Hai Van, Hue, and Heading to Hanoi

When Alrica and I left Da Nang, bound for Hanoi, we took a little trip in the middle. We went by train and did it in two parts. The day we left, we took a train from Da Nang to Huế. But let me start with the train ride itself.

This particular stretch of train line is, according to Lonely Planet, the loveliest train ride in the world. I can see why. It was a beautiful sunny day when we were on the train and the scenery (once we left the city and when we weren't in tunnels) was magnificent. In that trip, the train goes over the Hai Van Pass. Here you are on the side of a cliff, and as you look out you see the ocean, a mountain in the distance, and lush greenery.

Taken through a train window

It is truly a beautiful view. This being said, there is one small factor that mars the scene: Construction. Down on the coast, in an area that has historically just been a tiny fishing village, something much much larger is being built. The land has been stripped of its trees and flattened. You can see the outlines of what will probably be roads in the next few years. If I were guessing, I suspect someone is building a town to be full of resorts. Soon it will be, like Da Nang, a pleasure paradise.

Community Car on the train

The train was an interesting experience beyond just the view too. The center car of the train is called the community car. You can buy food there. But they also have musicians who play traditional Vietnamese music throughout the four hour ride. I was particularly surprised by the fact that one of them is playing the theremin. This is an instrument that has only existed for about 100 years. But it has a sound that could have replaced something like a woodwind and so now it is part of traditional music.

Do you recognize this welcome sign?

The train then arrived in Huế. I said previously that Da Nang was touristy. But I wasn't quite right in that. Huế is touristy. Da Nang is expatty. What do I mean? I liked Huế, but it is the kind of place designed for you to be there for one or two days and then go away. Da Nang has some of that, but it is really designed also for foreigners who want to stay for months or years. Consider bars. In Da Nang there are regular Vietnamese bars offering Tiger Beer. But there are also bars with wood paneling designed like English pubs, or there are Irish pubs, or German beer gardens. That way if you have moved there from Europe, you can have a local pub that feels like home. In Huế, the bars and clubs which aren't just regular ones feel more like they are themed than as though they have a foreign feel. For example, one has a Las Vegas theme going on. Certainly that isn't meant to make anyone feel at home, just to be a fun place to play.

The south gate of the Imperial Citadel

Huế is a very cool place to be a tourist though. The Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam, who ruled from 1802 to 1945 placed their capital in Huế. So there is an impressive citadel as well as the tombs of several of the emperors.

A dragon boat?

Some of the sites were within easy walking distance. Others were not. So we did a day tour. First, we took a dragon boat on the Perfume River. A couple of notes here: I think of a dragon boat as a long canoe, a rowboat that is decorated to look like a dragon. That's not what we were riding on. We were on a motorboat which had dragon decorations affixed to it. Also, the Perfume River is named that because of the flowers that fall into it upstream in the autumn. Then the river flowing through Huế has a perfumed scent in that time of year. So we were told. We were not there in the autumn and didn't smell any perfume-like scent.

the Phước Duyên pagoda, the symbol of Huế

The boat took us to Thiên Mụ Temple, or, the Temple of the Celestial Lady. Legends in the region spoke of a lady in red and blue who prophesied that one day a great lord would come and build a pagoda (the Phước Duyên pagoda) on a particular hill and there pray for the fortune of his kingdom. Then she disappeared. Centuries later, when the first emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty came to the area, he was told the story. So he built it, prayed for the fortune of his kingdom, and named it the Temple of the Celestial Lady. This is, to some degree, the antithesis of Greek Tragedy. In Greek tragedies, the hero is told of a prophecy, does everything he can to avoid it, and then by trying to avoid it, he fulfills it. Here, the emperor was told of a prophecy and then did everything he could to fulfill it. And hey, it didn't turn out tragic!

The car which brought a monk to his fiery protest

If you were craving tragedy, have no fear. The temple complex did have a pretty horrible story as well involving a car stored on the temple grounds. Before the Vietnam war, the country of Vietnam was in two halves. The southern half, which wasn't communist, was governed in Saigon. And the government was very anti-religion, particularly anti-Buddhism. A monk named Thích Quảng Đức drove this car into Saigon, exited the car, and set himself on fire in protest. Later, several other Buddhist monks also engaged in self-immolation, though religious freedom didn't come until after the Vietnam War. Today, under the communist government, people in Vietnam are free to worship in any religion. However, there are caveats. If you want to work in a government job, you must be atheist. And if you want to marry someone who works a government job, you must be atheist, your parents must be atheist, and your grandparents must be atheist. (Or have been, if they were not still alive.) Why does it require three generations of atheism to marry someone who works for the government but only personal atheism to work for the government? I don't know. I don't work for the Vietnamese government, so I don't have access to those answers.

Palace of the 13th (last) Emperor

From the temple, we headed to the Imperial Citadel, or the Imperial City. This is a walled 160 hectare (about 400 acres) region on the north bank of the Perfume River. Within it are (and were) palaces, temples, a library, a theater, and more. Many of the original buildings are still there, but many of them were obliterated in the Vietnam War. Now that the Imperial Citadel has become a tourism site, some of the tourist income is being used to rebuild the lost buildings.

The Market - that brown paste on the left is a type of fish sauce

Next up was the market and then lunch. We had a variety of Vietnamese dishes, though I'm not sure I could name all of them. But they were very tasty. And at the end of lunch was a foot washing bucket. I don't know if this is traditional in Vietnam. It wasn't my favorite. The bucket has bumps in the bottom and with my flat feet, that was not comfortable. I guess I exchange mild amounts of dirt on my feet for mild amounts of pain in my feet. Not sure it was the best trade-off. But I think Alrica enjoyed it more than I did. The warm water had been steeped with lemongrass and mint. Sounds more like a drink than a wash!

I know, you're thinking, finally, a picture of Erich's toes!

After this, we left the city proper and traveled out into the surrounding area. Here we visited an incense village. What I mean is that this is a village where they make incense sticks. There were so many sticks in so many colors, they make artistic displays. I'm sure that is for the tourists. I was wondering about the economics of this town. There is shop after shop selling the same thing. How much demand for incense is there in the region?

Alrica making cinnamon incense

Next, we drove to the tomb of the second emperor in the Nguyen Dynasty. But there was an interesting story to this. There is a temple here for venerating the emperor and working ancestors. There are two pillars that are meant to represent candles. There are statues of ministers and elephants and horses that were going to attend the emperor in the afterlife. But then there is the tomb on the hill on an island. Here's the thing, the emperor is most likely not buried there.

The Worship House at the Tomb of the Second Nguyen Emperor

Emperor's were buried with a lot of riches. So they were very afraid of tomb robbers. What's more, when the Nguyen dynasty came to power, one of the first things they did was loot the tombs of the previous dynasty. How do you show you are more powerful than the dead emperors that came before you? By defiling their graves, of course. Naturally, the Nguyen feared that the exact same thing would happen to them when their dynasty ended. (They couldn't know that theirs would be the last dynasty and afterwards there would be French colonialism, civil wars, and ultimately a communist government under Ho Chi Minh.) To avoid this, the emperors (with one exception) weren't buried in their tombs. They were buried somewhere in the vicinity of the tombs. But where is a mystery. This particular emperor was buried by six of his most trusted military bodyguards. Then, they marched out of the tomb area and promptly killed themselves so no one would know where the emperor's body really was. Now, that is a level of loyalty that boggles my mind.

The door to the tomb that probably isn't the tomb.

The other tomb we visited was that of Emperor number twelve. This was very different in style. It still had statues of ministers and elephants and horses. It still had pillars that represented candles. But the structure was heavily influenced by the French architectural style. The last several emperors ruled after the French had conquered Vietnam and before the Vietnamese fought for their independence from France.

Doesn't it feel a bit like Raiders of the Lost Ark?

This emperor is really buried in his own tomb. He didn't think that anyone would ever dig through his impressive French style palatial tomb. And it is beautiful, intricate, and very expensive.

Look at the intricacy of the wall carvings

After a day of touring, we boarded another train, this one a sleeper train taking us to Hanoi. We had booked two of the four beds in a sleeper cabin. We had the two lower bunks. No one ever came for the upper bunks, so we had the cabin to ourselves.

Our room on the train

Sleeper trains are fun. And when you think of it being both your transportation and your hotel for a night, they are very affordable. This cost us $114.57 for the two of us. Now, in the night we didn't get much of a view, but the next morning we saw birds, countryside, and eventually the city of Hanoi as we passed through it. Here's the wild part. There is this segment of the rail line that goes right in between buildings in the city. I mean we are talking maybe a foot or less clearance. And this has become a popular tourist attraction called Train street. Cafes put chairs out on their back landings right next to the train tracks. And people buy coffee or alcohol and sit there, watching the train go by only inches away from them. We got to see this from the other view, from the inside of the train. It is frightening how close these people are from being crushed.

Bonus pic! Incense stick art

The train company hates this. I recently read a news article about it. The train company has wanted the city of Hanoi to crack down on this, but the city hasn't done anything about it. Now there is a proposal to build a new line that skirts around the densely populated sections of Hanoi so that trains can avoid the stretch where people who don't pull in their legs could lose those same legs.

It's funny what passes for tourism sometimes. I will post more about Hanoi later, but I will say this: while there are plenty of tourism related things to do here, this is not a touristy city. Nor an expatty one.

Frustrations Down the Line

I was planning to blog about our transition from Da Nang to Hanoi with a beautiful stopover in Huế. But that is going to have to wait. Because right now I want to vent my frustrations with something else.

I'm sure all my readers know that the United States is at war with Iran right now. But what you may not all know is that our daughter is doing a study abroad this semester in Amman, Jordan. Or perhaps I should say she was. Right now she is in an airplane over the Mediterranean Sea. But let me get to that.

The last few days have been very frustrating for my daughter, my wife, and me.

To start at the start, even when the war broke out, Alrica and I were not afraid that our daughter was unsafe in Amman. At no point did we feel she was unsafe in Amman. Jordan isn't at war, and the city is far from any legitimate military targets.

I suppose there is always some risk. Jordan has a long-standing policy that they shoot down any missiles over their airspace. It doesn't matter who launched the missile. It doesn't matter who the target might be. If it passes over Jordan, then Jordan shoots it down. Geographically, if you are stuck between two countries, Israel and Iran, who like to lob missiles at one another, this is a pretty smart policy. Don't use our airspace for your conflicts. It's not taking sides, it is just protecting what is theirs. But what this does mean is that sometimes sirens go off meaning everyone needs to get indoors. It is possible that shrapnel from the exploded missiles could land somewhere.

But this is pretty normal for the Jordanians. At least once a year, Israel launches something at Iran that goes over Jordan and Jordan shoots it down. And regularly things go the other direction too. So the Jordanians don't freak out about it. It's just part of life. Sirens go off, you get indoors for awhile, sirens stop, you go about your day.

Our daughter was not scared at all. Neither were we.

Then the frustrations began. How the U.S. Government can be so incapable, so incompetent, is unbelievable. On Monday, in the evening Eastern Time, some undersecretary in the State Department tweeted that Americans needed to get out of Jordan on commercial flights. But that was it. There was no confirmation anywhere. Nothing on any State Department website said this was the new policy. No one else in the State Department pipeline was given this new policy either. And then the State Department went quiet. It was after business hours, maybe they figured, "Ah, no one will be confused or need clarification. Why bother having anyone around to answer questions?"

Of course there were going to be people who needed clarification! One of them was Amideast. Amideast is an educational organization that organizes study abroad programs in the Middle East and North Africa. Universities generally don't organize their own study abroad programs, but contract out to organizations like Amideast. This includes Syracuse University (where our daughter is a student.)

When this tweet went out, it was around 2 AM in Jordan. Immediately, Amideast, as well as other similar groups, started asking for clarification. But the office which had tweeted was closed. Their other State Department contacts had not been told this was the policy. It was chaos and confusion for hours. Never before has the U.S. Government declared that Americans must depart a country through a tweet and nothing else. So no one knew was to do. That was frustration number one. We had no idea what the real policy was and what it meant for our daughter.

Finally, then next day in the U.S., the State Department sent word that yes, people really did need to get out of Jordan and they announced it properly this time. However, they told Americans to leave by commercial air travel. At the time, Jordanian air space was closed! How was anyone supposed to leave?

Amideast, to their credit, came up with a plan. They moved classes online and asked the students to attend from the homes of their host families. They decided that when flying out was possible, they would move the students in the Jordan program to the Morocco program in Rabat. That way they could continue with Arabic classes. As for the subject classes (the ones that were not about learning Arabic) they would continue to offer them online for the rest of the semester. Amideast would get the kids to the airport in Amman, and they would pick up the kids at the airport in either Rabat or Casablanca. But the kids had to book their own flights out.

Air Jordan was planning a flight that would go from Amman to Casablanca on Thursday at 2:20 AM Jordan Time (assuming air space was open at that moment.) Our daughter wanted to get that flight. But then the bureaucratic inefficiency that is Syracuse University happened. Our daughter is the only student in the Jordan program from Syracuse University. The other students are all from other schools. And their schools contacted them immediately, told them to book whatever they could find, and then they would reimburse them later. But no, not Syracuse. They had to make it so much more frustrating!

The Study Abroad program at Syracuse comes with travel insurance which is for this exact thing. If you are forced to deport for various reasons (including a war breaking out next door) the insurance will pay for your flight. But our daughter had to call them. No one at Syracuse reached out to her. And the Syracuse insurance wouldn't just let our daughter book her own flight and reimburse her. They said they had to book it. So she waited. And waited. And waited. Twenty-four hours later, there was still no update about whether or not they had booked it. Our daughter tried calling again and again, put on hold, told there were no updates. Finally Alrica decided to play the parent card. That too was frustrating. Alrica would explain the situation, be put on hold, and then get disconnected ten minutes into the hold music. We were unable to get anything resolved.

One of the times Alrica was on hold (probably her fourth call to them), someone from the insurance company called our daughter. They hadn't booked anything. They weren't sure if Casablanca was her final destination. And they waited over a day to find out?! She said, yes, that is my final destination. The insurance company's response was that now she was in the queue for them to book something for her.

Our daughter got a scholarship for her study abroad from the Gilman Foundation. They were on top of things. As soon as they were told that Americans had to leave Jordan, they reached out to our daughter. They followed up. She told them how she still didn't have flights booked. The Gilman Foundation, which works through the State Department, had the embassy in Jordan calling our daughter to check on whether or not she had a flight. They wanted her out of there. But the machinery of bureaucrats cannot be rushed.

Finally, hours and hours later, the insurance company confirmed that they had booked the 2:20 AM flight. Great! Assuming the air space was open at that time.

As I said before: Alrica and I were really not afraid at any point while she was in Amman. We honestly believe she is safe in the city. But I, for one, was very frustrated. I was even quite impatient and snappish with my parents when trying to explain what was going on to them. And that was unfair since it wasn't their fault.

The only thing I feared was the flight itself. Our daughter on the ground in Amman felt safe. But being in the air over Jordan, that felt like the most dangerous part of the journey. That was where the missiles, if any were being fired, would be.

As I write this, our daughter is in the air. But she's already over the Mediterranean Sea and I can breathe more easily. The plane couldn't fly over Israel, so it had to go south across all of Jordan. Then it flew over the Red Sea and entered Egypt's air space. The plane also can't fly over Libya. So it had to fly back north over Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. Now it is heading west toward Casablanca and it should be well out of the area that missiles are being fired.

So if I have seemed impatient or tense over the last couple days, I apologize. (I will apologize directly to you, Mom and Dad, when we next speak.) It isn't really that I thought anything bad would happen to my daughter, but to be left in Limbo, it just gnaws at you. Or at least, it gnaws at me.

Thanks to all who reached out to check on her. And (if you made it this far) thanks for letting me rant.

Horse Power

No, Tết, it does not rhyme with bet.
I've heard the word spoken and yet
I throw in the towel.
I can't make that vowel!
The Vietnamese aren't upset.

Happy New Year!

Today is the last day of Tết, the biggest and most important holiday in Vietnam. While it is celebrating the Lunar New Year, that's not all it is. Tết predates the introduction of the lunar calendar to Vietnam. Long ago, when most everyone was a farmer, Tết was a harvest festival. It was a time to give thanks to the earth for its bounty. It was a time to get rid of bad energies and bring in clean good ones. It was a time to ask the gods for a prosperous year to come. And most importantly, it was a time to be with family. Even if someone had moved to another village, Tết was a time to come home.

A welcoming arch to the riverside

Those of us from more temperate regions tend to think of harvest festivals as occurring in the autumn. But in the tropics, there are many planting and harvesting seasons in a year. Originally, Tết was in the spring, in the transition from the drier season to the rainy season. Later, the Vietnamese interacted with the Chinese, either through immigration or conquest. The Chinese brought their calendar along and their celebrations of the new year. The Vietnamese adapted these and somehow Tết got merged with the lunar new year. So Tết today is a mix of the new year traditions and the harvest festival ones.

Painted flower and real flowers. And Alrica

It is still all about family. Officially, Tết is four days long. But in the days leading up to Tết, the big cities empty out as people return to their hometowns to be with their families for the holiday. And it also takes some time for everyone to return. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City become ghost towns. Businesses shut down. We are in Da Nang and it doesn't empy as much. First, a lot of people here are from here, there aren't as many transplants. Also, Da Nang is very much a tourism hub and a place full of expats, so there are more businesses that stay open. Still, there is a law in the country that people who have to work during Tết must be paid double. So some Tết pricing is in effect.

The blue lights along the horse's body turn off and on

This year is the Year of the Horse. We visited the riverfront where there are concerts and decorations. We were approaching a live performance and I said to Alrica, "Those lyrics are in Spanish." We arrived to find a group of Latin dancers. Let me be clear, they were Vietnamese dancers, but they were dancing Latin dances. There was food and activities and lots of happy people.

Not the dancing I expected.

Being foreigners, we aren't engaged in most Tết activities as they are family centered. But we did go out for the midnight fireworks to celebrate the new year. You know what's great about midnight fireworks for the new year in Vietnam that isn't the same when you go to midnight fireworks in the United States? It's a beautiful temperature. January 1 fireworks at midnight at home are always cold. I'm sure the fireworks aren't cold, but I'm cold when I watch them. Here it was an amazing temperature, right around 70 degrees (or 21 degrees if you prefer Celsius. They would say 21 in Vietnam.) The fireworks were beautiful.

We've seen a lot of fireworks lately.

Walking home from the fireworks, we saw people with little metals cans in which they were burning paper. A woman was throwing some small seeds or something seed-like on the ground. I don't fully understand all the traditions, but it was very joyful.

I don't know all about this custom, but everyone was doing it.

There have been many things closed for the last few days, but still plenty of options for us. We took advantage of the time to have Indian food. The Indian restaurants are still open, because their employees, primarily Indian immigrants, don't celebrate Tết. They do sometimes have shortages on some ingredients because so many of the markets are closed.

Same horse, but during the day.

I imagine that over the next few days, things will be returning to normal. But it is nice that so many people got some time off, got to be with their families, got to follow their traditions, and got to welcome in the Year of the Horse.

Failure Week

This has not been our best week. Don't worry, we're fine. But several things this week have not worked out as we planned. That includes me blogging right now, but I will get to that.

It all began on Sunday, February 1. Our plan was to go to Hoi An, a city about 45 minutes away with lots of historic sites and great food. We specifically chose February 1 because it was the full moon. Each month on the full moon, Hoi An has a lantern festival at night. We went in the day, planning to stay through the night and see the lanterns.

The (very crowded) Japanese Covered Bridge of Hoi An

But things didn't work out that way. We made it to Hoi An without a problem. But it was raining. We had brought our umbrellas, but when you have to carry an umbrella, it is so much harder to also hold and use a phone for pictures or looking at a walking tour map. The sites just weren't nearly so neat to see in the rain. We saw a few. Of particular note is the Japanese Covered Bridge, but man was it crowded (with people who wanted to be out of the rain, I suppose.)

We did have an excellent lunch, but we found it pretty boring in Hoi An. So we ditched early. Not a super successful trip.

Taking a lesson from this sculpture in Hoi An. shrugging and saying "Whatevs."

On Tuesday, February 3, we visited a vaccine clinic. It isn't that we specifically needed any vaccines, but we wanted a couple. They are affordable in Vietnam and we figured we may as well get vaccines for Japanese Encephalitis and Yellow Fever. Again, there is no real danger right now that we are going to get those diseases. But there are some places we could travel in the future that require Yellow Fever vaccinations, and there are parts of East Asia where one can, if out in the more rural areas, get Japanese Encephalitis. From what we had read online, the people at the clinic were excellent English speakers. That turned out not to be true. Still, we communicated enough to make it clear what we wanted. They didn't have any Yellow Fever vaccines available. And they told us (I think, assuming I am interpreting it correctly) that if we wanted Japanese Encephalitis vaccines, we had to go to a hospital. However, it wasn't a total loss. The building had a very decorative banister for the staircase. (I'm really stretching to find the bright side.)

That is quite the banister, am I right?

Taking a break from griping, I did see a few amusing and interesting things this week.

Did you know Baskin Robbins makes soda?

The store is called Mickey & Minnie, but the character is Hello Kitty! More shrugging.

I understand that because the number 13 is unlucky, they don't have a 13th floor. But unlike in the USA, they don't just skip it. They call it floor 12A. But if you look carefully at the elevator buttons, what I don't understand is why there is a floor 36A. They have both floors 36 and 37. Why the extra?

12A, okay, but 36A? Huh?

But the most annoying nuisance of the week began last night, or technically early this morning. Alrica had a work meeting at 12:30 AM today, Saturday, which seems weird. But consider time zones. That was really 9:30 AM Friday in Pacific Time. The point is, she happened to be up at that time. And during her meeting she got a text from our landlord. The landlord sold the apartment we are staying in. And they wanted us to move, today, Saturday.

The landlord has another apartment on the top floor of this same building. Maybe that sounds great! But the downside to being on the upside is that you wait so much longer for elevators. We saw the other apartment this morning and we said, fine, we will move. (We could fight about it, saying the new owner has to honor the lease agreement, but given I know almost no Vietnamese, and it would probably cost me something to get an attorney, it's easier to just move.)

So we were supposed to move about 1.5 hours ago. We had everything arranged, and we had packed everything up. You might think, "Big deal, Erich. You and Alrica pack all the time. This can't be that hard." And you are right. And you are also wrong.

Yes, we do pack all the time, but we only pack our permanent things. Our clothing, toiletries, electronics, etc. But when you are staying in an apartment for five weeks, you buy food for the refrigerator. You buy cooking oil and salt and rice. (And when you buy rice in Southeast Asia, you are buying at least five kilogram bags which is around 11 pounds for those not in the metric know.) And then there are things that can't easily travel by plane, like liquid handsoap and lotion. And perhaps biggest and heaviest of all: water. You don't drink the tap water in Da Nang. So we have bottles of water and they have to get moved too. The point is that there is a lot more to move than when we are relocating from one city to another.

We had agreed on a time to meet our landlord and move up to the other apartment. We packed everything. And she didn't show up. Now we aren't moving until 3 hours after we had agreed to. But I can't just leave the items from the refrigerator and freezer packed. So we had to unpack. And I got my computer back out. And I needed a charger. And so on. We're doing the landlord a favor by being easygoing about this. But right now I am frustrated. This is not how I planned to spend my entire Saturday.

Hopefully next week will be less fail-y. You know the saying, there's nowhere to go but up. Two problems with it though: I'm not that low. It wasn't a terrible week, just had a few unsuccessful moments. And I'm moving to the top floor. So really there's nowhere to go but down. What does that portend?

Essential Characteristics

If you were going to build a bridge over a river, and you were going to make the suspension arches look like the body of a dragon complete with scales, and you were going to include the dragon's underbelly on the underside of the bridge, and one end of the bridge would be a dragon tail and the other would be a dragon head, and you were going to name it Cầu Rồng which means Dragon Bridge, so that's a lot things you were going to do, what else would you do to totally sell it, complete the dragonness of the entire thing? What is the essential characteristic of a dragon?

The dragon's head

I think that the essential characteristic of a dragon is breathing fire. Yes, for those into D&D (like me), some dragons breath other things: acid, ice, electricity, poison, but setting that aside, classical dragons breathe fire. So if you were building such a bridge, wouldn't you want it to breathe fire?

The dragon's underbelly

If you are the Vietnamese government, the answer is yes. The Dragon Bridge of Da Nang breathes fire. I know, that sounds dangerous. But no worries. It doesn't breathe fire all the time. It does it at 9:00 PM on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and some holidays also. Alrica and I went to see it happen last night.

The bridge is closed to traffic during the ten minute display. Though they let cars go along the bridge right up until the fire begins. Like, cars didn't stop entering the bridge until about ten seconds before the fire began. First, you see a fire light in the mouth of the dragon. Then in intervals, it blasts out like a flame thrower for about 15 seconds. Then it goes back to just being in the mouth, but a minute later it blasts out again.

Make a save versus breath weapon!

This happens a few times and then the fire goes out. After that, the dragon sprays water out of its mouth. Like the fire, this happens in bursts and then there are pauses in between. The pauses are a bit shorter for the water.

The water is a bit harder to see than the fire, but I think you can tell what's going on.

Seeing it happen was cool, very cool even. I applaud Vietnam's commitment to completing the draconic features of the bridge. But this was not the most amazing experience Alrica and I had last night.

We walked from our apartment to the bridge. It was maybe a 35 minute walk. We planned to stop somewhere and eat. But endeavoring to not only see the restaurants designed for tourists and expats—there are so many foreign people in Da Nang—we turned on various smaller streets. And along the way we passed an unassuming restaurant called Quán Nhậu Hồng Hải, but it was crammed full of people. All of them were locals. So we figured it had to be good. We went in and got a table for two.

I took this picture on the way home. The restaurant was a lot busier when we arrived.

Lucky for us, there was one waiter there who did speak English. He brought us a menu that was in Vietnamese, English, and Mandarin. (I think it might have been their only copy of the trilingual menu.) He advised us to try two of their bestsellers: fried oysters and fried scallops. We agreed. Then we sat back and just enjoyed the scene. There was so many happy groups, chatting in Vietnamese, laughing, one of them even had a waitress get a picture of them together. At the table next to us were two middle-aged men enjoying Tiger Beer. A plate came to their table and they started speaking to the waiter (not the one who spoke English.) I saw one of them gesturing to Alrica and me. Eventually that waiter came over and set down the plate, two fish, like the whole fish, fried and served with some green leafy vegetable and a bowl of a green sauce that turned out to be based on chili peppers. He got out his cell phone and used a translation app to show me that this plate was being given to us by the two men at the table beside us and they had already paid for it. I said thank you to the waiter and to the two men (several times) which is one of the few phrases I know in Vietnamese.

But the question arose, how are you supposed to eat this? There are no forks. There are only chopsticks. How do you eat an entire fish (head, eyes, and scales still on it) using only chopsticks? Well, we muddled through. It was pretty easy to peel away the scales. And the meat inside was so tender it came off the skeleton easily as we gripped it with our chopsticks. I did get the occasional bone in my mouth, and I did move it to the front of my mouth with my tongue and use my fingers to get it back down to the plate. But for most of my bites, I didn't have that problem. I enjoyed the green sauce, Alrica found it a bit spicy. And the green leafy vegetable, I don't know what it was, but it had that pungent effect of horseradish or wasabi. I liked that too.

So we are doing great with our fish, right? And our scallops and oysters arrived a bit later and they were amazing! Alrica was in love in the scallops. I think she is more in love with me that the scallops, but that could just be optimistic yearning on my part. But back to the fish. I finished eating half of it, the half facing up. You could see the main spine and all the bones coming out and under that was the other half of the meat. So here's the question? How do you get to the other half? Do you try to pick out the skeleton (with chopsticks)? Do you flip the fish over (again with chopsticks)? I went for the latter, flipping it. I didn't fully succeed. I ended up using my fingers to assist in the flippage.

Incidentally, this entire meal, the oysters, the scallops, and bottles of water for each of us, cost us less than ten dollars. Phenomenally good seafood for under ten dollars? Pretty spectacular.

When the men at the next table got up to leave, we also stood. We shook their hands and thanked them again. They said some things to us which we didn't understand. But they stopped the one waiter who spoke English, and had him translate. They wanted to know how we enjoyed the fish and we told them it was fantastic.

Why did these two men send of a plate of two whole fish to strangers? I don't know, but I think they wanted us to experience some of the real flavors of Vietnam. I think they were excited to see some of the foreigners in this restaurant which probably serves locals 99.8 percent of the time. Or maybe they realized, by the time it was served, that they just didn't want it. Whatever their reason, it was super generous and kind. It made the entire experience unexpected and heart-warming. And we super appreciate it.

Isn't having unexpected (and hopefully, at times, heart-warming) experiences what you hope for in travel? Maybe, if I'm not overstating things too much, it is one of travel's essential characteristics.

First Impressions of Da Nang

My, my, I haven't posted in a while. Well, apologies for that. Let's catch up.

We spent most of January in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Our daughter was with us for half that time, and then it was back to the two of us for the other half. Today is Tuesday and this past Sunday we flew out of Kuala Lumpur and into Da Nang, Vietnam. First, where is that? Well, Da Nang is on the coast along the East Vietnam Sea. It is close to the middle of Vietnam in the north-south sense, with Hanoi being in the northern part and Ho Chi Minh City in the southern part. Da Nang has a beach, it's near the mountains, and it has a river, the Han River, running through it. 

So far, we really like Da Nang. But our Monday was spent in trying to find a place to live. We are staying in a hotel, the Hilton Da Nang. This is a fantastic hotel, very comfortable with a beautiful pool and an amazing breakfast. (It is surprising how much more thorough and extravagant hotel breakfasts are outside of the United States.) But we set out to find an apartment. And I think we have one. This afternoon we should be moving in.

The Han River Bridge showing off

Our hotel is just across the street from the river. There is a lovely river walkway including sculptures and views of the bridges. Our hotel is very close to the Han River Bridge which lights up in a colorful display at night. Further downriver is the Dragon Bridge which looks like a dragon. I've read that at certain times, the dragon's head breathes fire. We will definitely have to go see that! It is supposed to happen at 9 PM sharp on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.

The Dragon Bridge (orange, but it changes)

One lovely aspect about Vietnam is cheese. And bread. Two, two lovely aspects of Vietnam are cheese and bread. Vietnam was colonized by the French, and when the French left, the Vietnamese held on to the bread and cheese. You don't realize how much you miss those things until you are in parts of the world where they are uncommon. We actually went out for pizza our first night here. I was craving pizza near the end of our time in Kuala Lumpur. And you can get pizza there. But Alrica pointed out that Da Nang has lots of pizza places, so we bade our time. And it was worth it. Great pizza!

I suspect she turned to stone because she was out of the water too long

I know, you're saying "Erich, your first night in Vietnam and you had pizza?" Yes, you're right, but I have plenty more chances for stir-fries, pho, and spring rolls. In fact, I had pho as part of my breakfast today, and it was good! Plus, we had banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) for dinner on our second night.

The temperatures have been great! Generally in the 70s, which is so lovely, though the Vietnamese find it chilly. It does rain off and on, but when it is sunny, the city sparkles.

And wow! Amazing fire hydrants. I've found three different styles already.

Flat Yellow Top, Two Small side fonts

Different colors, different covers, taller and thinner

Short and squat with a high crown

I will have more to post once we are settled.

Tears On My Algae

This is what it sounds like when algae cries.

No, those are not very large crying algae. They are, as you suspected, monkeys.

Don't worry if you're mystified, all will be clear soon. However, first I must fill you in on some of the prerequisite knowledge you need to continue, given in no logical order, just as it occurs to me to list it.

• You know how some flavors are just more popular than others? Like consider ice cream. If you ask people for their favorite ice cream flavor, you will get many answers. But you are going to get a lot more people who answer chocolate than those who answer pistachio or birthday cake or (shudder) durian. Well, in some parts of the world, durian will rate higher, but you understand my meaning. Mosquitoes must have similar variation in which humans they bite for blood. Different mosquitoes like different humans, but some humans are the favorites of more mosquitoes than others. In the big picture of mosquito preference, I am a pistachio, not highly favored. My daughter is a chocolate; many, many mosquitoes love her. And while it is nice to be loved, it's less nice when what they love is sucking your blood.
• There is a musical called The Scarlet Pimpernel based on the book of the same name. In that musical, there is a song called The Creation of Man. And in that song there is a recurring line
  La, but someone has to strike a pose
  and bear the weight of well-tailored clothes.
  That is why the Lord created man.
• It is common, in Southeast Asia, to visit a public restroom and find that, once you have washed your hands, there is no paper towel nor hand dryer with which to eliminate the remaining manual dampness. This is not exclusive to Southeast Asia, either.
• Our daughter, Syarra, is visiting us in Kuala Lumpur during her winter break.
• This past Saturday was the night of the new moon.

These bullet points above are preparatory for my new discovery, a second benefit of pants. You would assume the first benefit is to keep your legs warm. That may be true, but I dismiss the obvious. Consider the third bullet point above. What would you do after you had washed your hands and there was no practical drying mechanism? I don't want to speak for you, but I will speak for me. I would dry them on my pants. And when this occurs, frequently, I sing some variation of the following to Alrica:
When you soap your hands and rinse them clean
But find no towels or blowing machine
That is why the Lord created pants.

Reference the second bullet point above if needed.

As you may have guessed, a lighthouse.

On Saturday we took a trip out of Kuala Lumpur by van to a smaller town called Kuala Selangor. It is along the Selangor River. The drive out was about 90 minutes and then we visited a few sites. First we went to Bukit Malawati or Malawati Hill. It is a high point in the region where, at one time, there was a fort and there is still a lighthouse. The historical aspects of the hill were somewhat lost for us. We did see a rock called The Bedrock. And a sign told us either it was a place the Sultan liked to sit so he could look down on the city or a place where people were beheaded. Who knows? Maybe both. There was no real explanation of what the history was. But there were monkeys, many monkeys on the hill.

More monkeys!

Our next stop was a seafood restaurant for dinner. We had fried rice, seasoned vegetables, a fish dish with a savory sauce and other vegetables, a chicken dish with a different savory sauce and different other vegetables, and fried prawns with no sauce and no vegetables. We also got Chinese tea to drink. Tea is not a particular preference of mine (not as low as durian, but not as high as pistachio.) But I'm adjusting.

Sunset over the Selangor River

After dinner, we got on a boat in the Selangor River. First, the boat took us upriver to an area full of fireflies. We slowly trolled through the water near the bank, looking into the bushes and scrub full of flickering lights. It was interesting to me, because this is not at all the way I remember fireflies (or what we called lightning bugs.) When I was a boy in Iowa, the summer nights were full of lightning bugs. They would fly around, light up, their light would stay on for several seconds as they zoomed around, and then it would go out again. Here, these fireflies just blinked on and then almost immediately off, over and over in quick succession. It was like looking at flickering Christmas lights. It was also interesting how many people have never seen fireflies before. You don't see them in the summer in Iowa anymore. I imagine our many pesticides have done a wonderful job of wiping them out.

They gave me a life vest for a man twice my size. Glad I didn't fall in.

After seeing the fireflies, we finally got to the main reason we had chosen this tour. It is called The Blue Tears. The boat took us downriver and out into the Malacca Strait. Then the boat slowed to a crawl (crawling on water so would you call it a dog paddle?) and the driver gave us all small fishing nets. We dipped our nets into the water and saw something magical. It was a blue glow being churned and caught in our nets. Since it was a new moon, there was little light in the sky, and it was very easy to see.

This is not the only place in the world you can see this phenomenon. But here in the Malacca Straight, what you are seeing is algae. It is a marine plankton algae called dinoflagellates. Within these single-celled organism is a chemical called luciferin. I'm sure it is named for Lucifer, but not so much in his aspect as a devil. I think it is because Lucifer means Light-bearer or Light-Bringer. When the algae are agitated, they come in contact with excess oxygen. This makes the luciferin in them glow blue. So when we dipped our fishing nets into the water, we were agitating the dinoflagellates and a stream of blue streaked in our nets and just behind them. If you pulled your net out of the water, the algae left in your net continued to glow for several more seconds.

It was fascinating to see. I tried to get a picture, but my cell camera was incapable of picking anything up. The pictures are just fields of black. But I have memories of it in the photo album of my mind. Along with what it sounds like when algae cry.

But wait, what does this have to do with the second benefit of pants? Understand, it was dusk or past dusk while we were on the boat. The mosquitoes were out in force. We had applied mosquito repellent and perhaps it helped. One can only wonder what would have happened had we not. Personally, I didn't have much problem. Remember, I am at best pistachio to the mosquitoes. But Syarra, well, she was much more popular with them than I. The good news is that Syarra was wearing long pants. A woman sitting across from us, another mosquito favorite, was wearing shorts. And she was being eaten alive. Syarra, unfortunately, was not wearing long sleeves, so she still had her share of unpleasant mosquito affection.

Seeing how strongly affected was the woman in shorts, this gave me a second reason to sing the praises of pants. I present it to you herewith: Or forthwith: Whichever with is the proper with:
La, when insects need to feed their eggs
Why offer a buffet of your legs?
That is why the Lord created pants.