September 1-2
We visited three villages along the Mekong before arriving in Ho Chi Minh City.
The first was Tan Chau where we visited Evergreen Island. We had the chance to walk around a local village and see how the people live.
It was a strange visit. I think part of the reason why it was strange is that the flood pushed us to a location that the ship normally doesn’t visit. So we were invading space that isn’t use to tourists popping in. We wandered around for a bit and the guides found us a local’s home to visit. Now this is where things get weird. I think the tour typically does a home visit, but didn’t have anything lined up with this new village. So the guide just wandered up to a home, popped his head in and asked if we could enter. They said yes, I’m assuming, because we entered.
So this was the home. It was strange. They let us come in, and showed us their hawk and their eagle. Note the mouse in the claw.
But then the guide was asking questions of the family – trying to get us a little local flavor. It turns out that the patriarch had died and all of his daughters were home for the funeral. The woman sitting on the bench staring at us the entire time – her husband had just died. Omg. Now… I immediately start backing away slowly. How awful! But the guide doesn’t get a clue. Note – Fin is gone. We have a new guide who is Vietnamese. His name is “D”. So we hang around another 5 or so minutes invading their space. It was awful.
As usual, even if a situation is awkward, the kids are awesome. This might be a good time to talk about local kids.
If there is one thing that I’ve learned after 10 months on the road, it is that kids all over the world are the same. They really are – up to a certain age at least. They like attention. They like silly games and goofy faces. They like it when you smile at them. There is a great quote from the movie the Blind Side and I cannot find it online anywhere. But the kid, SJ, sees Michael near some little girls and they run away from him. SJ says to Micheal, “Smile at them. That’s how they know you’re their friend.” Or something like that. I think about that phrase all the time. Smiling at someone that doesn’t speak your language and doesn’t come from a similar background is sometimes all you need to bridge a gap. Especially with kids. Especially if you aren’t shoving a camera in their face.
It doesn’t matter if the kid comes from nothing. They like to shake your hand or give you a high five. If they don’t know how to high five, it takes about 5 seconds to demonstrate and then they love it. The old “pull your hand away so they miss it” trick is a fan favorite as well. This is pretty exclusively the only trick Michael does with kids and they flock around him. It’s the exact same thing he does with kids in the US. The poor kids we’ve met forget that they were asking you for money. They are often able to shake off any hardship they’re carrying and just act like kids for a few minutes. We saw it in Madagascar with the “money” kids. We saw it in the bus station at the Paraguay/Argentina border with the kids we taught rummy. We see it with these kids – especially this little girl who followed Michael around for the thirty or so minutes we spent in the village.
She could say her name and age in English and Michael found the word for “friend” in Vietnamese. It was very sweet.
And look at this girl – how darling is she?
The director from the ship happened to be with us when Michael was high fiving this girl. The director said, “I can’t believe the way kids react to him. Most kids in Vietnam villages are so shy!” I can see how someone would think that, but all you have to do is treat them like normal kids and they’ll act like normal kids.
One of the women that we met on the ship asked what we do for a living after seeing us interact with the kids at the school in Cambodia. She was pretty upset when I told her accountant and engineer. Upset and surprisingly vocal about her dissatisfaction with my answer. She wanted us to be teachers.
It is good for us that we get to interact with kids sometimes. We miss our nieces and nephews a lot. Ten months is too long to be away from them and these moments make it a little easier.
Older people in the villages also fall into the “smile at them” category. Two random women were hanging out in the area that we were visiting. Both agreed to let me take their pictures and both got a kick out of seeing their photo afterwards.
After the village we popped into a mat workshop. With the heat and humidity, people in these villages sleep on mats instead of mattresses. The process was, once again, incredible. But the entire place had the feel of an old fashion sweat shop. The women get paid very little for the work they do.
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The next morning we went to the village of Sa Dec where we toured the market and visited Thuy Le.
HUGE beef hearts!
Check out the size of the squids below! And the eels above – eek!!
If you’re going to be safe on your motor bike, better do it in style with Hello Kitty!
Each bag is a different type of white rice. It would be impossible for me to choose.
Thuy Le is the house from the book “The Lovers”, written by French Vietnamese author Marguerite Duras. Here is her picture:
Duras was a poor French daughter of school teachers. Her father died and she was facing a life of poverty, Duras began a love affair at the age of 15 with a 27 year old son of a wealthy Chinese family.
Sa Dec is the hometown of Huynh Thuy Le, the 27 year old. I read the book last year. It’s on a list of “must reads” and is printed in a ton of different languages. I found the book really difficult to read. It was a mix of an over sexualized 15 year girl wooing an awkward adult man with a mean family in an attempt to improve her status in life. Spoiler alert – they don’t end up together. His family refuses and her mother ships her to France where she becomes a famous writer. Apparently the man loved her his entire life but she mostly forgot about him. They met up again much later in life. Now I was feeling pretty meh about this. However, anyone who watched the movie just LOVED IT. From the sounds of it, the movie made it sound much more like a love story – Romeo and Juliet or something. So I’m sure that was more enjoyable than the book I read. So here’s the house:
I think they actually filmed in and around this house for the movie and used that table supposedly.
Besides the market and the house, we also a Cao Dai temple? Church?
Caodaism is a monotheistic religion established in southern Vietnam in 1926. Cao Dai is the supreme diety, believed by Caodaists to have created the universe. There are an estimated 4.4-6 million Caodaists. It is suppose to be a mix of Confucianism, Taoism, and Chinese Buddhism. It says that Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, and others received the will of the Highest Power and founded their respective religions to serve and educate humanity. But the frailty of the messengers and common men corrupted the religions.
Some other random people affiliated? Joan of Arc is worshipped. They believe that Joan guided Caodaists at the inception of the religion and promotes full equality of women. They know this because they have performed seances with Joan. They also consider Muhammad, Moses, Louis Pasteur, Shakespeare, and Lenin to be saints. Also Victor Hugo is a saint because, I think, he was a Caodaist and wrote many of the teachings and texts. He predicted he would become a prophet…. so he is considered one? It was a strange scene.
So that’s it for the Vietnamese villages along the Mekong. We ended our time on the river cruise and disembarked in Ho Chi Minh City. Our time on the ship was great. We enjoyed great food and met quite a few interesting people. Originally we were going to play it cool and not divulge the fact that we’ve been traveling so long. Most people who meet us want to spend a lot of time talking about it and sometimes it’s nice just to not talk about us so much. But after a few days the cat was out of the bag, which was fine.
One of the standard questions we get is if we’ve been sick much in the past 10 months. That answer is mostly no. Mike had some stomach problems in Spain and I had a cold a few months ago, but that’s really it. Answering that question too many times on the ship jinxed us. We both landed ourselves with stomach issues on the last day or two of the ship and then colds in the days following. Ignoring that, we had a great time on the river and would recommend the trip to anyone. It was a great way to see the countryside and this beautiful river.
How about this sunset?
And one with a flash so you can see our faces:
Now it’s back to solo travel for another 10ish days in Vietnam. We’re ready to check out the rest of the country!