Boog's Blog

Jan 21. 15:00. Local time
(Libby – good suggestion)

Day started quite well with an excellent breakfast at the hotel. Make it yourself Pho, buffet style choice of ingredients. See included picture.

The morning toilette is long and involved, but suspect necessary especially in this Southern part of the Mekong. Shower, Malaria drug, sunscreen (do not miss the ears ) and a bit more sunscreen then grease up with deet paste and then put on cloths over this greasy mess. The others on the trip have been badly burned, especially on their arms – blisters and pain – so the motivation remaiins on my end. Havé avoided the burns and bites of mosquitos so far.

Into a small motor driven boat and off for a tour of the Mekong lifestyle in this area. More floating markets, a visit to a carp farm (local fish farming for local consumption – the catfish is for export ).

We then stopped at a town that is inhabited by the Chaum people. Came here from the central region in the late 19th century. Muslims. Went to visit their mosque, and sample their local weaving.

Met a young woman, from Holland, has been bumming about for almost six months. Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. Traveling alone. Always puts any adventures I do in perspective.

Might have purchased a local sarong.

Then back to the hotel and a bus ride to Sam Mountain. First a stop at sevéral temples. The first for a general who captured back the area from the Cambodians. They honor and rever him.

Second to the "The Local Lady". Picture of an offering included. Massive donations and lots of visitors. Many from the South feel that they must come here regularly.

Pagoda's bring in a lot of money in donations. Trang told us the story of a local Pagoda that was set up as a sham. Brought in relics, experts with commentaries on the budda, monks. It was all a sham to take money.

Next an exciting motor bike ride up to Sam Mountain. The road is too steep and narrow for the car so we all jump on the back of a motor bike and hold onto the driver. Up the mountain to about 800 feet.

A visit to the multicultural Tay An Pagoda (Muslim, Hindu, Buddist, etc. ). Very nice.

Short visit to a market – cloths (second hand shop is filled with goods Americans donate to charity and then these goods get sold at low prices in developed world countries; looked for items we might have provided but none in this shop ).

Seem to have connectivity so will send this now

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Great day of riding, the best so far. Sore butt of course, used two pair of padded shorts and helped a bit.

Finally got to ride on rural roads. Few trucks or buses, wonderful people, beuatiful children, all smiles and happy to see us and share if we offered to share.

At a water stop – the service level from the 'staff' is outstanding and focused a bit on me as I am the oldest and this is very much a Confucian society. They even clink my glass towards the bottom to show respect.

One of the two attached pics is at a water stop. Very small road with limited traffic (except motor bikes ) and thankfully few honking noises.

Lost of chickens and roosters and small dogs on the road. All the dogs appear to be the same species. Strange.

The day's ride started with a ferry ride to the smaller roads side of the Mekong. Off the main highway. The first 26 km were perfect. The rest of the day almost perfect. The last 5km hell as a very rocky unpaved road.

Culturally the idea of trash here is strange to Western eyes. Was giving out gum to children or families. When stopping the bike to drink some of the almost gallons a day required I generally would give the gawkers something. Today gum. Sometimes the package (of 10 pieces) would have only a few left so would give the package with wrappers. The families would take the gum, appreciately with smiles and some giggles and then drop the detritus right on the ground, on their property or the dirt in front of their property. Happened more than once.

Staying three nights at this Victoria hotel a few km from the Cambodian border. Another in the chain of 5 star hotels. We will bike in this area, up to Sam Mountain I believe.

Clearly I have gprs connectivity in the hotel for now.

Second photo is arrival, with lemmon ginger tea, cool towels and lots of help at the front desk. The two seated men are the father and son along with me on the trip. They will leave towards the end and take a boat to Cambodia – then there will be three 'staff' to attend to me for a few days.

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Lost gprs connectivity in the evening before leaving Can Tho.

The ride today was mostly on QL -91 a main road without a real shoulder. Lots of trucks, buses, and other conveyences. Noisiest day so far. Hot of course but seem to be getting somewhat used to is as the heat was not nearly as debilitating as earlier in the trip.

About 15-20 km before Long Xuyen (a working city, not tourist and not a commerical center just a local or regional important city) we stopped to go the the bird sanctuary.

The road we were told is too hard to bike. Only one km by road but for some reason we took a boat rather than walked. Small sampan with a long tail, Thailand style or maybe Thais got it from the Vietnamese. Very versitile boats.

About a 25 minute ride on the very muddy household water supply Mekong. Families live on the water, in houses on stilts, and drink, bathe, defecate, wash and of course fish in this water supply.

Fishing is often of the basket on the end of a long pole type. Dip it in, wait a short bit and drag it out. Hard work. Then shake the basket the way one pans for gold.

Many catfish farms and duck herding on the river.

We get to the 'sanctuary' and like much of this interesting country it is not what it sounds like. Turns out to be a farmers home, albeit a home with extra land that is forrested with bamboo, an extra muddy tributary, and lots of birds.

We pay the farmer and climb to an observation tower. Children climb up with us – very happy giggly children. Left my pens at the other end of the boat ride as I did not understand we would have farmers offspring as additional guests.

White birds of the tree nesting type, mostly egrets I am guessing. Various types of egrets that have found this particular plot of land good to come to each year. Lower and higher dwellilng and nesting birds. Bigger black birds looked like storks.

Hard to know as no literature to identify the birds. Just a farmer's property and no government support or, I am guessing, way for him to put a brochure together.

Back on the sampan and ride to Long Xuyen. Long very straight road with continuous commerce. One of the few roads in the area.

At lunch met a South African couple that have been touring Thailand, Cambodia and now Vietnam for 3-4 months. Real adventure. Discussed some of what I will see in the North. Fewer people on the roads but even noiser drivers, love to use the horns for some reason. I am buildiing up a distaste for the noise.

The air quality is terrible by our local standards. When I discussed this at lunch with Scott, one of the two other riders, he thought better than Los Angeles area. Yikes! We would call this a spare the air alert for sure. Scott thought it was a clear nice day for riding.

Evening capped by a nice dinner, again too much food, but included claypot stew with various meats (did not eat them as just too much other stuff) catfish, squid, fried rice, what might have been pike. Mostly seafood and a lot of it, not all, deep fired. All with many dipping sauces.

The staff tried to show us how hot the local peppers are and burned their lips. I took their word for it.

Beer and then dark Vietnamese coffee for desért. Expresso strengh. Most added rice milk or soy, sweetened of course. I liked it black.

Hotel is a 3 star that we would call a 1-2 star. Best place in town. Large clean room just without any charm and few ammenities. Got spoiled by the Victoria.

Picture is the hotel in Long Xuygen

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Motorbikes. They are everywhere. One cannot just stroll the streets as they come at you on the sidewalks. No mindless strolling that is. Do not seem to hit people but one always has to dodge them. No rules.

Imagine the Palo Alto Arts and Craft market in late August. A very hot summer day with very clear skys. No clouds.

Now make some modifications.

-Get rid of the sourounding buildings as they are far too tall and cast far too much shade. Make them single story and move them back about one inch. Leave them there, the one inch is critical.

-Add humidity, the more the better.

-Add another row, a double row of course, of vendors on both sides of University Ave.

-Bring on the crowds. Lots of shoppers and buyers and gawkers.

-Add another row of vendors as it is not dense enough yet.

Now, squeeze yourself down the rows to look at the goods. Keep an eye out for the motorbikes squeezing past – in both directions. They have horns blaring just for background atmosphere.

This is a market area in HCMC or Can Tho or, I suspect, elsewhere.

The floating market was not much different except is was boats of a very wide variety of types.

After an afternoon stroll in the area and market it was time for a Vietnamese massage. An excellent one. Ah….

A short nap and then off to a dinner. Nothing special this time. OK dinner at the waterfront – tomato soup, pumpkin flowers deep fried, clay pot fish, string beans with garlic, pork with mushroom sauce (strange combination to me).

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AFter breakfast resolved trip planning for the next portion – the intermettzo.

The first trip will end on the 25th and the second trip will start in Hanoi on the 30th

Here is the schedule:

25th take private tour by boat from Saigon to small island and stay one night in a local family home, expected to act like one of the family in terms of cooking and cleaning. Spend day with their children helping them with English in return for cultural lesson.

Retun to HCMC and then 28th take 11 am flight to Hanoi to Sofitel hotel. Then transfer to train Victoria Express at 22:00 hours to Lao Cai. Arrive in far north early am and then bus to Sapa – an area of ethic groups hidden in the mist of the mountains.

Return for night of 30th at Sofitel.

Side note – just learned that tomorrow's bike ride has its first stop about 40km from here in a bird santuary. I was advised to bring my binoculars. Yeah!

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Early morning wake up for the ride to the floating markets of Can Rei. About a 30 minute san pan ride to the wholesale market. This one is not a tourist market but a working one so we have to go early so as not to interfere with the main part of the commerce at peak time.

We leave hotel at 5:30 am and get to river. Boat ride on nice cool day, it is about 10 degrees cooler today. Reminds me of the Bangkok river in many ways. Similar houses on stilts, people washing and drinking directly from the very muddy river. Long tail boats but here there are many many types of boats. Some like HK are living quarter for those who never live on land. They have a real problem with getting an identity card.

As we drove to the river for the boat ride we saw hundreds, maaybe more, taking their morning excercise. Not Tai Chi but either walking or dancing and moving their butts and arms.

Image 19 is in a private gardén that we visited after the market. The market pictures, many, with many bad, will have to wait until I can unload the digital camera. The morning light was not good and certainly not good enough for the cell phone.

Image 18 is me of course in the hotel before leaving. Image 21 is a monkey we fed some fruit and 22 is a view of this wonderful upper class hotel.

After returning to Can Tho took a motorized cyclo ride around the city, for about 40 minutes; cool weather, clean city and lots of activity made this a good ride.

Off to breakfast, hungry.

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Trip to Can Tho

My butt hurts; really hurts. Gentle reader do not laugh unless, like the QB who has been there. This seems worse – certainly the worst it has been for me. Just below or maybe at the raw stage.

How did it get that way? The statistics of the day will explaini a bit but it started hurting at the first km so it was a hard day.

Distance. 100 km plus a bit

Temp. Off the scale but think hot.

Humidity. Yes, full

Rain, some in the afternoon and it was a welcome relief except that one could steam veggies

Food – basically too hot to enjoy much of a breakfast or lunch. Ate some eggs and some fruit.

Hydration, maybe this says it all. Consumed 96 oz of water plus other assorted drinks at lunch time.

-altitude gained. Maybe 100 plus feet in 100 km. Not hard but no free ride.

Wildlife (using the QB system)
-birds. Roosters, chickens and not much else. A few geese.

-cows. Yes many on the side of the road. Grazing and very thin.

-water buffalo. One

-rice Think of the Midwest and covert the corn coverage to rice and you are on the right track. Quite pretty when green and interesting when being planted. Turns out this area can actually get four crops a year. The Viet word for rice, Com, means to eat.

-Driving and biking. I thought Amsterdam with its bike, pedestrian and roadways a bit challengeing, at least the turns. Nothing, nada, piece of cake. Two sides of the road as normal. Shoulder as would be expected. Rules of lane: none. One can and does cycle, drive, turn etc. As if there are really four independent two way lanes.

-Solution. Use a very loud horn, especially the buses. New York at is worst is quiet compared to a single road. One feels constantly assaulted.

So, all in all an exciting day. Long distance in heat and made it, could have easily continued except for the butt.

Tomorrow, the floating market, at 05:00 and then more adventure. Dinner tonite at a very good hotel. The hotel in Can Tho is 4-5 star and fairly rated (with US prices for washing a pair of socks, and I had a lot more than just wet socks. Loving it.

Notes – this is the first sending in three days. Havé not had connection to gprs for a few days – no mail or web.

No images in this post as was not sure if I would have a connection again for a while.

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Further along the Mekong today.

Included two ferry rides, one of 25 minutes and interesting to see the big river.

The other was a 45 minute ride on a private boat, a largish sandpan. Image 17 shows the boat just prior to boarding.

The longer ride included paths down and in channels of the river. Took out the binoculars in annticipation but alas no interesting birds.

The day started with a visit to a snake farm. Run by the Navy, I think as part of research about the local snakes and how to treat those effected. Pythons, Cobras, King Cobras, bears, birds, mongoose, etc. Pictures of the 'farm' in the main camera.

Lunch included Asian pear fruit, local fruit that is a combination mango and loquat, very milky in consistantcy as well as pomolo.

Hot today, very hot. 102 according to my watch. Good roads, some headwinds but it was the heat that caused the challenge and a lot of drinking.

Rural vietam, finally. Really not much different except the number of people way down, roads less congested and more rice paddies as well as banana plants.

Nice hotel, better than yesterday. Excellent A/C, yeah.

Fish soup dinner but the heat of the day sapped much of the appetite. The fresh clams and nems were excellent.

Tomorrow to Can Tho a larger city of about 2M

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First the food then the excitement and lastly the challenge.

Breakfast (img 15 and 16) fruit of outstanding quality. Vietnam exports the less good stuff and it shows. The papaya is perfect, maybe better than perfect. Goes down like food of the Gods. The Viet stuff is a wonderful mixuture of sweet, spicy, sour and hot- yin yang tastes.

This trip was advertised as a culinary one and so far it has surpsassed even my hopes. On the road we stopped at local eateries where the tour operator had planned well ahead. Each eaterie is a family endevor. A place on the road where the family lives and works and cooks and catches fresh fish and prepares it to perfection. Quite a bit of the final cooking is done at the table. Lotws of fresh cooked veggies, fish caught and hour a go.

Each meal has had about 2-3 times the amount of food we can eat. The guides explain that the food is very good, fresh and very cheap. Lunch for five might run $5 even with the excess and the drinks.

The eating is constraIined by the heat and humidity. It is basically too hot to eat much. Taste each, or most of the dishes and then just have to stop.

The bike ride from Saigon (the inner city name) is challenging. The roads are very crowded, the motor bikes, bikes and lorries are moving in all directions. No real respect for any set of rules of the road. Accidents are not uncommon and are dealt with locally. Locals take care of the medical and then negotiate with the parties over who pays what to whom. The police come but they play a lessor role.

Just as in the commerce the social conventions are very much Darwinian with a very Confucian overlay. Respect is important and real. Negotiatioins are had but fair and always seem to end well, even when the look aggressive. The evening cyclo ride took five minutes to negotiate, seemed heated and looked uncomfortable but apparently was not. The negiation amount was small to us. The two drivers would take me to an internet cafe, wait and then take Trang and I back to the hotel, about a twenty minute ride. Total time over an hour. Price ended up at $2.50 for the two drivers. The were, in effect, negotiating over 20%. Overtripped at less than a $1 for the two of them. Trang said wrong to give any more!

So, why was I at a Internet place? My GPRS signal, data that is, has ceased to work. Someplace out of Saigon we have become too rural. So I am putting this together as a notepad item and will send it when connectivity resumes. Toady or two weeks, who knows.

The excitement is the biking in the trafic and heat. Oftentimes a bit too much. Maybe we will hit the ideallic rural Vietnam I picture but clearly no sign of it as yet. The road is almost. Continuous home-buisiness. One gets space on the road, which is in terrible condition making the ride very hard and rough, then a layer of brown dirt, with some litter (less than China) and the about 15 feet of concret store front for chairs, putting out of goods, whatever. Then the store and upstairs living. Sometimes three stories very narrow.

My Tho is just a another city with about 400K people who are supposed to be much more relaxed than Saigon. Hard to see it except maybe in the dinner service this evening. Preparations and service of real beauty and charm. Whole crispy fist, served vertical and fileted using chopstics in one hand. And that was just the first dish.

Off to bed to face the heat, humidity and, hopefully a bit more rural biking. After 50 plus miles of the same commerceI am ready to see
Some variation.

BTW. Did not mention the livestock on the road. Cows (or something similar) chickens, pigs, geese, oxen? And of course dogs. Too hot for any of them to chase the bikers. Many rice paddies as to be expected. The cab get three rice crops here versus the north which gets only two.

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Last day in HCMC, a tourist one as well as an exciting bike day. First the tourism.

Standard fare of the museums, historical monuments and war memorials. As Vietnam has been the object of being occupied for 1500 years much of their tourism is centered about their wars and victories. The war with America being only the last in a very very long series.

Was interesting to hear Japenese and French spoken (by tour guides) with a Vietnamese accent.

One advantage of touring museums wth a tour guide who has a degree in Tourism – Korea has a similar degree – is that both history and culture are accessible via my usual probing.

The pagoda we visited, picture of one corner included, was incense and smoke, from Joss sticks, filled. Very East Asian Buddest. Matayana not Vipasana..

Lunch was a Pho 24 a new chain of high end Pho shops. The guide, Tong, said it was better than the Pho his mother made. I thought it was excellent and had perfect Cha Gio; ordered for the table. Picture included.

Last photo is one after the bike was assembled and we got on our way riding in Saigon. If walking is as thrill filled as I mentioned yesterday, and it certainly is, then biking is an adrenaline rush if there ever is one. Loved it as was sorry to stop riding.

Early evening massage and then off to dinner.

Probably the best Viet dinner I have ever had. Haute cuisine At La Taverne. Two soups, 4 seafood dishes and fruit. Incredible soft shell crabs and a rice fabric that I have not seen before.

A walk back via the market capped the evening.

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