Happy Lunar New Year!

 I write this on the 3rd day of the Lunar New Year (also known as Tet) and most of our city is still on holiday.  The streets are quieter and many businesses are closed since many people spend time with family, often traveling into the countryside to do so.  Tet is a big celebration in Vietnam!  

 Our final Friday of first semester we were invited to watch the show put on by students as well as some of the staff.  Some instructors were presented with certificates for their years of teaching, and there were other presentations.  And many, many dances put on by different departments and students in different ethnic costumes.  The dragon dance was pretty remarkable.  The event lasted over 3 hours!  Then we were treated to a fancy lunch by the university.

The next day, our students invited us to a lunch organized by the 3rd year class representative, Cat Tuong.  All 3 classes of students were invited and the faculty, but we were the only ones able to attend.  The students graciously allowed us to bring along our visiting friends from Traverse City, Tim and Sue.  We were happy they could meet our bright students and speak with them a bit since the students can speak English.

Cat Tuong and Thien, also in the 3rd year class

Cat Tuong and Thien made up a quiz for the students (with prizes for the 2 top winners!) and we were the topic. It was very funny.  One of the questions was:  "What is Dr. Robert's other job besides optometry?"  One of the guesses was "being Dr. Kimberly's husband!"  But the answer was "pilot," because he has told them flying planes is one of his hobbies.  After lunch the 3rd years asked us to go to karaoke with them, a few doors down the road.  Our first karaoke experience!!  It was a lot of fun.  At first I said no way would I sing, envisioning the American way of being on stage and everyone watching you.  The Vietnamese way is so much better!  We rented a karaoke room for about $4 an hour; 2 microphones were on the table so we could sing 2 by 2.  Much less intimidating than singing by yourself on a stage!  An attendant came in and took a drink order (but ordering is not required) and we sang along to Vietnamese songs and also chose some Elton John and Beatles for our part. 

Around the karaoke table!

The karaoke setup.  Lots of songs to choose from.

The next day we began being tourists with Tim and Sue.  We booked a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which are still in HCMC but WAAAAAY out of "town."  The bus ride was supposed to be 90 minutes but was more like 3 hours because of a massive traffic jam getting out of the city.  But, the tunnels were interesting.They are part of a larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country and were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces during the Vietnam War.

Display of a booby-trapped
tunnel

Sue, in the 100 meter tunnel
tourists could traverse .  It's really hard
to walk that far in a squat, and in
an airless tunnel!

The bus ride home was much better, and we could start preparing for our early morning flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia (only 50 minutes) to see Angkor Wat and other temples.  I did already post some of my favorite photos on 2 different facebook posts, but here are some more of my favorites.  The scale of the temples is amazing. One of them was dedicated in the year 953 AD!  Most of them were built in the 12th century.  Here's a nerd fact I learned:  The entire city of Angkor used up far greater amounts of stone than all the Egyptian pyramids combined, and occupied an area significantly greater than modern-day Paris.  The pyramids used limestone quarried 1/3 mile away, but the city of Angkor was built with sandstone quarried 25 miles to the northeast.  That's a lot of elephant labor!

Elephant rides into the temple area (we used a tuk tuk with a friendly driver Lun).

Trees growing over ancient temples

Angkor Wat, the "big" temple.  (wat means Buddhist temple)

The day before we hit the temples we went through the Angkor National Museum and learned a bit about Buddhist and Hindu mythology.  Fascinating stories, although they seem to change as different groups adopted the story.  It got a bit confusing!  I'm happy I don't need to keep all those gods and goddesses straight.

The detail and stone carving is
breath-taking.

Bob and Tim outside the temple Pre Rup

Narrow steep steps with no railings to climb up

 We did get "templed out" with the heat and climbing but could spend time in the night market or at our hotel pool to relax.  Thursday evening we headed back to HCMC ready to experience a bit of the Lunar New Year's Eve on Friday Jan. 27.  We took the bus to a "walking street" (Nguyen Hue) here which is called "Flower Street" for Tet. Over 100 kinds of flowers are displayed, as well as several chicken/rooster displays since 2017 is the year of the rooster.

Entrance to Nguyen Hue, the "Flower Street."

A lot of pretty Vietnamese girls were there in mostly red ceremonial dress along with photographers to take their posed photos.

In the plaza is a fountain, just like
Charlevoix's! It sprays off then quits
for awhile.

Children (and their moms) were loving
cooling off in the fountain.

Lunar New Year's Day I could hear a big noise from the road so took this picture of a parade out my window on the 18th floor.  A dragon parade with lots of drums!

The Tet tree in our apartment lobby,
replacing the Christmas tree of a couple
of weeks ago.

Stop sign in Cambodian.  The Khmer
script is so pretty, influenced by Sanskrit.

 That's enough for this blog!  Tim and Sue are back in Traverse city after a 4 hour flight, 4 hour layover in Shanghai, and a 14 hour flight to O'Hare in Chicago.  They arrived home the same day they left (local day/ time of course), amazing!  It was so nice to have Americans to share some of the interesting cultural differences with for a week.  Now we have all week still on Tet holiday before beginning Semester 2 back at our university.  We'll use the time relaxing, preparing, and seeing the city on our motorbike, still a novelty to us!  

Thanks again for following our Vietnam Adventure.  It's almost February; time is flying along!

Da Lat in January

Hello friends!  Time to learn a bit more about Vietnam besides our local experience of Ho Chi Minh City.  Last weekend we took a long weekend to travel to Da Lat, a city in the highlands of Vietnam, 190 miles northeast.  Our flight was about 50 minutes, or another choice is a 6 hour bus ride.  Da Lat is more temperate (altitude 4900 feet vs. 62 feet in HCMC) with average temps of 57-73 degrees Fahrenheit.  HCMC average temps are 80-86 year-round!  Bob LOVED the temps there and I didn't freeze, but I did layer more clothing. :) Da Lat's nickname is "the city of eternal spring" because of the temps, and has a lot of agriculture and flower production because of the milder temps.  The city was created in the 1890's at the request of explorers in the area (including the noted bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin, protégé of the renowned French chemist Louis Pasteur) to the French governer-general.  Architecture is dominated by the style of the French colonial period.  It was a beautiful city with wide streets and no motorbikes on the sidewalks, unlike HCMC.  But population is a lot less, of course.  

Down the hill from our hotel was a lake with these swan paddle boats, quite touristy but a LOT of people (not Westerners, either!) seemed to enjoy taking a paddle boat out.  We watched one day but did not take the boat.  We arrived Saturday night in time to check out the night market (the big promoted "event" in the area) and finally tried a "barbeque" place where we grill our own food at our table.  It reminded me a little of "Melting Pot" restaurants because it takes so long to eat your whole meal that you are full before the platter is finished!  (which is a good thing instead of the habit to eat too fast)  However, the grill is smoky so I'm not sure it's my favorite type of restaurant.

We ordered a combo platter with seafood, pork, and beef.

Cooking our own dinner.

Our first full day we signed on for a day tour of Da Lat.  It was amazing and we learned a lot.  Also, the people on the tour van were fun to get to know.  When we entered the van, there was a mother-daughter duo from Bangkok, Thailand on and they were very friendly and spoke English (yay!).  We really connected with them and had dinner with them again on Monday evening (the best part of travel is meeting people from other cultures!).  The other passengers we picked up were Vietnamese and they knew a little English and we tried to include them in our conversations as well.  We visited:  a flower farm, a minority village, a coffee farm, a cricket and rice wine production spot, a silk center, had a "local food" lunch, Elephant Falls, and a Buddhist temple.  Photos:

Gerbera daisies growing on a flower farm.  Da Lat exports a lot of flowers, especially to Ho Chi Minh City we were told.

So beautiful.  They also had a lot of carnations and lilies.

In the backyard of the minority village, they grew coffee beans.  Here are beans on the trees.

The next stop was a coffee garden.  The big draw is "weasel coffee" whereby weasels are fed coffee berries and they digest the berries and poop out the coffee bean inside the berry.  Supposedly the digestive tract ferments the berries and protease enzymes seep into the berries which lowers the bitterness.  After the berries are recovered in the weasel excrement, they are washed and dried in the sun for 3 days before roasting and processing.  Most of our group tried the weasel coffee in the associated coffee shop--it is more expensive!  

Coffee garden sign

Pooped-out coffee beans (sorry to be gross)

One of the several weasels!  We were told they are fed coffee beans 2 days a week, and the rest of the time they enjoy their typical carnivorous diet.

Roasted crickets with chili sauce on
on the side.  Shot glasses for the
"wine."

A cup of the weasel coffee was $2.65 US.  100 grams (=3.5 ounces) was $17.68!  I bought 100 grams of the non-weasel coffee to take home, $5.30 US.

Next stop was a cricket farm where they also made rice "wine."  If you call an alcoholic beverage with 35% alcohol in it "wine."  We did get a sip or two of that, it was enough.  We didn't buy crickets to take home ($15.55/lb) but were brave enough to eat some.  They actually aren't bad...they are fried in lemongrass so they taste oily and kind of like sesame, and dipped in the chili sauce mostly taste like chili.

The rice "wine" being made (distilled)

Next stop, a silk farm.  It's easier to copy what Wikipedia reviewed for me: The stages of production are as follows:

1. The silk moth lays thousands of eggs.
2. The silk moth eggs hatch to form larvae or caterpillars, known as silkworms.
3. The larvae feed on mulberry leaves.
4. Having grown and moulted several times silkworm weaves a net to hold itself
5. It swings its head from side to side in a figure '8' distributing the saliva that will form silk.
6. The silk solidifies when it contacts the air.
7. The silkworm spins approximately one mile of filament and completely encloses itself in a cocoon in about two or three days. The amount of usable quality silk in each cocoon is small. As a result, about 2500 silkworms are required to produce a pound of raw silk^[7]
8. The intact cocoons are boiled, killing the silkworm pupae.
9. The silk is obtained by brushing the undamaged cocoon to find the outside end of the filament.
10. The silk filaments are then wound on a reel. One cocoon contains approximately 1,000 yards of silk filament. The silk at this stage is known as raw silk. One thread comprises up to 48 individual silk filaments.

Also, our guide Duyen promised that we would be offered and should eat the silworm pupae.  Also fried in lemongrass like crickets.  But they still tasted like dirt to me.  If you have a choice between eating crickets and silkworm pupae, choose crickets!!  

Larvae munching on leaves

Cocoons in boiling water beginning to form silk threads.

Lots of threads being spun.

Silk being woven.  The cardboard pattern to the upper left makes a damask-type pattern--
it looked like a table cloth to me.

Not my favorite food.  But I tried one...

Next stop was lunch, advertised as "local food."  We've already eaten a lot of Vietnamese food but we still enjoyed our lunch.  Our guide ordered for us and we all shared--the common tradition here.  We may bring this tradition back home with us.  You know how sometimes you can't choose what to get, and sometimes you wish you had ordered what someone else had?  Try letting the host order several dishes and share them all!  Great idea!

Plenty of choices!

Next stop, Elephant Falls.  We visited a couple of waterfalls the following day as well; being in the highlands, waterfalls are not rare.

Final stop of the day, a Buddhist temple.  Outside the temple grounds workers were raking coffee beans to dry.  I felt like I put so many photos in this post already I didn't add any of the Buddha statues but if you want to see them, comment and I'll post some.

Looking out from the temple steps at the coffee bean workers.

That was the end of the day tour, a long day and we learned a lot.  The next day Bob rented a motorbike for $5.30 US for the whole day and we explored on our own.  We visited the railway station (built in 1938, designed in the Art Deco architectural style by French architects Moncet and Reveron), the museum, and found more waterfalls.

Pongour Falls, so pretty.

On the way back to the apartment after our flight, Bob took a chance and had the taxi driver stop at the driver place where he tested to take his driver license test over 2 weeks ago.  He came out with his physical license in hand!!  He had to jump through so many hoops to get it, and the language barrier is such a challenge.  So having the license in hand he was ready to find a used motorbike.  He asked for help today (Saturday) from our rental agent's husband who can speak English, and he came back to the apartment with a purchased used motorbike!  It signifies much freedom to us since that's the way to get around.  I don't mind walking but it's SO HOT and the bus is cheap but takes a long time to get places.  Now, we can just go!  We're pretty excited.

New bike...freedom!

Vacation over, we came back to our hot, humid city and spent Wednesday afternoon at the office beginning to catch up.  We finished week 20 of school (but we joined in on week 8) and this next week is the last week before the BIG holiday in Vietnam, Tet, or Lunar New Year.  We have 2 big testing days this week for our students where we monitor their performance on optometric procedures, one practical test related to eye health and one related to fitting spectacles.  Regarding the holiday, we hear it's a big holiday to spend with family.  Many businesses and neighborhoods are decorating with yellow flowers, and red and gold colors.  University is closed for 2 weeks.  2017 is the year of the rooster so there are lots of roosters cropping up in the decorations as well.

Outside a store in the tourist district

That's all my news for now and again, I thank you for following our adventures.  During our 2 weeks off school we are hosting friends from Traverse City and visiting Siem Reap/Angkor Wat to see ancient temples with them for a few days.  That will be my next post!  Stay warm, you northerners, as we try to stay cool!