Breaking Rules and Reading the World

Quinn and I arrived less than twenty-four hours ago into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and we have already broken pretty much every single rule we were given by our travel doctor regarding food.  There are two problems regarding the food issue:  First, we are guests at small villages and they make the food in front of us, are proud of their work and then hover around and watch us eat, and Second, it tastes fantastic.  So, we'll see how that goes.

It took us twenty hours of flying time to get here.  Thirteen from MSP to Tokyo and another nearly seven from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh.  We had no idea just how far away this place is.  But, we are here and we can't believe it.

In a tuk tuk on the Mekong

Vietnam.  Most of what I know about this place has been formed through movies and books about the Vietnam War (which they call the American War here).  Our guide, Phoung, he was born in 1978 and all of his life until 1995 he lived in total repression and near starvation.  He is athletic, well dressed and well spoken now (speaks both Japanese and English very well), but he has described to us what his life was like since the war was over and I. had. no. idea.  I could go into great detail, but I couldn't do justice to what the last twenty years have been like for the Vietnamese in terms of growth, opportunity and promise.  Especially for the people that live outside the major cities.

We got to see first hand today as we boarded our little van and drove nearly two hours to the Mekong Delta.  Out of the busy city of Saigon (which we will explore tomorrow) the cityscape gave way to vast rice fields, numerous coconut trees and of course the Mekong River, which is everywhere since it runs throughout the region and empties then into the Vietnam (China) Sea.  As Phoung explained, the people who live outside the city work in the fields during the harvest long days and long hours (rice harvest three times a year) and then rest with their families in between the planting and the harvest.  Family ties are of utmost importance here, with family members looking out for each other, siblings helping younger siblings financially and the utmost respect and authority given (plus financial responsibility) to the mother of the family.  The family holds land generation after generation and even on that land their ancestors are buried, so that the family can honor those that came before.  These traditions have been in place through the many occupations of this country, war, and unrest.

Yet, there is still extreme poverty and lack of infrastructure.  Most of the people that we saw today in the Mekong Delta live in huts or on small boats, sleep in hammocks, subsist on what they can catch or grow from the muddy waters of the delta region (rich soil is what is so good for growing the rice and other crops) and yet they smile readily and often, love to laugh and enjoy company and make us feel so welcome.

The bricks being fired

Elephant Ear fish

We visited a brickyard and watched bricks being fired and made in the dusty disorganized shop, we went and watched some workers in a covered hut with chickens running around while they made coconut candy (we tried some, maybe another thing on our list of what not to do, sanitary conditions were non-existent), and then we ate fruit that we didn't even peel ourselves (another big no-no) and drank tea with honey while we watched a small family in their riverside haphazard shop/hut/restaurant entertain us with beautiful music (a guitar and another two stringed guitar like instrument), we visited all these places by a motorized long boat driven by a barefoot man who smiled as he drove.  Then, we walked for a while through the labyrinth of houses built on little canals to our lunch spot, a restaurant for locals with three mangy dogs and the smilingest teenaged girls I've ever seen (no cell phones, explains a lot).  These girls showed us how to make pork rolls and let us try our hand at it.  They served us something called an elephant ear fish and shrimp (big no no) and chicken with some delicious sauce and rice.  Also spring rolls with fresh vegetables and fish.  All crazy good, spicy as we wanted it to be and fresh.  These people are so warm and friendly we threw caution right to the wind and ate up.  We haven't totally lost our minds yet and are sticking to bottled water, though.

The restaurant/shop where we heard a
family's muscial talents and ate fruit

The people, they are warm, friendly and so welcoming.  Of course, our presence as tourists is a newish experience for them (most of the roads that we drove on today were only build within the last ten years so much as grown and developed since then) and holds the promise of both a better life for them and the hope of connection and understanding of each other.

Phoung says repeatedly that each of us has our own happiness.  The people of the Mekong are happy with their hard work and their long rests and the people of the city with their busy workdays and consistent pay.  He seems right, to a person, they are content, even though most seem to us Americans here that they don't have much.  What they do have is each other (families) and hope now more than they once did when their country was more restricted.  A new day has been dawning here and it feels marvelous to be able to witness it.

The family car
Motor bikes far exceed cars
here

One of the four or five
modes of transport
today

Quinn and I are learning a lot, and getting to spend this time with my daughter is the best gift I could ever imagine.  Being here, in this unlikely place, has been good.  We are tired after a long day (it is Sunday night now) and get up tomorrow, explore Saigon and the Chu Chi Tunnels and then fly north to Danang.  I will check back in tomorrow with more to report.  I miss Jeff and my other three darling girls like crazy, of course, but am so relieved that they seem well cared for all the way across the ocean and many time zones.

As always, life is an adventure, no matter where we are.  Phoung taught us another phrase today that is a good one to wrap up with:  The world is a book, he said, and if you stay put you only read one page, but when you travel, you read many and learn and grow and change.  Cheers to that.