wind just blew right threw it ...

Anyway, we survived and thinking back it wasn't that bad, but doing it once is good enough for me.

Hoa's Home Village

Photos: Sarah and I sporting our motorbike gear. The rental I was on ran out of gas (plus the front brake didn't work) and we had to coast down a hill to find a gas station.


A few friends and I took the night train to Lai Cau on our way to Sapa. Our friend, Hoa (guy with cap in photo), took us to visit his home village of Phu Thuy where he tries to visit as much as he can when he isn't working. We decided to buy candy and milk (although the candy was a bigger hit) and ended up having a huge little get-together at Hoa's family home where all the kids were told to tell the other kids to come for treats. I don't know where else you can go and just by word of mouth get all the kids of a village to come eat and play at a moment's notice.

The kids were pretty shy when they first saw us, for most it was the first time they ever seen foreigners - Steve and Trevor were almost a foot taller than the adults and Sarah has long blond hair. Hoa's family cooked us lunch and we went for a walk around the village and visited the local school to disperse more of the candy. We played with the kids and I even learned (tried to anyway) play marbles.

We took lots of photos and everywhere you turn you just want to take another photo of that child or that field. I can't imagine not having a digital camera, but another reason why it's good fto have is that we can show the kids their picture. The kids get so excited when they see their faces on the screen.


For us it was such a contrast to Hanoi, where there is a constant buzz that I almost forget what silence sounds like. It was so calm in the country and the people were very kind and gentle, that it makes me worry what will happen in the future when Vietnam's economy starts taking off and opens up to the rest of the world ... where will it leave these people?