Master Craftsman - Alrica

Before we close out our trip to Vietnam, I wanted to share with you some reflections on craftsman. As we travel around the world carrying all of our stuff, we can't really afford to add to it so I get to look longingly at the amazingly artistic works in the bazaars and medinas but rarely get the fun of haggling for and buying stuff. Occasionally, I do get to buy something like in Malaysia where I was starting to really need a new shirt and picked up a gorgeous batik painted shirt. Batik is a craft where melted wax is applied to cloth in gorgeous designs. The cloth is then dyed and the wax is peeled away to reveal the art. The shirt I purchased was fairly simple but lovely and comfortable.

Vietnam required a different kind of purchase. On our way there, one of the straps on our biggest backpacks snapped off. This was probably a $300 backpack and not easily replaceable but we started looking into it soon after arrival. We found smaller packs but they would require us to trim down our gear even further, not something that any of us were excited about. Sewing through heavy canvass and nylon straps was not something I intended to try with my simple needle and thread I had packed so we emptied the pack completely and went out looking for a tailor that might be willing to take it on.

As we walked through the streets of district one in Ho Chi Minh City, we passed by a group of guys sitting on the sidewalk repairing shoes. Seemed like it might not be too much of a stretch so we presented them with this challenge in our limited Vietnamese and lots of hand signals. They grasped the problem immediately and started to work on it. Using a knife and some sort of metal tool with an eye in the point, they cut off a piece of unneeded strap, replaced the broken piece, sewed it all back together, and finished their work so that it looked as good as new. The entire process took about 10 minutes and cost us 50,000VND - about $2.10. It is hard to express my appreciation for this craftsman that took a problem that could have been a major issue for us and fixed it. The pride that he took in his work reminded me of the value that craftsman across the world bring to us, whether they be making woodwork in Morocco or fixing shoes in Vietnam.

Cooking Vietnamese Style - Alrica

Our strategy when we arrive in a new country is to eat out for the first few days to get a sense of the local flavors and cuisines before hitting the grocery store where we will hopefully, at that point, recognize some of the food choices. After spending the last month in Malaysia where spicy foods reign, we were excited to try all sorts of new flavor combinations that didn’t set our mouths on fire. Particularly interesting was Pho Bo, a beef noodle soup that comes to Vietnam from the northern part of the country. The traditional process is to spend about four hours making it, straining it over and over to make a clear broth that then has noodles, beef, and vegetables added to it. The most surprising thing is that this savory soup is flavored with cinnamon, anise, ginger, and cardamom. This is something that I wanted to learn to make.

So off we went to a Vietnamese cooking class. We chose one given by the Vietnam Cookery Center in Ho Chi Minh City based on the recipes being taught and their positive reviews. Since we had discovered very few people here spoke English, I was particularly excited to see reviews that mentioned how understandable the staff was. Cooking classes in this area seem to arrange their classes by menus offered each day and the particular class I wanted included Pho Bo, Green Spring Rolls with dipping sauce, and sautéed chicken with spicy and sweet basil sauce. Plus it included a market tour. Since Erich’s parents were joining us for three out of our five weeks in Vietnam, we were excited to share this with them.

Bright and early Wednesday morning we took the shuttle into District 1 and walked from there to the Ben Thanh Market. We had been to another market that was a much more local market and the differences were pretty stark.  Ben Thanh is clearly a tourist’s market, complete with lots of foreigners, sales people who spoke at least some English, and prices to match. However, we were met there by our guide who spoke beautiful English and walked us through, explaining everything, and we were happy to find that our group of six would be the whole class. We hit the fruits and vegetables first where she cleared up our confusion about different varieties of Mango (there are over 200), explained that the weird bumpy cucumber thing was called bittermelon and could be used in stir-fries, and had us smell or taste easily 20 different herbs and greens while explaining how to recognize and use them. Then we went into the meat section where we learned the proper way to cook lungs, heart, and other internal organs (slice them thinly and cook in a bit of oil and sauce) and headed into the seafood area. Since Ho Chi Minh City is near the ocean, it is well supplied with shrimp, fish, octopus, snails, and other sealife, though we were warned away from salmon as it is imported and very expensive.

We then caught a taxi back to the fifth floor cooking center where we were given tea and sugared ginger and left in the capable hands of Linh, our chef, and her helpers. The cooking tables were set with individual burners and little cups of spices that we would be using for our recipes. After introductions, we began marinating our chicken in a clay pot and then turned our attention to our shrimp and pork spring rolls. The spring rolls were an exercise in fine motor skills as we took the mustard leaves, filled them with noodles, egg, pork, and shrimp, rolled them up and tied them with a spring onion.  These are then dipped into a mix of sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, and garlic. They were delicious and fresh tasting!

Pretty!

 

Then came the soup. Linh had started ours early that morning since the broth needs to cook for at least four hours. She started with a chunk of thigh bone and since we didn’t get to see it before, she started a new one. The bone was put in warm water with a bit of salt and lemon juice and we got to watch the blood leech out and the bone whiten. Then it came time to season it. A tray was brought out with whole spices on it. The cinnamon wasn’t anything that we recognized as it was still attached to the bark (the cinnamon is actually on the inside of the bark). The cardamom was a whole nut with little seeds inside. These, along with star anise, were broken up into small pieces (nothing was thrown out), and cooked in a dry pan along with some whole cloves. The smell was amazing. Once everything was toasted, they were put in a basket like an oversized tea strainer and dropped in the soup to be lifted out later. We then piled ginger, onion, and shallots onto a wire mesh and cooked them directly over an open flame. When they were blackened, the outsides were peeled and the insides were washed and dropped into the soup.

While the soup finished cooking, we cooked our chicken in the clay pot and got ready to enjoy our lunch. We were taught to fill a wire mesh dipper with precooked noodles and bean sprouts and dip them into hot water for just a few seconds before dumping them in a bowl. Then slices of beef were added to this along with onion and soup stock poured on top. I had heard that olfactory senses retain the strongest memories and this is one of those aromas that will now instantly bring back memories of the humid breezes and fun we had that day.

In addition to the chicken and soup, Linh brought out a tapioca dessert that was filled with interesting textures and flavors, nobody’s favorite, but a great way to cap off a day of new tastes and experiences. We all loved that not only did we learn new recipes and cooking techniques but that we learned so much about Vietnamese culture and had a wonderful day together.

Reflections – Joni (Guest Blogger)

For the past three weeks, Erich's parents, Joni and Morrey have been visiting us in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. These are Joni's reflections on the time here.

As our three weeks come to a close, I reflect on one very awesome experience. It began with a looonnnggg flight and then an evening in a lovely hotel near the airport. They served one incredible free breakfast which included omelets made to order, fresh fruits previously unknown to us foreigners, egg rolls and other appetizers, and cereals and much more. Then a longer than necessary Uber ride to where our kids were staying as the people at the hotel who kindly helped us order put in an incorrect address. As we knew we were close but lost, we called Erich and he had the people at the apartment complex speak to the driver and tell him how to get there. We were quite close so a few minutes later, we were there. And one of the best parts of the trip---the long awaited best hugs and kisses ever. Boy, did we miss that family and, boy, was it great to see them and hold them again.

Being in Vietnam has been a great experience. Most places people do not speak English but all are super sweet and nice and as helpful as possible. The area we are in and the shuttle ride to the downtown area is interesting in that you will see lovely places such as this apartment complex and right next to or sometimes in front of them you will see an area that we would refer to as a slum. Along the road there are many little shops and the electrical wiring to them looks like a mass of tangled lines that culminate in a mammoth birds nest look of jumbled wires. We want to know how they would ever find the bad one if they had a problem

The other shuttle destination is to a much more upscale area. The housing and the surrounding area are sans surrounding slums and appear to be a much more affluent neighborhood. The stops include an area with an entire housing community and loads of restaurants and shops. We found a great pizza restaurant there. The other stop is a mall very upscale with an enormous food court and a huge grocery store with fabulous selection. Our family goes equipped with back packs and loads them with the grocery purchases for easy home delivery.

We have had outings. We all went to a cooking school that was really fun. It started with a stop at the local market to show us many different varieties of fruits, vegetables, meats, noodles, a good education in local products. Then off to school. The chef was a woman, Linh, or Lynn, if you prefer the American spelling, both pronounced the same, who spoke perfect English and explained everything easily. We watched her explain the preparation of pho bo, the main dish around here, which is a sort of beef noodle soup but can pretty much be a meal in itself. We made spring rolls with shrimp and learned to wrap and tie them together. We also made a chicken dish where we marinated our chicken in a clay pot then cooked over an open flame. Everything was delicious. Dessert was what she called tapioca. It was like no tapioca I had ever eaten. Not at all my favorite. Some of us thought it was okay. They could have my share.

We also went to a war museum. Part of the display was the tiger cages and explanations of many various means of torture used on the prisoners. It was very uncomfortable and embarrassing to think that we were a party to that. It upset Syarra to tears and made all of us feel ashamed to be standing there as obvious Americans. I'm sure the local citizens were not looking at us with as much contempt as we felt for ourselves.

We also took a trip to the Mekong delta area. It was an amazing area where they grow many different varieties of fruits.

We took a boat ride and a sort or kayak/canoe ride, saw a bee apiary that made delicious honey from the longan fruit flower.

We sampled that fruit which is similar to a litchi. We went to a coconut plant that made candy, wine, rope, and it seemed like anything else you might want out of coconuts. I bought a great looking t-shirt size large that the woman knew would fit me. It now belongs to Syarra, my 10 year old granddaughter. So much for a size large. I guess in Vietnam I must be a size XXXL!

Then to top off our trip Morrey and I both got sick. We started with a cough, progressed to stuffy nose, then achy body and pure exhaustion. We slept all day one day then the next morning took the shuttle to downtown and went to a clinic. They spoke beautiful English and were very efficient. $523.00 American money later we left with a diagnosis of Influenza A, Tamiflu and fever medication. We came home, slept all day again with medication this time. The Tamiflu worked well and by the next day we were semi human. Two days into the meds and I was almost normal, Morrey always takes longer to get over things. Today I feel like a real person again and Morrey is almost there.

As our adventure is coming to a close we reflect on our wonderful experience and prepare ourselves for the terrible feelings of withdrawal we will get when giving those last hugs and kisses tomorrow. It has been a great treat being together and sharing a small piece of their wonderful adventure. We have a better understanding of the total experience they are getting with their world travels and we so admire and respect all that they have done this past year. As their adventure continues our memories of our part in it will carry us through until we hug and kiss them again next summer.

Cheese is Cheese – Erich

In order to make this post, I am going to use the power of a flashback. But I am going to use it recursively, meaning I am going to enter a flashback while in a flashback. It might be confusing, so hold on tight.

Entering flashback: Several years ago, while living in Pennsylvania, we had one of my coworkers, her husband, and her kids over for New Years. Unlike us, they were Pennsylvania born and bred. Well, as part of our appetizers that day, we brought out some cheese.

Entering flashback squared: Before we lived in Pennsylvania, we lived in Wisconsin. And one of the great things about the area we were in was the cheese. There was, about 40 minutes away, an incredible cheese making business called Hennings. You could go in the early morning and see them making cheese. Then you could buy fresh cheese curd, still warm. You could buy their aged cheddar available in multiple ages such as 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and so on up to like 15 years. You could buy fresh colby or aged colby which tasted completely different. Alrica prefers it fresh, I prefer it aged. This led to many arguments. But that was a minor problem for such good cheese.

You can also order cheese from Hennings and they will send it to you. So while we lived in Pennsylvania, we did occasionally order cheese. But only in the winter, because if it was too warm out, the cheese wasn't so good by the time it arrived. It was partly melted.

Back to only one layer of flashback: The cheese I brought out was from Hennings in Wisconsin. And I was explaining to our guests that it was great cheese. To this, the husband of my coworker quipped, “Cheese is cheese.”

Now as a mathematician, I am a big fan of the Reflexive Property. Big fan! It states that x = x. A property of equality is that any number (or more broadly any element of the group, ring, set, etc. that we are studying) equals itself. But though my coworker was a fellow math enthusiast, her husband was not. And I don't think he was making a statement in support of the Reflexive Property. Though maybe he was a closet fan of that fine proposition, I certainly hope so.

Instead, he was stating somewhat sarcastically that no cheese was any better than any other cheese. You tasted one, you tasted 'em all.

Really? About cheese? I mean if you wanted to make the argument that Coke is Coke, I could agree. I've been in many countries now, and Coke tastes the same everywhere. Interestingly, that isn't true of all pop. For example, Fanta Orange and Mountain Dew do not have the same flavor in all countries.

But cheese? Even in one grocery store you find a couple dozen varieties of cheese, and each has its distinct flavor. Did he really believe that cheese from Wisconsin was no different than cheese from Pennsylvania? What about cheese from France? Or Greece? Or Turkey? In Turkey, they have a cheese called Beyaz Peynir that I had never seen or heard of before arriving there.

So just as one cannot, in my opinion, say cheese is cheese, one also cannot say that pizza is pizza. (No offense to the beloved Reflexive Property.) Pizza is perhaps an Italian specialty or perhaps it is truly American. But it is not the same the world over.

Did you know that seafood pizza is big! Not so much in the United States. But internationally, we see lots of places with pizza that has toppings like clams, squid, mussels, and shrimp. Hawaiian pizza with ham and pineapple is everywhere. Though in Muslim countries, the ham is either made from turkey or just missing from the pizza as they do not serve pork. Taco pizza on the other hand is something I have rarely seen outside of the U.S. (or really even outside of the Midwest.) Though I haven't tried pizza in Mexico, maybe it's big there.

This may sound unbelievable, but here in Vietnam, I may have eaten the best pizza I have ever had. I know, crazy! Who would think you have to go to Vietnam to get incredible pizza? But we enjoyed pizza at a place called Red Tomato in Ho Chi Minh City. The crust is delicious, both their thin crust (which is quite thin) and their pan crust. They do have Hawaiian Pizza, because everyone does, right? But they also have topping combinations we do not. The sauces go beyond tomato, even though that is their name. Maybe that's irony.

My point is that you may think it's all the same or even that you have had the best. But you probably haven't had the best. There could always be better out there, somewhere, even somewhere you might not expect. I didn't expect my favorite pizza to be in Vietnam. And maybe that's not even the best. There are still many pizzerias in the world I have yet to explore.

In Portugal, Alrica, Carver, and Syarra declared that they had found the best ice cream ever. In Morocco we discovered the best orange juice ever. And I would have never guessed that a 7-11 convenience store in Japan was the place to get the best corn dogs ever.

The world is a surprising place. So don't dismiss the possibility of discovering something better than you've known before. Because even though I firmly hold to the bold statement that x = x, cheese can be much more than cheese.

Hidden in Translation – Erich

I can only imagine that traveling a decade ago would have been much harder than it is today. There is so much technology that makes it easier and more convenient now.

One such piece of technology is translation software. We, for example, use Google Translate on our cell phones. It's great when you need to find rubbing alcohol or ask for bus tickets. But it does have its limitations.

Say you want to tell someone you have a cold. Well, the translator can give you a word for cold. You can even check for alternative translations. And they even tell you if they are nouns or adjectives. (They also tell you which are verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and so on, but you don't get a lot of these when translating “cold.”) But how do you know which noun “cold” means the one that makes your nose run rather than the one that makes you shiver?

I have also been using technology to learn Vietnamese. I'm not master of the language, but I have learned a few things. The most important thing to know in any language is thank you (cảm ơn). You say it all the time. Perhaps next most important is hello (xin chào) and then excuse me/sorry (xin lối.) Excuse me and sorry are the same phrase in Vietnamese, and we've found that to be the case in several languages. Finally, being able to say the numbers is very useful for buying things and figuring out how much you owe.

But I know more than that. I have learned many useful things like verbs for “know” (biết,) “understand” (hiếu,) “go” (đi,) and others. I have also learned several useless words like “ferris wheel” (đu quay) or “dragonfly” (con chuồn chuồn) which are not going to come up in conversations here.

Yesterday, I had a chance to enjoy something on a new level because I know a little Vietnamese: subtitles. Several Vietnamese television stations play American movies. Some are dubbed, but most are played in English, but with Vietnamese subtitles. Last night Alrica found a movie on one of them called “Spy” with Melissa McCarthy. I wasn't even aware of the existence of this movie before last night, but we watched it.

It was fascinating! Not the movie itself, though it was fine. What was fascinating was the language. First, even though the movie is in English, they still blanked out all of the curse words. (And that movie had plenty to blank out.) It was actually a bit jarring. In America, sometimes you see a movie on television with curse words and someone has overdubbed the “bad words” with some other word that sounds similar and bad, but isn't the unacceptable one. How many times have I heard about “fracking” in movies that have nothing to do with drilling into the earth? Here, there was just a moment of silence each time a curse word was spoken.

Except once, where whoever was in charge of the pregnant pauses must have missed one. Someone used a word that would be the -ing form of defecation, and that apparently got by the censor.

Also fascinating to watch was the subtitles. Because where those words occurred, they didn't leave gaps in the translation. They just bowdlerized them. For example, America's favorite curse word becomes an expression of a desire to sleep combined with with.

Not only that, but Vietnamese subtitles seem to have fewer synonyms. I noticed that the phrase I learned for perfect (hoàn hảo) was used for “perfect”, and “scrumptious” when describing how someone looked, and “incredible” in describing someone's battle prowess after the climactic fight scene.

It was a fascinating experience to watch both the movies and the words at the bottom. I can't say I knew them all, but I knew some. And that made it fun on a new level.

And if you don't agree, well, that's just cold! Though it's unclear whether I mean you are rudely indifferent or that I need a jacket.

Chợ Bến Thành and Chợ Bà Chiểu - Carver

In Vietnamese, chợ means market. And we have gone to two markets now, Bến Thành and Bà Chiểu. Chợ Bến Thành is in the center of the city. The big bus stop is there. It is designed for tourists. Everyone there speaks English. And the mangoes cost twice as much as they would at the grocery store. In fact, everything costs more. But it's aimed at tourists. Tourists can afford it and it is more convenient. They are paying for the central location and the English-speaking merchants. It also has a roof and motorcycles don't drive through it.

But then there is Chợ Bà Chiểu. It is a 45-minute walk from the center of the city. It is for the locals. Few people there speak English. And the mangoes are very good prices (when I talk about the prices of mangoes, that is just one item for comparison.) Only parts have a roof and many parts are on the streets and motorcycles drive through the market. And while it was more crowded, it was also more authentic.

Now you have heard about the markets. But there is more to hear about. We are living in The Eastern Apartments. And yes, they are east of the city. There is a shuttle into the city and a shuttle into a different suburb of Ho Chi Minh City. But the shuttle into the city goes to the Diamond Plaza, a mall. It also stops at a different mall and department store on the way. Diamond Plaza is across the street from the Notre Dame Cathedral, a big cathedral built by the French. Across the street from that is the Main Post Office. It was also built by the French. Now it is a tourist site but you can still handle any postal needs there. And Chợ Bến Thành is a 15-minute walk from the Diamond Plaza.

Notre Dame Cathedral, but much smaller than the one in France

The Saigon Post Office

Most of these people are probably not mailing things

 Also, no one has talked about the grocery stores here. For all you know, we are withering away into skeletons. But don't worry. I am not withering away from starvation. We have six grocery stores. To understand three of them, you need to know something very different and interesting. There are two towers in the Eastern. We live in one. And at the bottom of both towers are shops. Some are convenience stores, some are restaurants, there is even a kindergarten. In our base, there are two convenience stores. In the other tower’s base is a much bigger convenience store. The mall that the shuttle that goes into the city stops at is called the Parkson Cantavil. It has a grocery store in it. But the other shuttle goes and makes many stops in a certain neighborhood. That neighborhood has a place called the Sky Garden, similar to The Eastern. And at the base of the residential towers are many shops. There is a great pizza place there called the Red Tomato. But in the neighborhood are two malls, each one having a grocery store better than the one in the Parkson Cantavil. However, that bus does not come as frequently and is a longer ride. So for small, common things we go to the K-Mart, the convenience store in the other tower which is nothing like the K-Mart in the U.S. The K-Mart even has normal, refrigerated milk. But here they have UHT milk, which is milk that can be stored on a shelf until it is opened. The K-Mart doesn't carry it but the Z-Mart, one of the convenience stores in the base of our tower does. So if the K-Mart doesn't have milk, we go get the UHT milk from the Z-Mart. On bigger shopping trips, we go to the Parkson Cantavil. The shuttle that goes to the Diamond Plaza goes to the Parkson Cantavil, then to the department store, then to the Diamond Plaza, back to the department store, then to the Parkson Cantavil, and then back home. So we get off and then get the same shuttle back as it comes around again. But on even bigger trips, we go to the Sky Garden area with the bigger grocery stores. However, then we usually have to spend many hours.

When we butcher chicken in the U.S., where do the feet end up?

Or the heads?

Yesterday, we did the Mekong Delta and a couple days before that, we did the War Remnants Museum. And finally, I got a day of not going out today. It wasn't that I was tired, it was just that going out is stressful and we have been going out so much.

And one last picture to end the blog post

The Farmers in the Delta – Erich

Do you know the song “The Farmer in the Dell”? Cute song. Repetitive, additive, fun for kids. But there is a lot of taking in the song. The farmer takes a wife. The wife takes a child. The child takes a nurse and so on all the way down to the cheese. The cheese, in its own selfless way, takes nothing. It stands alone. And I never knew exactly what it means to say the cheese stands alone. But it's beside the point. The song is all about taking.

And in that vein, we recently took. We took a trip, a tour, if you will, of the Mekong Delta. The Mekong River is one of the longest rivers in Asia. It flows through seven countries: Tibet, China, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Here in Vietnam is where it flows to the sea. But as it nears the ocean, the river spreads out into an alluvial plain.

An alluvial plain is a flatland where the river forks into many fingers that flow to the sea, what we call a delta. That's because the capital form of the Greek letter delta is shaped like a triangle, and that is the shape that the fingers of the river make. But the other great thing about an alluvial plain is the soil. The river, after traveling so far, has picked up many wonderful minerals and nutrients. And as it spreads out over the flatland and splits into fingers, it tends to deposit many of these. So alluvial plains are frequently great lands for growing food.

The Mekong River Delta is no exception. Farmers in the region grow rice, lots of rice. But they also grow many wonderful tropical fruits. We got to enjoy some firsthand. But I'll get to that.

First we boarded a bus in Ho Chi Minh City for the hour and a half ride down to the Mekong River. Our first stop was the Chùa Vĩnh Tráng.

I got pictures of this from all (actually three) sides, but I like this one the best.

Vĩnh Tráng means infinity. While chùa means temple, and this is an incredibly unusual Buddhist Temple. Why unusual? Well, the original temple was destroyed by termites. So a new temple was reconstructed in 1907. This was during the time that Vietnam was a French colony. So the temple has a fusion of design elements. The pitched roofs are similar to Chinese pagodas. The interiors are very Cambodian in style. And the exterior facades resemble a large French villa. A very unusual mix.

It doesn't exactly scream France, but it does have elements.

The garden outside the temple includes jasmine trees and their fragrance was strong and delightful. The gigantic statues of Buddha, standing, sitting, and sleeping were white, gleaming, and bold.

The clouds made a nice arch

That is one happy guy!

Not the most comfortable mattress, but he is beyond material concerns.

The interior was lavishly decorated, with not an inch of barren wall or ceiling left alone.

I love the mix of the modern and traditional elements here.

I wonder if we are allowed to beat this drum.

Apparently these are the rules. It's okay, I wasn't that hungry.

From the Chùa Vĩnh Tráng we rode in the bus to the boat dock.

We visited on a Sunday which is a popular day for the Vietnamese to go to the delta as well.

Here we got tickets for a motorboat to take us across the wide Mekong River. The boat was long and had a very loud engine, so we missed much of what our tour guide, Nia, was telling us while we crossed the river. But we learned plenty more when we reached the other side.

Welcome to Fantasy (well, Unicorn) Island

We landed on Unicorn Island. But in Southeast Asia, a unicorn is not a horse with a horn on its head. Their version of a unicorn is a creature whose lower body is that of a lion, upper body and head are those of a dragon, and who has an arm with a hand over a sphere. You frequently see statues of such creatures at Buddhist and Hindu temples in the area. (Though we didn't see one at Chùa Vĩnh Tráng.) We also didn't see any of those mythical creatures on the island, so I'm not sure how it got its name. Maybe they're nocturnal and we just missed them due to being there in the day.

First we visited a stop where we got to taste the honey collected on the island. About half of the island is dedicated to growing longan trees. A longan is a fruit with a thin peel and then a soft translucent white fruit inside. In the middle of the fruit is a large dark seed (that floats, as we would later see during our rowboat ride.) It is related to a lychee, if you know what that fruit is.

On Unicorn Island, they raise bees that get their nectar from the longan tree flower. The bees are much smaller than the honeybees we are used to in the United States, adapted to the tiny flowers of the longan tree.

Yeah, my wife touched that. Crazy brave (or just crazy.)

And the honey has a distinct flavor. I mean, it tastes and looks enough like honey that you would know it was honey. But it is a bit less viscous than the honey we are used to and has a flavor that differs from clover honey or wildflower honey in America. We got to see the bees in a hive. And they wanted someone from our group to touch the honeycomb (covered in bees) and taste the honey directly from the comb. First they asked Carver to do it and he was not going near that. Luckily, Alrica volunteered to “take one for the team”. She touched the honeycomb, was ignored by the bees, tasted the honey, and declared it “very good.”

We went from that stop to another area where we got to taste five fruits grown on the island. We were serenaded by locals while we ate. They sang songs in Vietnamese, though they closed with “If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands” in English.

The five fruits, which we were told to eat in order, were: Pineapple, Mango (which was an interesting variety that was both sweet and sour), White Dragonfruit, Watermelon (and I admit, I did not partake in that one myself being less than a fan of all things melon), and Longan. We had tried all but the longan before. However, we figured out how to peel and eat the longan, because a fruit we have tried is rambutan. They're similar, not in appearance, but in form.

From there we walked to a dock, but not on the Mekong River itself. Throughout Unicorn Island, there are streams/canals that flow. They are natural streams, but people have dug them out to make them wider, so they sometimes call them canals. Here we boarded rowboats. They were thin like canoes and kayaks, but longer. We didn't have to do the rowing, we had local boatmen and boatwomen who took us about three kilometers.

Ready to row!

It was a beautiful view of the trees and the banks. In the middle it began to rain, lightly at first, but then with more vigor. No problem. Our boat owners had the pitched conical hats that natives where, one for each of us. And they had plastic sheeting to put around ourselves to keep dry-ish.

Traffic jam!

I'm not real down with selfies. Apparently the smiling idea is beyond me.

The dock where we left the rowboats was where the stream met the main river again. Here we re-boarded our motorboat. It took us to another area in the delta, one that our guide referred to colloquially as “Coconut Town”. In this area, not only do they grow coconut palms, but they use every part of the coconut for everything. The buildings are made of coconut palm wood. The roof of said buildings is made from dried coconut palm leaves. Utensils for eating and cooking are made of the wood. Cups are made from cast off husks of coconuts. Animal feed comes from the edible parts of the coconut not consumed by humans. Fertilizer is made from the leavings when the coconut milk and meat have been collected. The milk of young coconuts, which is sweet, is used as a beverage (which we got to enjoy on the boat trip to Coconut Town.) The milk of fully ripe coconuts, which is sour, is used for cooking. The coconut oil is used as a cosmetic. And the coconut meat, naturally, is used to make candy.

Candy? Yes, candy. We visited a coconut candy factory. There was a machine to remove the husks from the coconut. Then another machine shredded the coconut meat. This was placed into a large press to squeeze out the sweet sweet milk that is inside. (The remaining milkless pulp of the meat is fed to animals.) This sweet milk is cooked and stirred until it becomes thick. And then it is made into a chewy sticky candy, almost like caramels, but not caramel flavored.

They used to do this by hand. Happy technology!

There it is, ready to be cut and wrapped.

The candies were combined with other flavors as well, so you could get coconut candy with ginger flavor, or durian, or chocolate, or peanut, or pandan leaf, or just plain coconut.

Also at the candy factory, we had the opportunity to try snake wine. Snake wine is bizarre. There is a huge jar filled with dead snakes, geckos, scorpions, and ravens.

Yes, snake wine really is snake and much more. They should call it snake, et. al. wine.

Nia told us the snakes are skinned, but their venom is not removed because it is a necessary ingredient of the wine. I'm not sure where the original source of liquid or yeast is, but this jar definitely ferments. It smelled like wine.

Nia asked for volunteers to try the snake wine. Both Alrica and I tried a sip. It was strong, clear, and had a flavor I would be hard pressed to describe. It wasn't bad and certainly clears out your sinuses. Nia told us it is about 40% alcohol. And he insists that you can drink as much of it as you want and you won't get drunk, because it is medicinal. I can believe that the Vietnamese use it medicinally, but I didn't quite accept the “drink as much as you want and never get drunk” claim. Not that I did an experiment to find out if Nia was right or not, but I am skeptical.

We're either sweaty, rain-soaked, and tired or else the snake wine is kicking in. You make the call.

From Coconut Town we got on our boat again and rode to our last stop: a restaurant with a dock right on the river. Here we enjoyed a sumptuous lunch. We had spring rolls made from Elephant Ear Fish, and there was plenty of meat left on the fish to enjoy after you had eaten the spring rolls.

Apparently the uncooked fish looks like an elephant's ear.

In addition we had catfish in a thick and tasty gravy, a vegetable that looked and tasted a lot like green beans or string beans (and maybe it was exactly that), and a Vietnamese omelet with spring onion, garlic, soy sauce, sugar, and fish sauce. (Fish sauce is a big thing in Vietnam. Lots of cooking is done with it. It's made from tiny fish, like anchovies, that have been boiled for a long long time.)

Really? He's making us look at pictures of his lunch?

Dessert was watermelon. Again, I passed. But I had plenty of elephant ear, so I wasn't starving.

When all three generations have a good time, it's a win-win-win.

There was no dairy in the meal. Dairy generally isn't so common in Southeast Asia, though you see more of it in Vietnam because of the French influence. But we didn't see any dairy, not even a morsel of cheese, during our time with the farmers in the delta.

That's probably because the cheese was busy standing alone.

Being the Bad Guy – Erich

Reading the title of this post, you might guess it would be about parenting. And that would be an appropriate appellation for such an essay. How many times does a parent have to deny his child the thing that said child wants because the parent knows it is not really the best want? And many other examples.

But as apropos as it might seem, this blog post is not about that. It is about the Vietnam War.

We visited the War Remnants Museum here in Ho Chi Minh City. It was previously named The Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes. The old name certainly hints at what one will find when one enters.

The good side: It is a powerful museum. Some of the photographs make your heart leap to your throat. There are pictures of prisoners liberated at the end of the war, so thin and so broken it amazes the viewer. There are reconstructed “tiger cages” which were tiny barbed wire cells that prisoners had to stay in, so short, you can only kneel, so short across that you cannot lay down. There are a lot of exhibits about the horrors that these prisoners and civilians went through.

When we were in Berlin, we visited several museums that had similar hard-hitting photographs and horrifying facts. But in all of that one had the luxury of saying “those horrible people” referring to Nazi Germany as the “them” and separating the “us”.

You couldn't do that in the War Remnants Museum. These conditions were created by the government of South Vietnam at the time, a government being propped up and advised by Americans. Throughout the museum (and I suspect throughout all history classes in Vietnam) what we call the Vietnam War, they call the War of U.S. Aggression Against Vietnam.

Yes, I know, the victor writes the histories. North Vietnam won. But these are well documented histories. And it included pictures of U.S. advisers in the prisons. The U.S. Government had to know what was going on. They had to know about some of the galling forms of torture being used. Maybe it was only a tacit approval, but even a tacit approval is approval. And maybe it was much more than tacit.

We couldn't hide behind the comfort of saying “those horrible people” as though we were from a different place, a different culture, one that would never allow such things. We are from the United States, and the U.S. was unquestionably a partner and participant in the activities of “those horrible people.”

There was a group of Vietnamese High Schoolers touring the museum while we were there. How could we meet their eyes? Yes, this was all ancient history to them. Several were more interested in their ear buds than in their tour guide. But I felt sort of guilty.

I know I wasn't the one who did it. Much of this occurred before I was born or when I was a tiny baby. Still, I would have felt better if I could have removed myself even further from the cause of so much suffering.

So what am I saying here? Am I saying America was wrong to get involved? Well, that's not a fair question. I have hindsight, our leaders did not. I do believe that leaders have to make their decisions with the best information and judgment available to them at the time of the decision. It's easy for history to laud or condemn them for deciding whatever they decided. But in that moment, they have to make a decision. We can only hope they make the most just and thoughtful one. I even wrote a play about that exact theme. It's called For Us the Living in which Abraham Lincoln and James Buchanan are hanging out (and drinking) in the Shriner-Concord Cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on the night before Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.

So while I don't want to condemn those who made the decisions of that period, I do want all of us, looking forward, to make decisions that do not demean, torture, or dehumanize our “enemies”. The consequences are too great and too long lasting. And ignoring all of that, we need to possess and consistently demonstrate our humanity.

You know, maybe this post is about parenting. Because as a parent, I certainly hope this is a lesson I pass on to my children.

San' – Erich

There is a sequence from the movie Raising Arizona that I enjoy quoting.

“When dere was no meat, we ate fowl. When dere was no fowl, we ate crawdad. And when dere was no crawdad to be foun', we ate san'.”

“You ate what?”

“We ate san'.”

“You ate sand?”

“Dass right!”

What does that have to do with anything? I don't know. Let's hope I have a point in that.

Two days ago marked the one year anniversary of when we left the United States, an entire year abroad. Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of our arrival into South Africa. And today is one year from when we finally reached Cape Town. It's been quite a year. We are now on our third continent of the trip and our eighteenth country.

How does one celebrate such a year? How about with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa?

Yes, on our one year anniversary of leaving the U.S., my parents arrived here in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. They are staying with us for three weeks. We're so excited. Neither kid could get to sleep the night before they came, and honestly, I had a tough time too.

Yesterday we had another new experience. Eating on sand.

I imagine that the first time I ate with my feet in the sand was as a little boy sitting in a sandbox. And probably what I was eating was the sand itself. (Dass right!) But since then, I have certainly had picnics on beaches. And I may have eaten sandwiches, but not sand itself. I've got a more discerning palate at this point.

Yesterday, we all ate a restaurant with a floor of sand. You take off your shoes as you enter (which a barefoot restaurant is very un-American.) And then you walk across the sand. And your tables and chairs are in sand, so they don't seem entirely level.

I know you can't see the sand in great detail, but it is there. On the floor. It is the floor.

As it turns out, I did have a sand-wich as my meal. But that wasn't required.

But sandwiches are one of the neat things about Vietnam. East Asia is generally not a bread culture. I mean, we were able to buy bread in the grocery store in Thailand and in Malaysia. But it wasn't really a part of their culture. Not so in Vietnam.

Vietnam was once a French colony, and they inherited the French love of bread and cheese. (Cheese is another thing you don't see much in Thailand or Malaysia.)

What this means is you can get bread and sandwiches here that are very delicious. The bread is often in the baguette style with a crispy thin crust. It's all quite good.

Also enjoyable are some of the symbols used to alert you to the presence of the bathrooms. I will include some here. Carver's favorite is the Man Wraith in which our man has no legs, but just a long torso that trails off.

The Man Wraith. Beware!

A Man Wraith with no arms

If the man is a wraith, apparently the woman is a bell? Or an upside-down exclamation point?

What do you get when you cross a man wraith and a woman bell? A big baby!

One year in and we are doing great. No malnutrition. We have plenty of meat and fowl. Haven't really looked for crawdad. And if all else fails, now I know where to get san'.

To get what?

To get san'.

To get sand?

Dass right!

Sai-going, Sai-going, Saigon – Erich

You know how Istanbul was Constantinople, but now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople? Well, the same is true in another major city that isn't its nation's capital. Ho Chi Minh City was Saigon, but now it's Ho Chi Minh City, not Saigon. Been not quite as long a time gone for Saigon. Now it's Vietnamese delight on a tropical night.

The other day we flew into Ho Chi Minh City. Though the airport code is SGN, a throwback to those bygone Saigon days. Our arrival was not smooth, which is not a complaint about the plane. The landing was very smooth. It was after we exited the aircraft that things got rough.

Vietnam is one of the nations that requires U.S. citizens to have a visa to enter. You don't have to get it ahead of time, you can get a visa on arrival, but to do so you must have a visa approval letter done ahead of time. We had done this, we had our visa approval letters all printed out and ready.

Now, we were approved for a 90 day visa which would cost $25 per person (so $100 for the four of us.) This has to be paid in U.S. dollars. You do not pay this in Vietnamese dong. I do not know why this is. But it was not a problem because I had $200 in U.S. currency.

However, on 1 September (which is how the world aside from the United States writes September 1), Vietnam changed it's rules regarding visas for U.S. citizens. Now, upon arrival any U.S. citizen gets a one year visa. This is, I'm sure, very convenient for U.S. citizens who want to retire to Vietnam where their money goes far. Now they only need to do a border run once a year, instead of every three months. However, it isn't so convenient for anyone who wants to come for only a few weeks. Because a one year visa costs $135 (which is much greater than buying four or even five 90 day visas. I don't know why this is – again.)

We had gotten our approval letter before 1 September, and we were assured that this change in the law would not affect us. Guess what, those assurances were wrong.

We arrived on 14 September into Ho Chi Minh City and went to get our visa on arrival. But the immigration officers explained that we had to get one year visas at a cost of $135 a piece. That is a total of $540! (I'm sure all of you worked that out in your heads before I told you the total, but my math boy in me couldn't leave it uncalculated.)

Now, as I'm sure you have also worked out in your heads, this meant I was $340 short of the amount I needed. Panic is now beginning to set in. Don't get too upset. I am writing this from Vietnam, so somehow or other I got in. (And to set your heart at ease, so did the rest of my family.)

The immigration officer allowed me (but only one person was allowed to go) to go through immigration and customs out to the part of the airport where there are ATMs. Then I was able to get money in Vietnamese dong, and they would take the remainder in dong rather than dollars. I don't know why this is, but I was grateful for it.

I suppose that was very nice of them. The immigration officers were all friendly, and I know they are just doing their job. So yes, it was nice. But it was also not so nice. Now entering Vietnam had cost me 5.4 times as much as had been previously indicated. That is an increase of 440%.

On the upside, my year long visa is multiple entry, so if I decide any time after we leave Vietnam and before 14 September 2017 that I am just dying for a bowl of phở, I can come back without paying for another visa. Booyah, right? (Note: I spelled phở the way it would be spelled in Vietnamese. It is pronounced foo where the oo is more like the oo in book. Or I learned that this vowel is like the i in sir.)

Let this be the worst problem one encounters at immigration when traveling the world. It's done, we've got visas, and we're safely ensconced in Ho Chi Minh City.

That, by the way, is the English name for this municipality. In Vietnamese they call it Thành Phố Ho Chi Minh. Thành Phố means city, so it is the same name. And here, it should be noted that Phố is pronounced foe with a long o. See the o with the apostrophe like tag on the right side above is a different vowel than the o with a hat above it.

What this does mean is that often on maps, this city is abbreviated as T. P. Ho Chi Minh. But don't giggle, those of you who are immature. You see, T. P. in the States might bring up images of bathroom hygiene, but not so here. First, the Vietnamese phrase for toilet paper is giấy vệ sinh which doesn't even have a t or a p in it. (Plus it ends in sinh, the mathematical abbreviation for hyperbolic sine. Pretty great, right?) But beyond this fact is another. Toilet paper, while available in South East Asia, is a very western thing. The natives don't use it.

Now, don't say ew. They have a different method. Every toilet has a flexible hose with a sprayer at the end, much like you often find connected to kitchen sinks back in the States. You use this, when you finish, to spray yourself clean. I assume you then dry off with a towel. I'm not sure. As a Westerner, I am sticking with my use of giấy vệ sinh. But they seem to primarily stock it in the stores for selling to Westerners.

Just a few of the differences in our cultures, and part of the fun adventure of getting to know the world. After all, you know the saying: Let Saigons be Saigons. 'Cause if you've a date in Saigon, she'll be waiting in T. P. Ho Chi Minh.