Can Gio Adventures

Ferry Ride to Can Gio...on the lookout

          Once again I am about a week behind in the blog. So here is Meg and Klaus’ life a week in the past. Pardon extra prevalent misspellings, missing words and other such typos they are most certainly the result of my current state of existence riding a bus through the countryside of Cambodia at terrifying speeds over “flat-ish” roads. It is kind of like being on an amusement park ride for five hours and simultaneously trying to use a laptop. Added bonus: fabulous Khmer music in the background =).

Last week we took a trip to Can Gio Biosphere (about 5 hr from Can Tho) along the coast of Vietnam. Life there was pretty tough. We stayed at a resort with a pool and along the beach. Somehow I managed to survive – barely =). I also had about one of the best meals I have eaten in my life. Started off with some white clams followed by crabs smothered in tamarind sauce, a dish of lemon grass stingray and some barbequed venison. Ridiculously fabulous. I know I have already discussed the eating style before but, I have to reiterate how much I love communal dinners. Usually 3-4 dishes in the center of the table (or floor) and everyone has a rice dish. You then just grab a little food at a time from the main dishes. The cool part is reaching over people is accepted and passing dishes is rude. Definitely getting people together for meal like this back in the states =).

            Can Gio itself was great too. We came to learn about the mangrove forest (this forest is just south of Ho Cho Minh City and was replanted following the war).

Mangrove Forest inside the shrimp farm (sorry no mud photos, I will try to steal one for a later blog)

Our ventures took us through the forest in waist deep mud. The more you struggled the deeper you got. We emerged at the other side of our transect completely covered with lots of swamp life crawling all over us. The final push was a slither along the tidal mud flat into the murky water for a mud war. I might just have to look into geology professions that involve deep mud…

            Day 2 was a trip to a shellfish farmer living on a platform in the bay. Really fascinating to observe an entire life out on a stilt house in the water. 

Shellfish Farmer House

Using the Facilities...there was no TP in case you wondered

They even had a dog. 

View of the harvested oysters (and the dog =)

We came at a particularly high “king” tide so the interior of the house was actually flooded.

Flooded Interior

During low tide the region is exposed and the farmers tend to the shellfish.

Oyster Lecture at the Stilt House

After this farm we continued on our boat tour to a shrimp farm in the mangroves. Here was another fabulous diner with the farmer on the floor of his living room. 

Dinner with the Shrimp Farmer

We rode back across the water in the dark with the entertainment of an incoming storm flashing across the sky. 

Different Storm but, same weekend

            Upon returning to Can Tho I crammed for a Vietnamese midterm, couldn’t understand about 70% of the exam, said goodbye to the homestay over a dinner of goat and headed off to Cambodia.

            That is about that for now. I’ll save the Cambodian adventures for another day. I hope life in the States is fabulous. Live it up!

=)

Other Random Shots: 

Making Friends

Monkeys at the Reserve

This reminded me: We took a stop at monket island too. Perhaps one of the most the most terrifying park experiences of my life. The island sells food to feed the monkeys. As a result, after years of feeding the monkeys now jump on the tourists, bit them, steal any objects available, etc. Quite horrifying especially on a deteriorating bamboo boardwalk with massive holes over a crocodile exhibit with 3m monsters swimming beneath you. 

Baby ducks on the ferry

It's a Wedding!

         Just a short blog about going to a Vietnamese wedding today. Our program assistant’s friend got married and invited us to the wedding party. The ceremony itself takes place at the house but the party is a public event. The reception was 10am-noon (very short!). The bride and groom greet everyone at the door and then walk in. The parents go on stage and say some words (I couldn’t understand what happened there). They then set off fireworks on the stage inside the building which is pretty cool and balloons rise to the ceiling where a row of nails awaits. The balloons pop and raise a banner. I am not sure how the banner then stays up… After this the bride and groom walk around

and get pictures with every table. It was a lot of fun =)

         For the wedding I got an Áo Dà, traditional Vietnamese dress. Apparently a tall figure is ideal for these. My host mom got pretty excited and my host Dad mentioned something to the effect of “Vietnamese boy might go unconscious, very good!” and then laughed. At the wedding I got my pictures with a bunch of random people. It was rather comical. They wanted us students to sing a song too which happens everywhere we go. Kind of unfortunate because I can’t sing ha ha. Maybe this trip will improve my performance skills…

The gang + bride and groom. 

Crazy shot!

Seafood Soup at the wedding.

Brides Mom.

Feeding Frenzy

=)

Tram Chim Excursion and Life in Can Tho

 

I saw these and a knew something big had to be in the park...

...and then a saw A WATER BUFFALO =)

            This is going to have to be a weird blog entry (sorry!). I have several rather unrelated topics =p.

            First off I finally got out of Can Tho and into a park =). I definitely have missed open spaces with no houses/development.

Tram Chim

Lecture out "in" the field.

The park itself has an interesting history. It is the low point of a large regional basin (Geology connection!!) whose rim was slowly developed over the last 300 years. During the war this was an important hideout area and as a result the entire region was deforested by the US. Canals were also built to drain the wetland and make it easier for the US army to access. Following the war the region was developed for rice cultivation. This national park represented the last undeveloped area (the lowest point ie swampiest point in the basin) and in 1985 some forward thinking individuals set it aside as a conservation area and fishery. It wasn’t until 1998 that the park was officially started. However, the natural flooding of the rainy season and hydrology of the region had been forever lost due to the artificial drainage by canals. The park then built a dike around the area to keep water in during the wet season and allow drainage during the dry season. Interestingly, the local community doesn’t necessarily like the park much because it prevents access to an area they previously depended on for food and income. While the government is now allowing limited access there is a lot of tension with the locals. Park rangers will give chase to poachers illegally using resources and locals have learned that setting fires as a distraction is a good counter. (Clever!) Therefore, the park has forest fire problems in the dry season. Fascinating management issues. Sorry that might have gotten a bit nerdy. 

Swamp with methane bubbles coming up. 

Wildlife sighting on the boat ride to the campsite.

            The park was gorgeous. It is a refuge for a highly endangered Sarus Crane ~ 100 left in the world mostly in this park. 

Sarus Cranes - Sorry it is a bad picture. They were super far away.

We stayed at a guesthouse for night one. 

Guesthouse mosquito nets =)

  During the day we took a boat out into the wetland to measure soil, water and plants. 

Testing the water.

Catching critters. 

The large catch!! (Two Minnows)

We camped at a watchtower/platform for night two.Wonderful place to hang the new hammock I purchased =). Why can't class at college include a two hour hammock nap??

Campsite

Interestingly, the army was also posted there to watch for forest fires and illegal poachers. It was kind of ironic/awesome that on an old Vietnam War battlefield American students spent an evening interacting with the Communist Army. 

            During the excursion I also got a chance to sample rat meat served on lily pads at our campsite. The verdict – AMAZING! Probably one of the best meats I have ever tasted. 

Dinner at campsite.

That brings me to the second topic I wanted to address today. Meat. Yea so my host family mentioned that dog meat was really popular here and so I mentioned it would be interesting to try. Well sure enough last night we went to try some thit cho. I didn’t realize it but we were going to a dog meat restaurant. We sat down and right next to our table was a really cute puppy tied up to a post. So dish one is a dog sausage with fermented shrimp sauce. It smelled like dog poop for some reason and I couldn’t stop looking at that puppy. Then came dish two. I didn’t even know I had signed up for a multi-course dog dinner. This was a marinated meat. Tasted alright. Still couldn’t stop looking at the puppy. Third dish was a boiling pot of strew brought out on a small bucket of coals so it cooked on the table. That was rather intoxicating. The next day I also learned that most dog meat here is obtained by stealing people’s pets in the countryside…sigh my soul is slightly disturbed right now.

            On a happier (but also sad) note I went to volunteer at an orphanage today after class. One of my Vietnamese friends invited me. We just hung out with the kids. At first we visited a bunch of babies which I had no clue what to do with. I was just hoping that I didn’t drop them by accident! They were so cute though and I had a lot of fun trying to remember children’s songs and how baby toys worked. There was also a Dutch couple volunteering there. Apparently they were part of some Dutch travel volunteer program – on the road for about 6 months traveling and volunteering in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

We also played with the special needs kids. That was really sad. In Vietnam there are a lot of disabled children/adults because of Agent Orange used in the war. People who grew up during the war and were exposed to the chemical will have a much higher risk of having a disabled child and/or developing cancer. Often these children end up as orphans. It is really sad to realize that even some children born today will never live a normal life because of a conflict that happened forty years ago. 

            Sort of related to my visit to the orphanage I went with my friend Imy to her Grandpa’s house for dinner. Good times =). Here I met the vice-director of Can Tho University where I currently study. He was talking to me about my stay here and why I came to Vietnam. Like everyone in Vietnam he was amazingly friendly and told me multiple times that he personally feels responsible for the SIT students because they are guests of the university and therefore his guests. There was also an older farmer there who started a conversation with me saying that the war ended forty years ago and what has happened in the past is for historians. The future is what we live in. He made me promise not to forget him in America and to tell my people that Vietnam is a new place that welcome Americans. No hard feelings. Interesting especially in light of my afternoon with the orphans.

Sorry this one was a lot of ramblings and musings and random references to the Vietnam War. I was hoping to not focus on this topic much while I am here. However, these experiences were particularly thought – provoking and I thought they might make a good blog.

Also, I am hoping to update more frequently so I don’t have to jam everything into one entry. Hope life is awesome! Oh, and you really ought to try rat meat at some point in your life. =) Klaus says xin chao (hello)! He and I have to get practicing for a Vietnamese language final on Thursday!

Group Shot (minus me)

In case you wondered...I'm having a blast (need I mention I was in class during this photo =p)

Long Hoa Excursion

Greetings from afar! Klaus and I did an overnight this week at the Long Hoa village in the northern end of the Mekong Delta.

Chilling on the boat ride over.

The bus ride there was about 3 hours from Can Tho where I study. This was three hours of traffic dodging and constant horn blowing, a style of driving that still blows my mind. It is like taking half a road in the US, making it two lanes, adding buses going both directions, thousands of motorbikes going every direction, people, animals and other random obstructions. I honestly think that driving a vehicle here would be impossible for me. It seems that the only way it happens is with a lot of horn wear and tear. That is the funny part about driving. Cars here act like they own the road despite their minority presence. Therefore, if you are biking along and they want to turn/move they will hold their horn down and start moving expecting you to dodge out of the way. I think the American in me just wants to stop my bike and sit there and have a stare down to see who would win – me or the horn or me getting plowed over?

Anyways, back to Long Hoa… from the bus we took a “ferry” about 30 minutes across one of 8 active branches of the Mekong River. The island itself is located in the center of this channel (see google maps image below).

Google Maps Image of Long Hoa

Mudfish at the Boat Dock

We came to study the island due to its vulnerable location with potential sea rise as well as observe a mangrove forest replanting project that was done to help protect the seaward side of the island from storm surge/increase biodiversity/better the livelihoods of the residents. The island inhabitants were predominately farmers who raised shrimp and crabs in the brackish waters of the dry season and then a rice crop in the fresh water of the wet season. 

Crab from the crab pond.

As an interesting geologic side trip....this island was formed by mangroves growing on a sandbar, as sea level dropped the island was exposed. Mangroves store a lot of sulfur. When they died off during the sea level drop and left a lot of sulfur. As this was buried in a reducing environment the sulfur was incorporated into pyrite. Now, when this soil is dug up the pyrite oxidizes releasing the sulfur which then becomes sulfuric acid and acidifies the water = bad for rice and crabs. This is a huge problem all across the delta. 

Yellow-sulfur and red=iron in exposed acidic soils

One farmer we met also built a bat house and collected the guano to sell for fertilizer. His house had about 2,000-3,000 bats and brought in $5/wk. 

Bat House- looking up

The more interesting parts of the visit came from spending the night in a local village house. It is a fascinating lifestyle – dirt floors, no running water, open fire stoves, no mattresses, etc. The toilet situation was a little interesting – the houses all had a room in the kitchen with a slightly inclined floor leading to a gutter that went outside. In this room people took bucket showers and also used the bathroom on the floor. This was then rinsed away with a bucketful of water. Now, I have to say I’m not picky about toilets – going in the woods doesn’t phase me, holes in the ground don’t phase me but, peeing on a hard cement floor that really isn’t inclined is fairly challenging. I’ve yet to figure out how to use these effectively without feeling the need to shower. Too much info?? =)

Homestay House

Despite the bathrooms, life on Long Hoa seemed at first sort of enchanting – living off the land, a simple life on an island. However, as I started to interact with the locals I realized how confining this must be. It was interesting to notice there was no recreation at all available, not even a futbol field. Most people just worked, sang karyoke, drank alcohol and watched TV if they had it – no parks, no shopping, no restaurants, no sports, …nothing. It is kind of hard to imagine living like that for a lifetime. 

Bridge in the village/typical landscape

Tree on the island

Graves: In Vietnam most people are buried in these colorful graves on their land. It is not uncommon to see a gravesites in fields, in the front yard of houses, next to fish ponds, etc.

Klaus and I also got to try our hand at a few local jobs. We woke up early, took a walk as the sun rose. 

We met a farmer feeding his crab pond. We got to help out in the process. 

Feeding crabs at the farmer watched.

We also tried our hand at netting shrimp.  Interesting fact: A lot of shrimp that get exported to the US come from small farms in Vietnam like those on Long Hoa.

Practicing shrimp fishing.

In the downtime a friend and I cooled off by swimming out through the mangrove swamp (~300-400m) and into the open ocean = yay!

Mangrove Swamp - Behind us is the ocean

Overall, it was a great excursion and a good break from life in the city. 

Making Friends

Up next: Sunday we travel to Tram Chim National Park to observe rare sarus cranes, sample soil, test the water and explore the park for three days.

And Then it Rained...

Orchids at the farm

Tea Time

Pig

I found a puppy...

Biogas Digester

Farmhouse

Farmhouse 

Old US Army helmet being used as a water dipper

Snake Farm 

Drying Rice

Our Taxi

Building the Biogas Digester

A Farmer and a students hands

The Farmer we gave the biogas digester to.

Finished product =)

Rain =)

            I figured it was about time to update. Things at the homestay are going well. I think I’ve about adjusted to my new schedule:

5:15am – Get up and go for a run or a trip to the “man gym”*

6:30am – Shower and breakfast

7:30am – Class

5:00pm – Class is over

6:00pm – Dinner

10:00pm - Curfew

Definitely slightly different than my typical schedule but I am enjoying the early AM. I also found a very rare place in Vietnam – *an actual gym with weights located about 5min walk from my house. I stopped by the women’s gym but it’s a sauna and some cardio machines and everyone was wearing swimsuits for some reason. So, I promptly headed to the man gym-about 100 random odd weightlifting machines and various weights of unknown sizes scattered about. The decorations – metal posters of Asian wrestlers for inspiration amid sagging cabinets of ancient green vials labeled “amino acids.” They let me in so I assume I didn’t break any social rules …  Oh and in case you were wondering I have yet to see any other females working out there.

This week I spent three days at a local village. On the third day we built a low-income farm a biogas digester system. Basically it is a giant bag in the ground (9 m long, 1 m wide and 1.5 m deep). Animal waste is washed into the bag and then the methane is collected in a holding bag. A safety release (bottle with water) is placed between the holding bag and the digesting bag. The methane is then used for cooking versus burning wood. It is so simple and yet so useful. We dug the trench, constructed the bags and hooked everything up. Other sweet fact: the ties for the bag were made from cut up used tire tubes. SO awesome! Definitely my favorite event so far =).

Other random events: Took a trip to the market today with my homestay mom. So much activity! We bought some veggies and some frogs. The frogs come live and then the seller snips the head off with scissors, skins it and the best part- the headless, skinless frogs are still hopping for some reason with blood squirting out. After the frog escapade we sat down for a nice breakfast – rice paper with some unknown meat…at least the food on my plate wasn’t still moving =p. Overall though the market was great – so much fresh food! My host mom was saying most of it is picked that morning and all the animals are slaughtered moments before.

            Post-market I relaxed to a head massage/hair wash ($1) and then a trip to Dr. Fish for some feet cleaning. Here I sat on the edge of a pool and about 50 fish started chomping on my dead skin. Feels so crazy. The place is also a café so I ordered some sinh to (smoothies) as I got my feet cleaned. (Smoothies plus fish - $1.50).

Today there was an epic storm with about 1ft of water flooding the streets. It was AWESOME! I sat it out in a café until I had to go home for dinner. As I walked to my bike I noticed the walls were covered in cockroaches trying to escape the rising water =p. The streets were an intriguing combination of totally flooded, no traffic rules and garbage floating around as a current swept the streets clean. My feet were pedaling under water as giant trucks zoomed past, soaking me in a wave of styroform, old coconuts, broken flipflops and murky water. And, since I was the only foreigner out people starred and probably wondered what this white girl on a bike was doing. This event definitely made my day!! The bike by the way has become a rolling rattletrap hazard of metal parts that randomly clatter apart while riding over the rough road. The seat also broke and formed a forty-five degree angle which proves to be an interesting ride. Nothing a trip to the bike shop cannot fix =).

So that is Vietnam for now. I am loving it. Every day is an adventure!!

            Tomorrow’s agenda: Klaus and I are headed to monkey island for some sunshine, monkeys and pizza delivery.