Who Would Have Thought?

I’m writing this from a communist guesthouse in central Vietnam. I’m sure you think you can imagine the luxury, but unless you’re imagining me sleeping on wooden slats in a room that hasn’t even been swept out in a decade, that came with a complimentary spider the size of my head in the bathroom with no power and an ant infestation, I’d say you’re probably guessing on the generous side. And if you did imagine all those things, we need to talk. Once again, I count my silk sleeping bag among the best purchases I’ve ever made in my life, because although I’m sure the plastic woven mat covering the wooden slats isn’t hanging onto a lot of biological matter, I can’t say as much for the pillow that says “House of Potpourri” on it. I was also more grateful than I can say for the mosquito netting that was provided. Far from being a romantic, British colonial type of accessory, it really feels like a necessity, as there are things crawling on the ceiling that I’d prefer not to eat accidentally. Or on purpose, for that matter. I will be rapturously grateful to crawl back into my bed at the Zephyr Hotel tomorrow night, I promise.

The morning started out fairly uneventfully, with the group coming to pick me up. The group, for future reference, consists of Eye Patch (the team leader), C, Itsy Bitsy (an interpreter), TW (an interpreter and technical assistant), and Projector Man – so named because it was his projector that I had to haul from DC to Hanoi. Oh, and it turns out that it was a personal purchase that he got off E-Bay, which is why the company wouldn’t be shipping it. Well, whatever – the company is still paying my overweight baggage fee, since it wasn’t my projector. We got on the road and PM mentioned something about how he’d hoped he’d get to sit next to me, at which we all chuckled amiably. We were chatting about things project related and non-project related, Itsy Bitsy and I were talking about languages and such – she knows Vietnamese, English, and Japanese. I am struggling with two languages, so for her to know three is impressive. I’d like to fully master English, French and one other language (Spanish, perhaps?) simultaneously at some point in my life. We’ll see how that goes.

I asked IB if she knew how far it was to Halong Bay, and she said she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think it was far. I want to make a point of seeing it while I’m here, and that will be easier than originally thought, since we have whole entire weekends off on this project. Yay! If D and I can coordinate a time when she’s also in the country, she’d mentioned wanting to fly up for a weekend to do it, so I’m going to e-mail her about it. As we were talking a little more PM asked what we were talking about. IB said that I wanted to see Halong Bay, and he said he’d be glad to take me personally. Um…okay. I said that it was a very kind offer, but I wanted to go with a girlfriend. And that there were many tour companies that operated these trips, and I didn’t want him to inconvenience himself. He said that he’d been telling C that they had to go, but C insisted on taking his wife. PM said that it was more fun if they went without their wives, and I’m not entirely sure what was meant by that, but I didn’t ask. What happens in Halong Bay stays in Halong Bay – something like that? C asked PM how long he’d been married, and not only could he not remember, he started to tell us because his wife always got mad at him for confusing her birthday with that of a former girlfriend of his. Can’t imagine why she’d be upset about that.

After three hours of driving, we made it to Thanh Hoa Province, our first stop of the day. I was grateful to get out and stretch my legs, as I’d been in the middle of the back seat, and my rear end had lost circulation, and consequently all feeling, about an hour ago. We met with some nice men and I was delighted at how nice it is to have an actual interpreter. In my meetings in Vietnam previously, there was no interpreter, so I would just smile and nod and hope that someone else was taking notes. But this way, I could take my own notes – hurrah for IB! TW seemed to mostly be translating for C, so it seemed like a reasonable division of labor. We were discussing which communes we’d be going to see, and it was concluded that it didn’t make sense for us to travel to one commune, come back to Thanh Hoa, and then travel to the other the next day, as the first was farther away than the second, and they were kind of in a straight line with each other. There were more rumblings, and people looked at me. I asked IB what was going on, and she said that they didn’t think there were any hotels available that I’d be okay with. I said that, as long as there was a clean bed and a clean toilet available, I didn’t much care where we stayed. She laughed nervously, and everyone seemed to agree that we’d stay somewhere in Ngoc Lac instead. We went out for lunch with a few of the guys who worked for the provincial government to a restaurant down the street. They asked me if I had any special dietary restrictions, and when I said “no”, they said “you’re not vegetarian or something?” I said “not anymore”, at which point I was heartily congratulated for such a sensible decision. I just smiled, and wished there were some non-obvious way to roll my eyes.

Anyway, lunch was brought out in waves, and it was delicious. Mostly. I didn’t particularly care for the gelatinous seafood soup that we had as a starter, but there were sweet potato greens, pork cutlets, fried potatoes, rice, grilled fish, all of which were quite tasty. There was also beer, and people kept trying to refill my glass. After about a glass and a half, PM asked if he could top off my glass, and I politely smiled and said “no thank you”. He then passed the bottle to someone else and told him to dump it into my glass, at which point I said “no, thank you” a smidge more forcefully, moving my glass out of the line of fire, downing the remaining sip, and switching to water, which I’d been planning to do. PM, red-faced from all the beer, looked slightly confused, and although I certainly wasn’t trying to be rude, I was also trying not to get loaded at lunch, and I had already said no. But I’ve noticed something here – people will take their chopsticks and just put food in your bowl if they think you should be eating it. I know that it’s just their way of being good hosts, and I always smile and say “thank you”, but it’s definitely something to which I’m unaccustomed.

After lunch, we were informed that one of the guys from the provincial government would be coming with us. So, in case you were counting, that’s eight people in the one SUV. Four of us crammed in the middle seat (fortunately, two of them were IB and TW), with two guys in the back, and the driver and EP in the front. We drove for another couple of hours, and as we did, the landscape started to change. We had been coming up into the mountains, and while there were still flat rice paddies as far as the eye could see, there were these mountains that looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. Violent eruptions of rock jutting up from the landscape with no warning, it looked like someone had taken the peaks from mountains elsewhere and just plonked them down in the middle of some rice fields. I’m not sure what they’re made of, but it must be something like limestone, since there were caves forming in the middle of the peaks, and they seemed to be eroding from the bottom, forming dramatic overhangs. It’s harvest time now, so while there was still the plastic green of flooded rice paddies, there were also little greenish-brown bundles of rice stacked up like miniature teepees dotting the fields, as well as rice plants and grains spread out to dry along the sides of the road, on driveways, and every other flat surface. It looked like the sides of some of these mountains had almost started to slide off, and it turns out that many of them are being slowly destroyed, torn down to make cement mix. It’s hard to criticize too much when you know how poor the people around here are, but the people who own the cement factories aren’t the poor ones, and I have my doubts about how much of the profits would actually go to the poor anyway. But that’s another discussion for another day, I suppose.

There was a typhoon here last month, and we were heading out to inspect the storm damage as we were told that it washed away two dams. We drove up to the first one, and not only was half the dam collapsed and washed away, but the river bank had a huge gouge in it, the result of all that water and debris shooting down the river. I had actually been working on another flood project at home before I left, and it was interesting to see the parallels, and kind of exciting to know that I could make some substantive suggestions. The commune, which is extremely poor and isolated, particularly for lack of the dam and road that went over top of it, built a bamboo bridge to cross the river, unfortunately it needs to be rebuilt every few days, at a cost of approximately 100 US dollars. We crossed the bridge up to the intact part of the dam, and were told that we would be taken to the second dam by motorbike. At first, given the way that EP said it, I thought he might have been kidding. But not so much.

Those of you who’ve known me for a while probably know that I haven’t been on a motorcycle since I was eight. This is because, when I was eight, I got thrown off a motorcycle and have been quite content to stay away from them ever since. But EP wasn’t kidding, and I was told that I would be given the best driver, because I think IB had remembered me describing my dislike of motorbikes in a previous and unrelated conversation. I climbed on the back of the motorbike to which I was assigned, and as we lurched off up the dirt road, I said a quick prayer. It was actually kind of fun – I felt a bit like Isadora Duncan without the scarf. Plus, if I could ignore the rocky road that we sometimes had to navigate, I was able to just take in the scenery, and it really was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen in my life. Speeding down the dirt road, which narrowed considerably in places, I had to admire his skill, and figured that I could probably relax a little. Then, after about 10 minutes or so, I saw him reach into his pocket, pull out his glasses and deposit them on his face. I don’t know if that made me feel better or not.

Once we arrived at the second washed out dam, we met up again with the rest of the group from the People’s Committee. Apparently, an 18-year-old girl had been killed in the flood, washed away when the dam collapsed. There were some falls downstream of where the dam used to be, and it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could have survived it under the best of circumstances. We were up in the middle of the hills, so I took some pictures, and I hope that they’ll come close to doing it justice, but I’m not sure. The scenery was still stunning, and it was a very strange contrast, being in such a breathtakingly beautiful place, and knowing that part of what made it beautiful and sustained the agricultural practice of the commune, was also a great hardship for them.

We went back to the People’s Committee Office of the commune, their central community building, and sat down for a discussion of the problems and possible solutions with community leaders. The people that we talked to were all very friendly and willing to discuss the issues that they saw in their commune, as well as what they wanted to do about it. There was some heated discussion as to what the cause of the dam collapse was, and the contractor present took exception to suggestions from some other members of the commune that it had been poorly designed and/or built. The design drawings for the dams were produced, and much waving of arms commenced. After this subsided, we began to head for the door. One of the men there told TW to tell me that he thought I was very beautiful and was surprised that I was American. It seemed like something of a backhanded compliment, but I smiled and said that he was very kind to say so. I should have also mentioned that maybe it was because I was half Australian, but I thought that might confuse things more.

We set off again on motorbike, heading back to the first dam, and my driver decided that he didn’t need his glasses anymore. When we reached our final destination, I thanked him, and we returned to the car. We were informed that we were going to go to dinner with the district officials, and headed to a restaurant nearby. Driving to the restaurant, I learned that the stretch of road we were driving along was the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the rice fields by which we were surrounded used to be all jungle. I have a strong suspicion that changes in land use are at least partially responsible for some of the flooding problems facing the communes these days. As we assumed our places at the tables, bowls and platters of various food were brought out to the tables. C asked what we were eating, and we were told “this is a creature that lives in the forest.” I’m kind of glad that it didn’t get more detailed than that. But it didn’t taste bad, and I knew I needed to eat. They had more of the whole roasted birds that I saw at lunch the other day, and I just couldn’t bring myself to eat them, despite the District Chair kindly depositing a few in my bowl for me to eat. I tried to cover them with some greens, and focus on eating other unidentified things. Apparently, you’re supposed to just eat the birds whole, bones and all, and watching people bite off the heads and necks, I just couldn’t do it. But my new policy of not asking what I’m eating has been serving me well so far. We were also told that one of the things we were eating was quite rare, so we were lucky that it was being served. I wasn’t sure what they meant by “rare”, but the suspicion that I’ve eaten an endangered species feels a little strange. Ah well – as C said, whenever you eat out in the districts, you’re guaranteed to have more exotic foods.

I have to pause for a moment, though, to give props to Marcie for still winning the “Oh my gosh how did you consume that without vomiting?” prize for drinking the bowl of fermented camel’s milk in Kazakhstan. Way to go, Marce – you’re a stronger woman than I am.

Although it wasn’t very late, we politely excused ourselves because we had to leave very early the next morning. I’ve been doing well so far, adjusting to the time difference, but it was getting to that “painful to stay awake” stage, so I was glad that we were heading out. Before we left, PM pulled me aside to show me a scorpion in a bottle of liquor. He then leaned in very close and informed me that it was considered an aphrodisiac. I looked at him blankly, said “oh. That’s interesting” and headed for the door.

When we arrived at the guesthouse, we were all assigned rooms, and I made my way up to mine, grateful to have the chance to get cleaned up. Well…there’s no shower, the bathroom is, as I mentioned, infested with ants, and I have no linens of any kind. So, after getting some help to kill the mammoth spider, I washed my face, dried it on my pj pants, and crawled onto my wooden cot. It’s about 5 am now, as I keep waking up, and we have to leave at 6 am anyway. Not the most restful night I’ve ever had, but I know there are many people in the world, including people I’ve seen today, who have it a lot worse, so I should probably quit my bitching. I had a good dinner, everyone here has been very kind and friendly, I’ve seen some phenomenally beautiful parts of the world, and I’ve got a roof over my head as I type on my laptop that’s likely worth more money than most people here make in a year.

But that spider really was huge.