Travelogue :  Kyvan's Southeast Asia Adventure

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Dec 3, 2005
Back to Ha Noi: The Corpse
 

I never thought I would see the day I would see Ho Chi Minh's preserved cadaver. There was major security at the HCM mausoleum: metal detectors, must walk in pairs, no hands in pockets, no sunglasses on head, no arms crossed. Sis had her arms crossed and this official took her arms roughly and put them to her side! We walked in pairs into the mausoleum which looked very similar to the Lincoln Memorial. It felt like a queue line to a ride. We entered the building, turned corners, air conditioning was blasting, and then we entered The Room. It felt kind of like the Seance Room in the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney, where the center piece in the room is a spooky head speaking incantations as guests circle around it. Well HCM wasn't speaking incantations, but he was spooky nonetheless. The focus was his mummified or plasticized cadaver within a glass case, soft light illuminating his KFC colonel image. He was surrounded by four stoic officials as we circled his body within the dark room. The mausoleum proper included his previous homes, decorated with images of Karl Marx and Lenin. A museum honored HCM and the "triumphant and revolutionary struggle" of the VN during his leadership. Chua Mot Cot (one pillar temple) was here and it is much less impressive than I expected. I thought it would be a tall majestic pillar, but instead it was short and stubby.

At night, sis, mom, and I took one last stroll around Ho Tay and Ho Truc Bach and on the way we ate vendor food: nem chua (pickled pork), banh gio (triangular shaped sticky dough stuffed with ground pork, wrapped in banana leaf), banh nep (flattened dough stuffed with sweet mung bean, wrapped in banana leaf), chuoi chien (fried banana), khoai chien (fried yams), and bap chien (fried corncake). We saw men and women, young and old, fat and thin, play badminton. And it struck me as being a wonderful sport. So fun! Every moment of hitting that birdie is thrilling and anyone can do it. Bats were flying in the sky above us. I think they were hunting for insects.

After dinner, we took a train that headed for the northern Vietnam city of Lao Cai. It was an overnight train ride where we slept in a four-bunker room, with soft beds, and A/C. We slept mostly during our 8-hour trip towards the mountainous, jungle trekking city of Sapa.
 

 
Dec 4, 2005
Sapa: Fog, Mountains, Hilltribes
 

Hands down, the best destination to date! We got off the train at 530am for breakfast in Lao Cai, then bussed uphill towards Sapa, which was completely shrouded in FOG! It is COLD and wet up here. On the way, we saw Thac Bac waterfall and Cau May, the bridge crossing this high waterfall. And we ate vendor food here too: skewered BBQ pork marinaded with lemongrass and galanga (white ginger), eaten with sticky rice that had been stuffed and cooked within hollow bamboo. We ate hot food fresh off the coals, which warmed us in the cold weather. I knew I would be in northern Vietnam so I prepared myself for cold weather, but I didn't think it would be this cold! It must've been 40-50 F. Then we went headed for the H'mong village of the Cat Cat tribe where this was the defining, most memorable experience for me.

Within this region of the northernmost point of Vietnam, there are numerous hilltribes living simple lives in environments of immense beauty. These people are the ethnic minorities of Vietnam, with their own cultures and languages, customs and clothing. I had only seen them in pictures, but up close and personal, you get to see how truly special these people are. In their clothing, they liberally use bright colors: red, purple, green, yellow, and blue, on black fabric. For the females, their dress is a shortened ao dai (VN long dress). It is decorated with brightly trimmed edges with colorful square patterns across the waist. They wear equally vibrant cylindrical hats with open tops. And for shoes, they wear purple boots. The older women wear large loopy earrings and metallic bracelets. The little children were too cute. Forget Baby Gap...the H'mong know how to dress their kids up! This village was full of younglings: ducklings, chicks, piglets, puppies, kid goats, and children. This place was saturated with cuteness. We walked into a home where there were children sitting around red hot coals. Little babies were feeding themselves rice and they had messy little faces with big fat cheeks.

The H'mong are so incredibly friendly! They acknowledge you, genuinely smile, and welcome you. A girl named Ly decided to follow us. She is so adorable, she makes you instantly want to become a parent. She spoke to us in Vietnamese, her second language. She asked what our names were, our ages, and said she was 11 years old (looked 8). Ly gave sis a bracelet without asking for anything in return. "Em tang cho chi" (I am giving it to you as a gift.) If you ever come to Sapa, come with something you can give to the children. Money and candy are not the most thoughtful gifts. Come with small notebooks, or crayons, pens, pencils, things that will encourage them to draw, write, read, and learn. That gift keeps on giving. Not only for Sapa but for impoverished countries like Vietnam and Cambodia where children are used to beg for money.

We arrived in Sapa on a Sunday and on my exploration I found Nha Tho Da (The Rock church) with mass in session. This is a Catholic church that was filled with H'mong people. Men sat on one side, women on the other. It was a small humble sanctuary, but echoed like any other church. The uplifting voices of a Vietnamese choir filled the church during communion and it was inspiring. Even here, people would worship God and in a completely nonextravagant way.
 

 
Dec 5, 2005
Sapa: The Red tribe
 

We conquered Ham Rong (Dragon Jaw Mountain). Today was COLD and FOGGY! I kid you not. San Francisco has a tough competitor for the category of the foggiest city. This is some of the thickest, coldest fog I have ever seen. We went to the pinnacle and saw nothing but Fog. Now, if you know me, I love fog. That is one of the reasons why I loved living in San Francisco. It's a refreshing mist and one of my favorite things to do is walk through fog with a steaming cup of coffee in my hands. But when fog covers everything, the beauty is lost.

On leaving Sapa, we visited one more tribe called Ta Phin. The people within this tribe are called Nguoi Dao and they wear red. Our shuttle pulled into their village and there was a huge group of females prepared to greet and welcome us (to sell stuff) but to also genuinely meet us tourists. I know this because of a girl I met named Ly May Lieu Hanh. All it took was a "Hi" and she was connected to me as we took a walk through her village. She asked, "where are you from...how old are you...oh, you look so young." How did she know English so well? It turns out she speaks a little bit of many languages including her own ethnic language, Black H'mong, Vietnamese, French, Spanish, and English...and all of these were learned from just speaking with tourists! She is incredible, amazing! Such a smart girl. Very fast. Very intelligent. So much potential, but without the educational opportunities. So many children here are so smart with no access to a higher education. Females sew and sell products. Males gather and build.

Now in my eyes, this may seem unfortunate, but this is their reality. They survive very well within their society in Sapa, and again, they all seem very content and are immensely friendly. It is possible that this may be because they don't know what else is out there. And I am judging this tribal microcosm with a western centric viewpoint, but it totally leads me to speculate as to what enables us to live fulfilling lives. Many in our society are driven by financial success, but what I have seen in these tribes is that money has very little to do with living fulfilling lives. What is common in people who are content in any society or culture is having a loving family and having a good group of social support from friends. I saw tight knit families, children caring for babies, a system of cooperation, which all allow them to survive in this lush environment as they live off the land, free from technological advancements or modern conveniences. They farm animals, protect nature, weave intricate designs on fabrics, grow and harvest rice in fields that are combed into the edges of mountains in a step ladder manner, curving with the contours of the hillside.

May Lieu gave me a woven bracelet as a gift. All I had was money so I offered it to her. And to my astonishment, she did not take it! "No, it is a gift," she said. I promised I would write and send the picture of us. I am sure she doesn't know how to read English so I'll write in both Vietnamese and English.

After this, we killed time in Coc Leu, a marketplace near the northern border of Vietnam and China. I saw China from a distance. It was just over a bridge. I went off on my own observing society in action: fish market where half severed fish were still gasping for oxygen, a husband and wife team team playing cai luong (traditional South Vietnam singing style) on an electric guitar and mobile speakers while their children went around with hats collecting money, sale of caterpillars for food, legs of water buffalo being sold.

In summary, the hilltribes live in such a wondrous environment: forests, waterfalls, running water redirected from waterfalls flows through their village, primitive wooden houses with firepits, wooden suspension bridges. I can spend weeks in Sapa helping them plant trees, catch fish, trekking through the jungle, through bamboo forests, towards other villages, learning their languages and cultures. Their simple society made me think of how we live cushy, spoiled, materialistic lives in America and we still find things to gripe and complain about. These people have nothing in terms of posessions compared to what we have and yet seem happy, friendly, loving, and supportive. But the bottom line is that they have a strong sense of family and many have a love for God.

Tonight we go by overnight train back to Ha Noi. In the morning, it'll be back to Saigon by domestic flight - a 1.5 hr journey.