Getting back from my Sapa, Ban Ho, Muong Khuong, China, Lao Cai trip made it imperative to do some laundry right away. See, its not all laughs over here. :) Squatting by the laundary bucket...when I get home, I refuse to use the washer and dryer. I'm too use to this. hehe. Once I get back, we'll see how long I hold out.
28 October 2005 Journal Entry
Here I just am retyping what I wrote in my journal on the hike to the village of Ban Ho:
This view is unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. THe sky is grey, and the clouds slowly drift. I'm sitting at a waterfall on one side of the valley, staring across the river at the bottom to the other side of the valley. On my side, and the other, the mountains soar into the clouds, and the view is blurred. You can't see the peaks, or any deliniation between the earth and sky. Dotted on the landscape on the opposite side of the valley are structures. One looks like a school (schools have recognizable and distinguishable structures), and the rest are shacks, situated over perhaps a hundred different levels of the "step agriculture" on the mountainside. It all looks like a painting. Or even a cartoon. The way the slope rises...there is a strange perspective that makes everything look absolutely and unbelievably unreal. The only depressing thing is that there is no way my camera can capture this beauty.
My trip to China
So, after we hiked out of the village (which was named Ban Ho...I just looked the name up in my journal), we got back to Sapa.. Oh, I lied right below, it wasn't later that day...we got back and stayed a night in Sapa...Okay, so the next morning we get up, have breakfest in "Pink Floyd Cafe" where they play only Pink Floyd (can you believe there is a place like this in the minority highlands of North Vietnam??) and then we get on a bus to go to a city named Muong Khuong.
Okay, so Muong Khuong...we had like 4 or 5 hours there, and there was not much to do at all. I got really homesick when I slipped in the mud in my stupid flip flops, and all the Chinese people laughed at me. Oh yeah, there are a lot of Chinese people there, that come over the border every day to sell at the market in Muong Khuong, cause it is right on the border. It was so strange, the market was completely segregated. I could totally tell which part of the market was ethnic Kinh (the top of the food chain), which was Hmong or other ethnic minority and which was Chinese (the bottom of the food chain).
Anyways, everyone was a little bored. I had some very peppery pho. I cried cause the homesickness (yes home home) hit me. and then we were just sitting in a cafe, bored, waiting for 2:00 to come. Well at 12:45 I get this idea. Steff: "Hey guys, lets walk to the Chinese border!!" and then my idea gets better... "Hey guys, lets take xe om to the Chinese border!!!" Hahah it was a good thing that I said xe om, because we found out the border was actually 8 kilometers away, and up a VERY windy mountain. So Alex negotiates that for each of us it would be 30 thousand a person round trip, to the border.
It was definitely a highlight of our trip. 9 people, including me were around when I had the idea, so the 9 of us jumped on the back of locals' motorbikes, and cruised up the gorgeous mountains to China.
The xe om drivers would not take us all the way to the border. They stopped short, and we walked up. Hopefully I'll get pictures from someone who didn't have a broken camera (! Arg!) and post them up later. The border was so funny. There was like a guy in a room kinda far away just staring at us. The fence was this bar that looks like the bar that moves up for you after you pay the parking fee at an airport. In the distance we saw fully uniformed communist gaurds roaming around. They just looked at us. It was kinda scary, but it was soooooo fun!!! We all took pictures with one foot in China. We had a group picture with all of us pretending to border hop. So I technically have set foot in China. Man it was so fun. I can't explain how fun it was. I'm so glad I thought of "going to China".
:) No use trying to tell you how cool it was, because its just unexplainable. :)
Hiking back up from the village was quite and experience. The mud was high, I was walking barefoot, and by the end was all muddy. This is one of my last pictures, because even though its hard to tell, it is raining...and water got in my camera. So there are no pictures of us after the hike, and after leaving Sapa. So in short, with no pictures of it: I WENT TO CHINA later this day. :) I'll tell you about it in my next post.
beautiful. man. great trip.
I lost my good hiking sandels in the train on the way to Sapa. My flip flops were impossible to walk in. So for practically the whole 2nd day (because it rained) I had to go barefoot. I could have slipped off a cliff and died, i'm telling ya'. And my toenails are permanently infused with mud/dirt/ground clay.
Crossing the river. YES!
In the morning, on our way to some natural hot springs. It was raining, but going to hot springs in the rain is fun.
After one of the meals in the village, something strange happened. I think I entered the twilight zone...I walk up to these people, and try to help them wash dishes and Bob said "What are you doing here??? Don't you know your place in the world?" It was sooo funny. All the guys doing the dishes. I still can't believe it myself. :)
This is a picture of the village that we stayed in, from the perspective of the stilt house we stayed in. Apparently there are tigers in the surrounding mountains, and all of these structures are stilt, as an important defense against possible attack. Just so you know, I have a lack of pictures of the village and such, because I felt very uncomfortable taking my camera out while exploring. I don't know how else to say it, but I did my best not to take pictures of anything besides us, and landscape, up close. I felt like taking a picture of the houses, and especially the people was somehow not right. The villagers are not animals in a zoo. I know that sounds really wierd, but you know...for serious...how would you feel if some tourists just came and started snapping pictures of you? I'm sure it would have been okay, but I simply didn't feel comfortable....so a lot of my amazing memories, I can't share with you effectively on blogspot, since the pictures are only in my mind. But here is the village in a general sensel, and you can imagine it up close as you will....
In the village that we hiked to, and stayed at overnight, I got a chance to help with the preparation of dinner. Dinner was amazing, and the village, and its surrounding scenery will always stay in my memory as one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. To look around and see souring mountains, covered in splashes of fog, with no fences or powerlines, streams and waterfalls trickling in various spots. Man. I can't describe it. Nonetheless, I'm getting off topic. Helping with dinner was fun, and washing dishes afterwards...yay! Washing dishes is like a cultural experience here...nothing like at home (home home).. hehehe. Sorry mommy and daddy...now a'days one home: "Home" means Hanoi D8. and "Home Home" means California. Thats pretty much how it is for all of us EAP'ers. Every hour or so I say or hear someone ask "do you mean home, or home home?" ...opps...off topic again. :)
Finally,...looking down upon our destination
Hiking...hiking...hiking...
We all bought headbands (actually belts) from Hmong women along the way. It was a little overwhelming, everyone wanting to sell us stuff, along the way. Can't buy from everyone.
We stopped at this waterfall for lunch. Diane and Kristy shared their lunches with me due to circumstances that were quite tragic. I don't want to get to much into in via blogging, as it was a deeply emotional experience for me, and it really affected me in a way that I have never felt...but there were some village kids along the way watching us ...and we noticed that one of them had a needle. Like a needle attached to a catheter looking thing. He had it in his mouth, and was poking his friends with it. ...Walking away from that tiny village, I had the needle stashed in my backpack, and my lunch in the hands of the kids. The boy said he found the needle in the trash. They gave up that horrible form of entertainment in exchange for my two rolls of bread, one orange, and banana. I can't explain it. It hurts me incredibly now, just thinking about it. I'm not trying to minimize the experience or make it any less meaningful by posting it on my blog, but I think that reminding everyone that every single one of you is infinitely blessed in comparison to some, is important. A needle...G-d. Its hard for me to think about that, and not be ashamed that I had a good time on the hike overall.
Eric, right behind me is Hmong. Most of the people we met in Sapa and on the hike, and in the village were ethnic Hmong people. So for the first time, we were not relying on the Native Vietnamese speakers to translate for us, we were relying on Eric! It was really wierd, that most of the people didn't speak Vietnamese. I would try to buy stuff in Sapa, speaking Vietnamese, and they would say in English "I don't speak Vietnamese." The Hmong people know Hmong and English (due to the tourism in Sapa). So I guess the minority communities in Vietnam have a lot of autonomy, not even having to learn Vietnamese. Pictured here...me, eric, rose, Saku, walking through "Bamboo forest". This is part of our 7 hour hike to the village.
Group picture! Time to hike...
Having arrived safety in Sapa at the Cat Cat hotel in Sapa, I sit and ponder about how anyone could look out over this landscape, and not believe in G-d. The view from our hotel was beautiful. We had breakfest here, and then sailed out into the wind (hehe, the mountains in the background...we hiked through them on a 7 hour journey to a village). In the background to the right of the camera view is the tallest mountain in Vietnam.
Happy Halloween!!!
Okay, so I just got back from a wonderful weekend in the Sapa area (Northern mountainous region of Vietnam). We got back this morning via train at 5:00a.m. So in a little bit, I will post plenty of pictures from my fun-filled travels, but for this post, I want to first tell you about my Halloween here. It may have been the most exciting Halloween of my life!
So, Vietnamese people do not know about Halloween, generally speaking. Today, after class Kristy and I go to the center to go shopping. We get some cute things, and then meet up with
Sean, Don, Thuy and Tan. So then Sean, Kristy and I go shopping again, and everything magically is like half off...Sean is an amazing bargainer...and then as we are going home....we're like: IT'S HALLOWEEN!
This is where the story gets good...
We stop at the drug store, and buy like 300 thousand in candy...and go home. I dress up as a Hmong person, and Sean dresses up as an American airman. Then we empty all the candy we bought into a laundary bucket...and start our journey through D8...doing REVERSE trick or treating. As we knocked on doors, we had a following. We went from floors 1-4 in D8 (our dorm) knocking on doors and giving out candy. By the time we were done distributing candy to our dorm, this was our group:
Sean and I---the candy buyers
Don (this is GREAT) ---costume: trench coat, Dark glasses, inspector gadget hat...he looked like a potential streaker. He also carried around his laptop, having made a page that was black with orange writing that said HAPPY HALLOWEEN with pumpkins all over it. And he had "Monster Mash" in his music collection, so he put that on repeat. It was GREAT!!!
Noah---A pirate, down to fake earings, striped shirt, cloth around head, and a toy parrot puppet.
Diane---Gypsie girl, with dark eyeliner and gypsie looking clothing
Kristy--- schoolgirl with pig-tails and a preppy sweater with a vest over it, pretending to read "A long history of Vietnam"...go Nguyen Khac Vien!
Thuy---wore a toga.
Eric---put on a peaceful looking shirt (the best way I could describe it), a fishing hat, and brought around his bamboo fishing pole that he bought a couple of weeks ago.
Okay, hopefully Noah will come give me the picture later, as he promised...(we took a group pic) and I can put it up. Remember, that all of our costumes were thrown together in a matter of minutes...it was so fun.
So it gets better....
After going through our dorm, we have plenty of candy left. The whole group of like the 15 of us obnoxious Americans decide to go reverse trick or treating at the Vietnamese dorm. We trek out into the darkness. We decide to knock on a random door on the way. Thuy has to spend like 2 minutes explaining to them what Halloween is...
then we continue to the Vietnamese dorm, and see many students along the way. We are a crazy bunch just screaming Happy Halloween and throwing candy at everyone. Vietnamese students who know about Halloween join our possee too, and head to the Vietnamese dorm with us too. Vietnamese dorms have specific visiting hours, and Mondays are not visiting days, so we had to bribe the gaurds with candy, and just sorta walk in knowing full well that we weren't allowed.
Vietnamese dorms are generally 10-12 per room, no TV, air conditioning, fridge, ect. So most of the doors were still open because curfew had not caught up with us yet. So we go from room to room shouting "Happy Halloween!" All of the Vietnamese students got such a kick out of it!!! We had the "Monster Mash" still playing, and we were just rowdy, and giving out candy. We kept saying "Trick or Treat!! Cho em keo (give me candy in the Tieng Viet)". We were just joking since it was REVERSE trick or treating, after all. But people still laughingly scrambled to give us grapefruits and such.
When we ran out of candy we started our trek home, having a great time still. I said "enough of this monster mash! If you don't have 'Thriller' than we will just have to sing it ourselves!" Within a minute, we were all singing thriller, and doing the dance in the middle of the street. It was HILARIOUS!
We got back to D8 and took pictures (i didn't have my camera with me) ...and about 45 minutes had gone by since we started the fun night. And I was no longer a Hmong woman. I was a smirf. I had gone from being a Hmong woman to a smirf on accident. The Hmong blanket and bandana that I bought in Lao Cai province this weekend stained me. Whats the word?...um well the dye just leaked all over me. It was pretty funny. I'm still stained, after a long shower. But this is actually a good thing. It means that the cloths are actually made fully by Hmong people, not factory made. Authentic, you know? During our 7 hour hike to the village we stayed in this weekend, I saw numerous villagers along the way with blue hands, just permanently blue or purple hands, from the years of dyeing clothing..okay different story there though. Nonetheless, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
This is a picture of me studying hardcore at a local cafe, near our school. I go to this cafe with some peeps almost everyday inbetween classes. M-Thurs I have language class from 10:00-11:30, and M-Wed I have a class afterwards at 12:45. That hour and 15 minute break is not enough time to go all the way home, and come back, but it is enough time to grab lunch. On schooldays, my lunch usually consists of rice and tofu/fried chinese broccoli, or vermecelli noodles and tofu dipped in a smelly smelly smelly shrimp sauce...wow, it took me a few seconds to recall the word "shrimp"...the only thing that came to mind was "tom" (pronounced with long o: shrimp in Vietnamese). But, on Tuesdays...no one ever has time for lunch! We drink a million coffees (as shown) and skim as much as we can for Gerard's class. No one ever finishes the reading, so on Tuesdays, we are always hungry, and caffined up, and never want to open Nguyen Khac Vien's "A Long History of Vietnam" again. The reason we never get our reading done is because our Monday nights are full. Every Monday night, Gerard treats us to dinner, and then afterwards we watch a movie. This week the movie was "The Fog of War" which is a Robert McNamara documentary. I highly recommend it. One more thing, I once again, stole this picture from Tan. If you are interested, he keeps up an excellent blog. Award winning, if there were such thing as a blog award. So if you want to look at his too, he may be a stranger to you, but he is a good friend of mine, so read his blog too! His site is: http://www.mijeje.com/ . Wow, okay, I really need to study. Internet Cafe's are distracting. Okay, I'm distracting myself... bye bye!
I LOVE VIETNAM...is what that says. Which I do, very much. I'm sitting in a cafe named "Intello". which claims "Great food, Fresh coffee, Wireless, Book swap, Games, Music, Terrace, Sunset over the Temple of Literature." I think its just great that they just played "These boots are made for walking" by Jessica Simpson, and then followed it with a song in Vietnamese by Lam Truong. haha..and now they are playing old Madonna. Anyways, Toi Yeu Viet Nam.
Yes, we've been doing a lot of exciting things lately, here in lovely Vietnam, but every once in a while you just have to let loose, and go to the same old bar...New is not always the best...Although this pic is from last week.
We visited Hoa Loa Prison last Friday morning.
This is a mural at Hoa Lo prision, more commonly known as the "Hanoi Hilton". The French used this prision to house nationalist Vietnamese who were a threat to the colonial regime. The Vietnamese later used it on American prisoners of war. Now it is a museum, and over half of the property was bought by a Singaporian company, and turned into a highrise office building.
No the best picture of me...but look at the girls. Oh, btw, in the picture below...The two kids holding empty water bottles....well none of the kids asked for money or candy or our pencils, or anything in our bags, except for our empty water bottles. Perhaps they will use the water bottles for games for weeks to come. Just a guess though...
These are the kids whom I paid attention to the whole time during the waterpuppet show. The girl in the middle (Em Hoa) held my hand the whole time. And the girl on the very right (Em Phuong) was incredibly smart, and knew a lot of English...a very good teacher of Vietnamese too.
I guess I didn't get a really clear picture... sorry, but I wasn't paying attention anyways.
The waterpuppet show used fireworks. It was pretty cool.
