|
We woke up at 6 a.m. and each took what was probably the last hot shower with good water pressure that we were likely to encounter for at least a few days. We ate breakfast at Le Beaulieu and enjoyed another wonderfully fresh buffet breakfast. Today featured fresh banana pineapple juice and banana bread in addition to the usual fresh baguettes, cheese, yogurt, bacon, and fruit. At 8:30, we headed back to the room to freshen up. We checked out just before 9 o'clock.
We met Cuong and then went out to the front where Mr. Giang picked us up in the car. We were heading north to Ha Giang province. As we passed out of Hanoi, we saw a radio tower that greatly resembled the Eiffel Tower. This was obviously not a coincidence, with all of the other French colonial influences we had seen. We passed a lot of kilns on our way out of town, which were producing bricks. Along the drive, Cuong told us about his experiences within the war. He was forced to fight for the Viet Cong between 1972 and 1977. Though he was a city boy from Hanoi (we had seen his childhood home two days before) who knew nothing about jungle survival or fighting, he and other young men from his neighborhood were shipped off to the south and had to learn to kill or be killed. They went days without food and water, and he recounted a story about one day when he was so desperate for food, he jumped into a river amidst enemy fire to grab fish that had floated to the top of the water dead. He dove and timed it so that by the time he had come back to the surface, the 6 American G.I.'s needed to reload their guns. He then swam back, and got trapped in a wall of thorns on the shore. His comrades needed to come and cut him out, and all the while he still had a fish clutched in each hand.They laughed madly at the predicament and the fish that had nearly cost him his life. He and his friends cooked the fish in a broken helmet. Cuong told us that he personally believes that America was justified in getting involved in Vietnam. He believes that it was altruistic in intent; that rather than becoming involved for selfish interests such as natural resources, we were truly trying to help the country to escape communism, and to stop the spread of communism. Why was this so important? How bad was communism, in his opinion? "While I was in the jungle for five years, fighting for their cause, the communists put my mother into jail," Cuong explained. Cuong's parents had 12 children. His mother had managed to save up some money for the marriages of her 12 children. When the government found out about it, they demanded the money. She would not relinquish it. After the American POW pilots were released from the Hoa Lo prison (sarcastically nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton), they imprisoned Vietnamese dissenters there. Cuong's mother was held there for 4 months and 16 days. His father protested with a sign that said their son had been fighting for the VC for years, and their reward is to have his mother imprisoned. Cuong's father was beaten up because of this. In the end, Cuong's mother got to keep the money. Cuong and his parents are tough individuals. He then told us stories about ex-soldiers and their families (both Vietnamese and American) who have returned to the battlefields to try to come to peace with what happened there. He then told us about a film called Wandering Souls of the VC. In it, an American G.I. shoots a VC soldier. He feels very guilty about it and takes the man's belongings home. It tears him up inside for years. His mother's dying wish is that he returns to Vietnam to try to find some peace. He does this, and finds the VC soldier's family. The family had been told by a psychic that theiur son had deserted his unit and was now living in the United States. The family had been disgraced and shunned because of it. They were so happy to hear that their son had actually died a hero's death. The G.I. took them back to the jungle and the place where the killing took place. They found a body there, along with a little ceramic container which had the man's name and death date written inside (what the Vietnamese used instead of dog tags). The psychic had incorrectly thought that he was in the United States because that's where his belongings had been taken. The meeting brought tremendous closure to both the American and the Vietnamese family. (Note: Since getting home, I purchased and read the book that recounts this story: Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam by Wayne Karlin. Highly recommended.) Cuong himself has taken American Vietnam vets on trips (such as on motorbikes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail) and said that it is cathartic for everyone involved. Former enemies (neither side of which really wanted to be fighting one another) can come together as friends, each knowing that they were victims of their government's disagreements, and it was nothing personal. Cuong and some of his brothers-in-arms (a couple of whom had been at his house last night for his birthday) went back years later to try to find a friend's unmarked grave. Like many Vietnamese, they enlisted the help of a psychic to determine where to look. They found the place, stuck a chopstick into the earth, and were able to balance a raw egg on top of the chopstick for 8 minutes. They are sure that this was a sign that they found their friend's grave. They lit a cigarette and stuck it into the ground, and the cigarette let off smoke as though their friend were smoking it. We were jerked back to the present from these riveting tales as Mr. Giang pulled over at a little roadside store. Two young men were sitting at a table having drinks, and they were quite interested in us. We used their restroom in their back yard. It was a little three walled structure that left you somewhat exposed to the courtyard, but at least it contained a nice western toilet! After our pit stop, we then then continued on our way. As we crossed over a bridge, we saw a motorcycle in front of us which was pulling a small rustic trailer containing three large pink pigs. They didn't fit side by side, so they were (quite literally) pig-piled on top of one another. I was having trouble getting a photo of them from the back seat, so Cuong took my camera and got a photo out the passenger window. We saw where houses had been built on both sides of a dike. This seemed precarious, but Cuong said that there were enough dams nowadays that flooding wasn't that much of a threat here. There were times when we couldn't even discern whether we were on the "water side" of the dike or the dry side, as houses were equally prevalent on both. At around noon, we stopped for lunch at an unassuming restaurant that looked like a big cafeteria. There was a bus in the parking lot, so we wondered if this was a popular tourist stop. When we entered, we realized that this must be a popular stop for locals and Vietnames tourists; there were no other westerners around. We liked that. Cuong asked what types of things we like to eat. We said that we are pretty open; we want to eat like the locals eat. We don't travel all this way to eat the same things we eat at home. We are open to trying whatever is local and fresh. We told him that we trusted him to order on our behalf. He placed the order for our table. We sat with him and Mr. Giang. There was a cabinet full of electric rice cookers, some of which were decorated with Tweety Bird and other cartoon characters. Mr. Giang pulled a Heineken out of his cooler for Craig and a Coke for me. Soon the food was delivered: spring rolls, fried pork, morning glories with garlic, tofu, and fish with banana. Rice was brought to the table in one of the electric rice cookers, to keep it warm. It was all delicious, and we ate our fill. We used the rest room before getting back on the road. We were now far enough from Hanoi that it was an eastern-style squat toilet. As we drove further we started to see small karst mountains punctuating the green landscape. The road turned from pavement to dirt, and it got dusty. We saw tea plants blanketing the hillsides. We passed ferries and dredges on rivers. Individual wooden plies that will later be made into plywood were drying on the side of the road. Straw was also drying in this manner before being made into brooms. We passed lychee orchards. We arrived in Ha Giang town at around 4 o'clock. We stopped at Bar Tinh Ieu for teatime. The sidewalk was being replaced outside, so we had to walk across a balance-beam-like wooden plank to avoid stepping on the wet cement. Cuong and Mr. Giang had coffee and Craig and I had tea. We used the rest room while we were there, not knowing how much further we had to go before reaching the night's homestay. It turned out that we were quite close to the homestay, and we arrived there at around 4:30. The homestay wasn't in a family's house, per se. It was a guest house in a village of the Tay ethnic minority. The Tay are the earliest known ethnic minority in Vietnam. It is thought that they arrived in the country around 500 B.C. The guest house was built in the same style as the local houses...a wooden house on stilts with a thatched roof. The structure looked identical to the one that Cuong had pointed out to us at the ethnology museum yesterday. Craig was very intrigued by the construction, and studied the details carefully. The guest house had an addition off the back which contained a modern kitchen and western-style bathrooms. We peeked at the space under the house. The area that was normally used to keep animals was here being used to store bicycles and sheets of corrugated metal. We left our shoes outside and climbed the wooden staircase to the main floor of the house, which consisted of one big open room. There were curtains around the perimeter (similar to the privacy curtains we have in hospitals and doctors' exam rooms in the United States) which sectioned it off into little private chambers, each containing a sleeping pad on the floor, a duvet, and a mosquito net covering it. There were also windows with wooden shutters which opened to the outside. We got settled into our space, happily noticing that there were electrical outlets where we could charge batteries, and we even had our own little electric fan to keep the air moving. We then headed outside for a walk with Cuong to take advantage of the late afternoon light for photos. We heard music emanating from a traditional Tay house down the dirt road from our guest house, and we saw a steady stream of people going in and out. Cuong talked to the people and learned that they were having a funeral. We were all invited in, so we took off our shoes and headed upstairs into the dimly lit house. Men were playing shrill little horns while others banged drums with heavy wooden drumsticks as they played a dirge. A coffin bedecked in colorful decorations was sitting in the middle of the room. There was a large floral arrangement standing in front of a casket festooned with brightly colored paper shapes. Ritual trees (made of small tree branches wrapped in colorful paper and bearing paper flowers) hung over the casket. Everyone in attendance smiled at us and came over to shake our hands. The family considered it to be a good omen that foreigners had shown up to pay respect to their dead relative. They encouraged us to take pictures. We felt that this was vaguely inappropriate, but we did want to document this interesting cultural tradition, so we took a couple of minutes of video footage. Cuong talked to the family in Vietnamese. They told him that in the past, Tay people had at times resorted to cannibalism, feasting on the bodies of the dead. As years passed, they developed alternate funereal traditions: over the course of three days, they slaughter one water buffalo and four pigs. This is enough food to feed the entire village, and symbolically distracts them. We thanked the family for their hospitality and gave our condolences. As we walked back to the dirt road, we saw an elderly woman who lived next door to the guest house. Cuong greeted her and directed our attention to her teeth. They were dyed black when she was young; a Tay beauty ritual. Cuong tried to get her to smile for us. She was a bit embarrassed but eventually posed for a picture with us with a wide smile. Her two granddaughters peeked at us and tried to get our picture on their cell phones, but they were too shy to allow us to get their pictures. We then met another elderly lady, whose body was permanently bent from her years working in the rice paddies. She was quick to smile and shake our hands, and she even giggled mischievously and patted my bottom as we said goodbye and walked away. As we walked down the road, we passed rice paddies and houses. The scenery was very lush and green and extraordinarily beautiful. Cuong stopped in at one of the traditional Tay houses and invited ourselves in. The man who lived there was friendly and led us to some wooden chairs and a coffee table in front of a television set, where he poured us a cup of tepid tea. He motioned for us to sit down. The inside of the house was dimly lit, and it took our eyes a moment to adjust. We looked around the house, which was a single large room, similar to our guest house. A piece of slate was inlaid into the wood floor and a small wood fire burned on top of it. There was a wooden rack above the fire, and the man had placed reed baskets up there; apparently smoking them above the fire like that protects them from being eaten by insects. The man told Cuong that he had been in the army for 12 years, and that he was now a carpenter. He had made the house himself and was in the process of building one next door for his son. It was starting to get dark, so we thanked the man for his hospitality and headed back to the guest house. Two low tables had been set up on mats in the center of the floor. There was an outdoor hallway which led from the guesthouse to the modern kitchen and western-style bathrooms. There were a pile of white plastic flip-flops at the door so that you didn't need to go outside without shoes to get to the kitchen or bathroom (since everyone left their shoes outside, accrording to Vietnames tradition). All of the flip-flops were much too small for our large American feet, so any time we went to the bathroom we ended up shuffling awkwardly along in too-small flip-flops for the couple of steps it took to get there. Two women were preparing our dinner in the modern kitchen. They smiled and giggled as I took their photos. Vegetables were soaking in plastic bowls and buckets. Pots simmered on a gas cook top. Cuong had worked out the menu with them, and they used all kinds of fresh local ingredients. It turned out that these two ladies ran this guest house as well as another one next door. They prepare all the meals and set up all the beds and mosquito nets, etc. They were incredibly friendly, always smiling and giggling. Even though they didn't know English, a smile and hand gestures can go a long way, and we felt that we were able to communicate with them adequately. A little gray cat wandered around the guest house, meowing for food at the kitchen. A French couple arrived for dinner. They were staying at a nearby hotel, but they were here to enjoy dinner in the guest house. They sat on low stools at one table. We were happuy to share the other table with Cuong and Mr. Giang. We enjoyed their company and an opportunity to get to know them better. Our happy hostesses brought dish after dish to the table: fried tofu, French fries, pumpkin vine, green beans, pork, beef with celery. Cuong couldn't remember the English word for celery so he called his wife Nhung at her restaurant so that she could remind him. We filled our little bowls and dug in with our chopsticks. My surprising chopstick proficiency in Hanoi with Loi appeared to be beginner's luck; tonight I was fumbling. Cuong encouraged me and said that as my final exam, by the end of the trip, I would need to pick up a peanut with chopsticks. I had my doubts about my ability to do that, but I would keep practicing! And the food kept coming: tofu soup, rice, and fish with tomatoes were brought to the table. Soon our whole table was completely covered by food, and it all was beautifully presented. It had all been prepared with so much care. Everything was delicious! And they had seemed to whip it up so effortlessly. Mr. Giang poured us each a shot of rice wine from a plastic water bottle. We had known that rice wine is popular in Vietnam, and is often home-made in the tradition of what we in the USA would call moonshine, but we had no idea as to how harsh this unregulated liquor might be. Come to find out, it was surprisingly smooth. Mr. Giang and Cuong taught us the Vietnamese phrase for cheers: "chuc suc khoe" (pronounced "chook sook kway"). Cuong and I each had a single shot, but Craig and Mr. Giang refilled their shot glasses several times. After dinner, we left the table and had tea at the little sitting area. We chatted and had lots of laughs. The French couple left to go to their hotel. The two hostesses changed into their pajamas. They also sleep in the guest house. They have their own little chamber just like the rest of us (with the addition of a very small TV set.) At around 9 o'clock, we said our goodnights and ducked behind our curtains and under our mosquito nets. It was warm, but Craig turned our electric fan on to keep the air moving. The duvet was too warm to wear, but it was soft to lay on top of. We used our cotton sleeping bag liners for covers and drifted off to sleep. View Larger Map |
 Breakfast at Le Beaulieu  Pigs in a trailer pulled by a motorbike  Craig and Mr. Giang at lunch  Karst mountain  Tay guest house  Tay guest house  Tay guest house  Tay village  Tay village  Tay funeral band  Funereal ritual trees  Chuong's mother (photo courtesy of Cuong)  Tea with a Tay carpenter  chuc suc khoe - Craig and Mr. Giang toasting  Hostess serving dinner at the guest house  Craig, Cuong, and Steph at dinner in the guest house 
|
|
 |
|
 |
