One Last SE Asia Travel Tale

Tomorrow marks the end of my extended post-MBA vacation. Like with all transitions, this one comes with a bundle of mixed emotions. I’m excited to re-connect with my work friends, to settle into more of a routine, to reignite some dormant parts of my brain. And yet I’m sad to let go of the freedom and flexibility of my days, the special time I get to spend with loved ones, and the lower-stress gear my body is now accustomed to operating in. While I’ll never claim to love transitions, I tend to continuously add twists and turns to my life that thrust me into change and growth.

I started this blog to collect stories and images on my trip to South East Asia…and to bring friends with me on my journey. What a trip it was! But there is one very important story from that trip that I saved to the very end to tell. In one of my first blog entries, I wrote about Library Man (a.k.a. Paul) and our romance which has spanned more than a decade. Well Library Man proposed to me in Thailand. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I said yes.

The specific moment happened on a beach on Koh Samui. Paul arranged for a private dinner for the two of us in an open hut looking out on the ocean. We sat on silk cushions and ate at a table covered with gemstones, flowers, and candles. It was about as romantic as could be. We joke that Paul proposed between the first cocktail and the spring rolls so he could enjoy the rest of the meal without feeling so nervous. The whole thing (including a ring he had designed on his own) was a surprise. It is with great tenderness, excitement, and love that we enter this next phase of our lives together. Planning is underway for an autumn wedding in Vermont.

So I guess this is the close of this particular travel blog, but who says everyday life isn’t dynamic enough to document? Perhaps I’ll begin a new blog for this new chapter of life…after I adjust to the pains of waking up early every morning. Wish me luck. :)

Photos from my 2nd time around in Vietnam

Check out this link for photos from my 2nd time around in Vientam:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113623&id=530276774&l=867904db8d

A New View of Boston

Yesterday we woke up at 4:00 am, our sense of time still upside down from jetlag. We decided to walk up the street to the Boston Harbor to watch the sunrise. This perspective on Boston is very different from what I’m used to, having spent most of my time in Massachusetts in Boston’s funkier neighboring city of Cambridge. Now we’re living in Charlestown, just a block from the Harbor Walk and our view is of the Boston city skyline. We’re practically on the Freedom Trail, with the Bunker Hill monument behind us, Old Ironsides out our front door, and the Lenny Zakim Bridge beside us. I’ve been practicing saying “Chaaahhhlstown” like a real Bostonian to embrace my new location in this familiar city.

When I left the States we lived in Vermont. Right out our back door were woods and every time we drove around the Upper Valley, I said aloud how fortunate we were to live in such a beautiful area. So much sky and so many trees and birds. Our cat Penguin loved looking out the windows at all of nature’s creatures and I worried for her that our new location in Boston would lack the liveliness of the home she had come to know. Those of you who know me well realize I sometimes project my own feelings onto Penguin. In fact, during business school I would dream that Penguin was creating excel spreadsheets and power point presentations. So Penguin is adjusting and so am I. I guess it is just a little odd to come back to a home that you haven’t yet lived in. It is both familiar and unfamiliar; comforting and disorienting all at the same time.

But part of the fun is making it home, and it is a luxury to have the time to settle in. I haven’t had a kitchen in over two months so simple things like cooking a meal is really fun. Coming back from a long trip is a unique transition time, and it is fascinating to notice what feels different and the ways the travel has changed me. I’m amazed when I step off the sidewalk in Boston and the cars stop to let me pass after the whizzing energy of all the traffic and motos in Hanoi, where we spent our last week. I hesitated to drink the water at the Other Side Café yesterday and then had to remind myself that it is safe to drink the tap water here. Just silly little things like that to notice…and deeper changes in perspective that take time to fully integrate.

I still have stories to share from Thailand & Vietnam - some big & some small - and more photos to post. All that soon…

Photos from Thailand

Check out this link for photos from Thailand...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=112214&id=530276774&l=d1ff319d3e

Photos from Cambodia

Check out this link for lots of photos from Cambodia...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110035&id=530276774&l=bc1543ff8f

Thai Sunset, Cambodian Tales

The sun just set over the Gulf of Thailand. I can see the ocean through the glass doors and beyond the balcony of our room. After a week in Cambodia, we decided to splurge and found a gorgeous hotel on Ko Samui, an island off the east coast of Thailand. This morning we kayaked to a quiet beach where we spent the day swimming and lounging. This type of relaxation is just what I needed after last week.

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Cambodia was amazing, but upon our arrival I came down with a bout of food poisoning that I just couldn’t kick during my entire time there. Thank goodness for Cipro - after 3 days on this strong antibiotic, I’m finally almost back to normal. The food in Cambodia was delicious (according to Julie & Paul) and I’m excited to be able to join them soon in enjoying the Thai cuisine. We didn’t get to try the spiders, crickets, snakes, or fried little birds that were served up by Cambodian street vendors, but we did get a few photographs of these delicacies.
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We spent our first two nights in Cambodia in Phnom Penh. We visited S-21, a suburban school that had been converted into a prison during the Kmer Rouge massacres of the 1970’s. The stories of torture and murder were horrific and unlike a museum in the U.S. where exhibits are kept behind glass, you could walk through prison cells and see the weapons the prison guards used on their victims. The Kmer Rouge documented S-21’s prisoners with black and white photographs before and after torture, and thousands of photos of women, children, and men are displayed inside S-21. These images combined with being in the physical space where such atrocities had been committed became so over stimulating that I started to feel numb by the end of our visit.
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From there we went to the Killing Fields, where thousands of skulls and bones from mass graves are displayed in a multi-story shrine. To save money on bullets, victims were literally beaten to death with blunt objects and babies were smashed against trees. Before we went inside, our tuk tuk driver told us that it makes him sad to go there because he lost his entire family under Pol Pot’s reign. After that, I imagined that every local person we met in Phom Penh must have a personal relationship to the Kmer Rouge tragedy.
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We also saw more poverty in Phnom Penh than I’ve seen yet on this trip. There were many people on the streets with missing limbs, possibly as a result of land mines. Many children were on the street selling things to tourists and an entire family seemed to be living below our hotel balcony. The sex industry was also very prominent and was sad to see. Trafficking is a major problem and we saw blatant prostitution in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.
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I make Cambodia sound so depressing, but it wasn’t all sad stuff…there are just many painful elements to the country’s history and present that you simply can’t ignore. Despite that, it was vibrant and lively and we had some wonderful experiences there - like driving around town in a tuk tuk during a massive thunderstorm through the flooded streets, watching the local children splashing in the puddles.
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The majority of our time in Cambodia was spent in Siem Reap, home to the famous Angkor temples. Our first morning, we woke at 4:15 am and caught a tuk tuk to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise. The temples were truly magnificent and we spent the day exploring this ancient holy city…climbing to the tops of temples, stumbling over fallen stones, and snapping a zillion pictures that I’ll have to trim down before I post. One day we took a boat to see a floating village - homes, the school, a church, a Buddhist wat, the shops - all of them were on boats. That evening, Paul & I took a cooking class at a lovely Kmer restaurant and then enjoyed a meal with an American couple from our class.
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I’ll post our Cambodia pictures soon and in no time I’ll have photos and stories to share from Thailand too!

New Friends in Laos

Sitting in the front seat of the bus from Luang Prabang to Vientiane in Laos. Passing small villages where schoolchildren run by and naked toddlers squeal in doorways. We honk at the cows standing lazily in the road conjuring up images of India in my mind. Boys and girls hold umbrellas as they ride by on bicycles. The bus is muggy despite the air conditioning. But at least I’ve got my own seat and the volume of the music is not just bearable - but actually pleasant.

We’re heading back to Vientiane after five lovely days in Luang Prabang where we spent time with a wonderful cast of characters. Our first night in town we had the good fortune of sitting next to two Austrians and two Germans who were then joined by two Frenchies. Soon enough we were all sharing Beer Lao and Lao Lao (shots of rice wine). When the restaurant closed we hopped in a tuk tuk and hit the local Lao nightclub. We were the only tourists there and we danced the night away with the locals. Who would’ve known we’d return there two more times that week?

Then there was kayaking on the chocolate brown Mekong where we met Dana from San Francisco, Marceau from Germany, and David from Northern Ireland - who would accompany us later that night to dinner, bowling, and more dancing. The next day we took a tuk tuk and a small boat to a series of waterfalls where we went swimming. Our last big night out we were joined by two Kiwis and two Brits and were reunited with the Austrians - Hans and Elmar - who micromanaged our grill your own meat bbq while the Kiwi side of the table drank beer tower after beer tower.

Yesterday, tired from all the revelry, I napped in the afternoon and went out for an evening walk by myself to a Buddhist Wat on a hill. Luang Prabang is full of Wats and young monks in saffron colored robes are a common site. I took my time at the Wat appreciating the view and pausing to take pictures of the golden Buddha statues. On my descent I was thinking about how I wanted to learn more about Buddhism. I tried to learn about Hinduism while in India and wanted to likewise ask questions about Buddhism.

As I was pondering a statue of a familiar female form holding a long pony-tail, a handsome young man with a beaming smile asked me where I was from. We started a conversation that would last for the next hour and a half at least, standing beneath a Buddha statue as the sun set. He is a former Buddhist monk who studied in that Wat for six years and then studied Buddhism in Thailand for another six years. He has been out for only a year and teaches English at a teachers collage. We talked about the pace of life in different cultures and he had many questions about education in America. I learned about his family - his six siblings and mother’s three marriages. His 16 year old sister’s desire to get out of rural Laos but her lack of education and limited options. His last conversation with his father - who was also a monk - before his father was tragically killed in a car accident. He shared his impressions of the tourists who always have a list of things they want to see and how fast they move and how different this is from his simple way of life.

I got to ask him about the statue I’d been so curious about and learned that she represents the Goddess of the Earth who helped protect Buddha from three evil sirens who tried to distract Buddha from meditating beneath the tree. I learned of the significance of the lotus flower, which lives in the dirty mud below the surface and then blossoms into something beautiful. I learned the routines of the monks - waking at 4:00 am to chant, sweeping, meditation, studying. I learned so much in just that one conversation that I simply can’t capture it all. As the sun went down, I had to say goodbye to my friend although I knew we could’ve talked for the rest of the night. I hope to hear from him again to ask my many unanswered questions about Buddhism and his life.

This morning we got up at 5:00 am to make an offering to the 300+ monks who live in the Wats in Luang Prabang. They walk in a procession through town and accept sticky rice, fruit, and other gifts, which they eat throughout the day. We bought bananas for the occasion and Julie kneeled and offered the bananas as I tried to capture the procession with my camera.

From Laos to Cambodia...More to come from Cambodia next…

Photos from Laos - Series 1

Click here for photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107830&id=530276774&l=29acbbcf59

Lessons from a bus ride to Laos

Lesson 1: “Tourist bus” is a relative term.
After much difficulty and frustration, we booked a bus from Hue, Vietnam to the capital of Laos, Vientaine. We knew it was a 22 hour trip that we might regret taking. But we wanted to get there and were up for an adventure. Only, we didn’t realize just how much of an adventure it would be. Our bus was scheduled to pick us up at our hotel at 9:15 am. 9:15 came and went and after asking our hotel staff to call the travel company, our ride arrived at about 10:15. Only instead of a tourist bus, it was two men on motos. They assured us they would take us around the corner to the travel agency to get our bus. Unsure and unhappy, we let them pile our heavy packs onto their bikes and hopped on. Next thing we know we’re zipping across town, over a bridge, clearly not in the direction of the travel agency. Julie’s moto zooms past a red light and as my driver waits at the light, I have images of them separating us and bringing us somewhere to harvest our organs. I’m relieved when I see Julie and her driver again – only not at a travel agency, but at a sugar cane juice stand on the side of the road. I’m dropped off and sit down in a tiny plastic chair while Julie’s moto driver offers us sugar cane juice and cigarettes. Julie accepts a smoke and I think, “my lungs will go for a premium now.” We learn then that our tourist bus from Hue is actually coming from Danang and is running 40 minutes late. 40 minutes become an hour and Julie and I strategize about what to do if the bus that arrives has no A/C. We’re not luxury travelers by any means, but on a 20+ hour ride, A/C is essential. Bus pulls up. They toss our bags onto the back of the bus through the window, I give Julls the thumbs up after checking for A/C. We get on and about halfway to the back of the bus we smell the strong fish odor. The bus driver kicks someone out of 2 seats at the very back and tells us to sit down. The floor of our seat is full of crates of fruits and vegetables and we insist they move them out so we have somewhere to put our feet. The bus is packed with people and crates of vegetables, bags of rice, and who knows what else. So if by “tourist bus” they meant we would be the only tourists, then “yes” this was a tourist bus.

Lesson 2: Don’t expect the tourist bus to wait for you at the border crossing.
A few hours in, we hit the border of Vietnam. The bus empties so people can get their passports stamped. We grab our small packs with our valuables and leave our large packs on the bus. We are last in line and the border patrol act as though they have never seen an American passport. As we’re delayed, we get the eerie feeling that the bus is no longer outside. While one of us waits with border patrol the other looks up the road but the bus is nowhere to be found. We try to find people we recognize from the bus but we’ve gotten so delayed, that they are all gone. We leave the Vietnam border and walk to the Laos border where we have to apply for a visa upon arrival. As we fill out our paperwork, we assure each other that the bus must just be ahead in the parking lot, but we just can’t see it. We’re keeping calm but definitely getting a little nervous at this point. We take care of our visas and keep walking to the last checkpoint in the border crossing. The bus is nowhere. I try to explain to the officer, “We on bus. Bus went away. Where bus go?” No luck. By now we’re talking about the possibility of having lost most of our belongings on the runaway bus (thank god we had our valuables on us) and potentially being stranded 20 hours from our destination. Two moto drivers approach us and tell us to hop on. We somehow think they know where our bus is, but they could also be interested in our organs as well. What to do? We hop on back, no helmets, and pray that the $1 we promised them is well spend. Indeed, it is. As we come up a hill just a few kms from the border, we see the bus parked at a lot and all of its inhabitants squatting, eating, killing time. No one pays much attention to our arrival and Julls and I high-five each other for the best $1 we’ve ever spent.

Lesson 3: Don’t expect to sleep on the tourist bus.
A few things to keep you awake:
1. The Vietnamese music blaring at a deafening decimal ALL throughout the night.
2. The bumps and swerves on the Laotian roads leaving you wondering if you’ll ever arrive at your destination in one piece.
3. The man in the row next to you who screams something in a language you don’t understand for no apparent reason. (Maybe talking in his sleep?)
4. The bathroom stop in the middle of the night where you think you’re going to a toilet, but then realize all the women are running across the road into a ditch where they are peeing.
5. Or my personal favorite: I keep hearing the styrophome box behind Julie’s seat brushing up against her seat and making a sound as annoying as nails on a chalkboard. During our dinner break, I went onto the bus to get something from my bag and heard the styrophome box making the same scratching noises – only the bus wasn’t moving and it wasn’t rubbing against the seat. It was then I realized there was something – or some things alive in the box! At irregular intervals through the night it would scrape at its crate and wake us up.

Lesson 4: Sometimes 7:30 am arrival actually means 3:00 am arrival.
The bus halted to a stop. At first we thought it was another “toilet” break, but everyone started collecting their vegetables and getting off. “Damn – we have to switch buses now,” we thought. Only people told us, “Vientiane, Vientiane.” Groggy, I looked at the sign and we were indeed in Vientiane. We arrived 4.5 hrs earlier than they had told us when we bought the ticket – which we wouldn't have minded had it not been 3:00 am at a bus station in a strange country. Tuk tuk drivers surrounded us trying to take us here and there. We’re disoriented and don’t know who to trust or where to go since our hotel won’t be open that early. We debate our options while the drivers hover too close for comfort and we decide to stay at the bus station, which is lit, has other people there, and seems relatively safe – perhaps we’ll stay there until the sun comes up. We have a cell phone so we can try to get into the hotel early. Only the phone is dead despite charging it the night before. Julie finds an outlet and stands in the bus station while trying to charge the phone. I am desperate for a toilet since I didn’t use the ditch earlier, but the station toilet appears to be closed. Eventually the phone charges, but we are unable to make a call locally for some reason. At that moment, I realize I have my cell phone from home. I open it and it has bars. I have no idea what it will cost to call from it, but I dial and get through to our hotel where I’ve clearly woken the night watch. I explain our predicament in broken English and he says we can come at 7:30. Julie hears this from me: “How about 6:30? How about 5:30? How about now?” I kindly refuse to take no for an answer and the exhausted night watch eventually says, “ok, come now.” Julie gets to work convincing a tuk tuk driver to take us for 20,000 kip (roughly $1US) and $2US which is basically all the cash we have. She too, is successful. Finally we make it to our hotel and collapse into our beds after quick showers.

Lesson 5: Bring your sense of humor & resourcefulness & expect the unexpected whenever you take a tourist bus on a 20+ hour border crossing!

New Photo Links - Snorkeling & Karaoke

I've had a blogging set-back due to a computer crash & a very busy week wrapping up our work at IDE Vietnam. I hope to have time to write more soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share some photo links that I uploaded today.

Last weekend, Julie & I took a boat tour/snorkeling trip to Cu Lau Cham island. Unfortunately, our English-language tour left without us & our only option was to take the Vietnamese tour. When the mini-van pulled up at our hotel, it was packed with Vietnamese tourists who looked so excited to add us to their tour. They were lovely hosts! I was nervous about snorkeling because I'm not much of a swimmer, but I discovered that no one on the boat could swim & snorkeling involved wearing a life-vest. There was absolutely nothing to see under the water, but it was still nice to be floating around. Here are the pictures...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104652&id=530276774&l=71702404b5

And then, here is a link to our last night out with the IDE staff in Hue. Dinner & karaoke. Ridiculous singing & dancing. The photos tell the story...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104654&id=530276774&l=2e0fcce787

Phase 1 of this adventure is coming to a close. Phase 2 begins soon...probably in Laos...

Oh the Places I've Been

I’m back in Tam Ky City after what feels like a long time away. When I first arrived in Vietnam almost four weeks ago, I thought I would be spending almost all of my working time here. Instead, we’ve been on the road the past few weeks, interspersing work time in IDE’s Hue & Hanoi offices, out in the field in Tien Phuoc, Than Hoa and Thuong Xuan interviewing the beneficiaries of our project, and squeezing in weekend fun in Hoi An and Sapa. Tam Ky has oddly felt like home base and yet next week we set out again for Hue for the final week of our consulting project with IDE Vietnam. Here’s a brief synopsis of all the places I’ve been over these past few weeks…

Tien Phuc
We left Tam Ky on August 3rd for Tien Phuoc where we conducted two days of interviews in the field. You may recall the photos of us standing on village streets interviewing pig feed providers and sitting in modest homes interviewing pig raisers while motos zoomed past outside. We’re likely very shiny in these photos as the temperatures were quite high and the air conditioning very limited. Everywhere we went, the interviewees greeted us with smiles & small cups of lukewarm green tea.

Hue
From Tien Phuoc we went to Hue, a city that hovered on the southern border between north and south during the “American War” as they call it here. If you recall the Tet Offensive of 1968, Hue was one of the cities that suffered considerable damage. Although I was in Hue to work in the IDE office, it was my first look at a tourist city in Vietnam. We stayed on a street with lots of restaurants and shops and I must confess we enjoyed French & Italian food for a break from the local cuisine. Hue was the site of my birthday extravaganza where I was crowned either Miss America or Miss USA by the jovial IDE employees. The beautiful birthday photos taken by the head of IDE Vietnam made it into an earlier blog entry.

Hoi An
Me, Julie, Supriya, and Vijay made our way from Hue to Hoi An, a coastal town with winding streets and tailor shops on every corner. Our hotel had a swimming pool, which was quite a luxury, but our swimming was interrupted by circling bats up above. We ate fantastic food in Hoi An & spent way too much time shopping. I’ve never been to a place where you pick out an outfit from a magazine, select your fabrics, get measured, and have the tailor stitch you exactly what you want – for a fraction of what you’d pay in the States. The concept of privacy was a little lax and the women in the shops would forget to pull the dressing room curtain back as they wound their measuring tapes around your waist and thighs. Trying on wool coats when you are drenched in sweat is also not something I would highly recommend. While Hoi An was a little less relaxing than I had hoped for, it was a wonderful little town & we had a fun weekend – with lots of things to bring home to show for it.

Than Hoa
From Hoi An we traveled to Danang where we caught a flight up north to Hanoi. Then from Hanoi we got a car to Than Hoa. On our way we stopped off at the equivalent of a truck stop for dinner. It was later than we usually eat, we were exhausted, and the place left much to be desired. The stray dogs hanging out in the restaurant were one thing…but the truck full of live dogs stuffed into tiny cages in transport to become food…that was just too much for me. I can still hear their mad barking and see them squished into those little cages. We spent the next day working out of our hotel and interviewing the IDE Than Hoa office staff where we contracted a terrible case of the giggles during our interviews. (Advice: do not use Skype chat with your interview counterparts while conducting interviews.) Our Than Hoa visit ended with a lovely meal outside where the waiter brought a sliced up raw chicken to the table & then dropped it in a broth and let it cook on a mini-stove atop the table.

Thuong Xuan
Then we were back in the field with more interviews to be had. My “interview notes” blog entry came from one of these two days. I must admit, I was feeling a bit worn out from all the travel and heat. The hotel options in TX were very limited and while IDE staff did an excellent job finding us a place, it was the kind of place where you slept above the covers and busted out the pack towel rather than use the towels provided by the hotel. We ate at the same restaurant for so many meals in a row that I lost count. We did a stellar job of making the most of the situation though. In the evenings, we lit a candle in our room, played music from the computer, drank wine, and played cards. I learned to play Spades with some success – despite my Spades partner enjoying too much Vietnamese wine (they call it happy water) one evening & losing her rao (vegetables) in our bathroom. During the days we conducted many interviews and despite feeling run down, I enjoyed meeting the people and seeing their homes. One day we even got to hang with the local leaders of the Communist Party. We sipped tea at a large boardroom table beneath a golden bust of Ho Chi Minh and chatted with the Party leaders.

Hanoi
Next was Hanoi. It was great fun to be back in a bigger city for a change of pace. My favorite thing about Hanoi are the motos and the adorable couples and families piled onto them, zipping around the city. Our hotel was in the old quarter near a small lake and we taxied it to the IDE office each day. We had the most amazing dinner at a swank place downtown. The atmosphere was lounge-y with red fabric billowing from the ceiling & beautiful artwork lining the walls. We met up with a few students from Kellogg who happened to be traveling in SE Asia & we completely cracked ourselves up with tales from our past few weeks. We had the wonderful misfortune of losing electricity in the Hanoi office the next day. After literally sweating it out in the dark while our laptops lost battery power, we had the brilliant idea to move our workday to a hotel. And man, did we pick a hotel. We hit the Intercontinental where we set up shop in the Ambassador Lounge. Despite having zero affiliation with the hotel, they treated us like honored guests and we enjoyed an entire day of glorious air conditioning, iced coffees, and Paninis. These conditions were very conducive to work and we had one of our most productive days yet.

Sapa
We left Hanoi Friday night on the overnight train, headed for Sapa in the northwest of Vietnam and practically on the border of China. The four of us had our own cabin on the train which was quite nice. I learned to play Canasta & despite less than perfect conditions, I managed to have a decent night’s sleep. We arrived at 4:45 in the morning groggy & confused. (We thought the train would get in two hours later.) After an hour bus ride from the train station, we arrived in the town of Sapa which would be our launching point for our two day trek. A group of ethnic minority women and girls greeted us upon arrival (metaphorically speaking) and they followed us on our trek throughout the weekend. Our tour guide was a sweet 18-year old girl named May whose English was excellent & whose cooking was even better. My last blog posting included a link to photos from this trek, so I will spare you all the details. The landscape was breath-taking (as the pictures just couldn’t fully communicate) and the tribal women who accompanied us made very useful companions. The terrain was pretty rugged and quite slippery (especially on the second day), and without them holding our hands, I would definitely have landed on my behind a few times. I knew that my friending of these ladies meant I would need to shell out cash later on by buying their handicrafts, but I just couldn’t help myself. I wished the friendship didn’t have to be synonymous with the cash outlay – but hey, these women spent hours helping us clumsy foreigners experience their villages. We stayed in a home stay with two other travelers from Holland and enjoyed the company of the lady of the house during a delicious dinner.

And Now
Back in Tam Ky – at home base – kinda. Have my own shiny hotel room again, a decent hot shower, and a familiar walk to the office. The food options are limited here, but I ask the Food Fairy from up above for help & tonight she delivered. Ky, our host at the IDE office in Tam Ky treated us to a wonderful vegetarian dinner & then took us to a local coffee shop in the evening. He requested American music & we heard lots of soft rock favorites from past decades. They just love Simon & Garfunkel here. One more full day in Tam Ky & then we are off for weekend travels & then to Hue for our final week of work. Oh, the place I’ve been – and the places I’ve yet to go…

Sapa Photos

Check out our Sapa adventure photos at this link below:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102070&id=530276774&l=2398fe155c

More stories to come soon!

Interview Notes

Soft light filters in through the open window. Two brothers peak in from outside and disappear when I catch their eyes. I notice the light reflecting through the right earlobe of the pig trader we are interviewing. Reminds me of one of Debra’s dance classes back in Cambridge. Dance Complex studio, lights out, watching beautiful bodies moving near the window. Seeing the way the light plays on each other’s muscles and bones, showing through the fleshy earlobes and creating its own dance as we move. I miss dancing. Miss Debra’s classes. Craving home lately. Have a glimpse of what home will be next. Over Skype, I see Paul putting books on our bookshelves and the empty walls waiting for me to fill them with art. Penguin lazily wanders in and out of the frame of the camera. Light through our windows in Charlestown like this window in front of me. I’m writing this on loose-leaf torn from a spiral notebook instead of listening to the price per kg per pig. I hear talk of pig disease. My belly aches. Oogy from something I ate and hungry, but hungry for something safe. Last night there was an animal claw in our vegetables. Seriously, poor Vijay excavated it from his mouth and passed it around subtly so as to not alert our hosts of our discovery. Horrified, we giggled hard under our breath at the absurdity of it all. In this moment, I’m feeling vulnerable from sleep deprivation and too much moving around. So much of this year I’ve been nomadic, and I’m beginning to feel the tug of grounding myself soon. Should pay more attention now. Instead I notice that one of the men on the periphery of the interview is drunk. It is afternoon and I wonder if he is kind to his kids and wife. Rain keeps falling outside – constant and soothing and I’m drowsy. A handsome man so neatly dressed re-enters the room. Is he the policeman? In this province we get a police escort – to protect us and so they can watch us to make sure we’re not doing anything suspicious. Watch us watching them. Us - from far away worlds trying to make sense of their livelihoods. Asking question after question that must seem silly and mundane to them. I sigh. “He wishes he has more quality pigs to sell” the translator says. She’s adorable in her pink-rimmed glasses. She looks only 16 years old but must be much older. It sounds like the interview is coming to a close. The handsome man picks his nose now. There is something gentle in the way he does it. Hum of a car outside. The brothers, inside now, chase each other from right to left in and out of the room. Now left to right and they’re gone. Interview coming back into focus for me. Translator speaks. I watch her delicate fingers gesture against the backdrop of the light coming in the window. Her full lips so perfectly symmetrical. She clicks her pen. Click click. Room chuckles for some reason and I squeeze this last sentence onto the last inch of paper.

Birthday in Vietnam

I’m pretty sure this was my first birthday abroad. Before coming to Vietnam, I wondered what it would be like to celebrate a birthday here - so far from home & my loved ones. I’ve always been a big birthday celebrator. This tradition dates back to the early years at the roller rinks, the bowling alleys, and most popularly, Adventure Land on Long Island. Then there was the Sweet 16 where we closed down the block & had a cover band play. As an adult, my birthday parties have been equally exciting, involving bonfires, body-painting, murder mystery parties, exquisite food, and always stellar company. August 6th, 2009 goes down as an excellent new page in my birthday scrapbook.

In the morning, Supriya, Vijay, and Julie surprised me with a birthday serenade and a beautiful silk skirt that I had been eyeing in a shop the night before. Then before I left for work, Paul & Penguin threw me a party via Skype. There were balloons, a cupcake with candles, presents, and singing. I even made a wish & blew out my cupcake candles from the other side of the world! The day was a full workday, but in the evening on our way back to our hotel, the taxi took a different route and I began to get suspicious. Supriya tried to distract me with talk of marketing channels and pig farmers, but I became keen to the plan. We pulled up to a beautiful restaurant inside the old Citadel in Hue.

White Asian lanterns hung from the trees and a long table was set up outside for us. The entire IDE staff joined us and after much delicious food and beer, the evening got quite silly. Some gentlemen from the IDE staff gave me the nickname of Miss America – or Miss USA – I can’t remember which one. Supriya was Miss Philippines (Supriya is not Pilipino for the record) and Julie was Miss Chicago. When the cake came out, Happy Birthday was sang first in English & then in Vietnamese. It was a warm and joyful night – and I felt like a very lucky gal.

Thanks to my time zone, I got to celebrate my birthday for what felt like 2 days and I enjoyed receiving birthday messages from the day before my birthday to the day after! I am always reflective around the time of my birthday, and this year I felt grateful for so much…mostly for the amazing people in my life. If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of those people. So thank you. My full heart sends hugs and gratitude.

Photos from Bach Ma National Park

Here are photos from last weekend's adventure in Back Ma National Park...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=99466&id=530276774&l=f4471579df

In the Field...2 Days of Interviews in Tien Phuoc

Just wrapping up Day 2 of field interviews in Tien Phuoc. Was fascinating getting out into the villages & interviewing lots of players along the supply chain...the people who sell the pig feed to the farmers; the farmers who sell piglets; the farmers who raise pigs; the buyers of pigs; the butchers; the buyers of pork; the Women's Union reps; vets; agricultural specialists; rice fertilizer pellet producers...and I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting right now.

Learned so much and loved interacting with all the people. Did NOT love seeing the pork in the market, but hey, I guess it is part of the work. Here are some photos with narration from the past two days:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=98954&id=530276774&l=eaf338dd68

Bat Attack in Vietcong Cave...and Other Tales from Bach Ma

Just as I had fallen into slumber, a voice whispered in my ear, “Kelly, honey, just keep your eyes closed and move onto my bed. I have to kill something flying over you.” Still half asleep, I oblige. Julie pounces onto my bed. Armed with her flip flop she begins beating the ground over and over again on a killing mission. Her victim is a thick two-inch long cockroach with wings. I can see it smooshed on the floor as I write this in my journal. If you could see this insect, you’d be as grateful as I am for Julie’s stealth night attack.
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It was the morning of our second day in Bach Ma National Park in Central Vietnam. This lush area was developed by the French in the 1930’s as a getaway from the brutal summer heat. During the “American War” many of the villas the French had built were destroyed, but their ruins still remain. Yesterday we hiked about 12 miles with the help of our guide, Nhan, seeing five lakes, waterfalls, and misty overlooks. Portions of the trails required hanging onto a wire in the side of the mountain to maintain balance on the slippery descent. The park is alive with the buzzing of cicadas, the croaking of toads, and a zillion different bird calls. It is constantly humming. From the top of the park, as the mist clears you can see all the way out to the sea.

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Yesterday, after a simple lunch of white rice and a green leafy vegetable (pronounced rao mone), we began our ascent to a beautiful Buddhist temple on a mountaintop. Before we reached the summit, we saw a hill that was used as a helicopter landing pad for the Americans during the war. Below the landing pad was a long tunnel built by the Vietcong. Nhan took out a flashlight and crouched down to enter the tunnel. Julie put on her head lamp and we followed. The tunnel was large enough to fit one person almost standing straight with about half an arm’s length on either side. There were broken wooden boards in tiny sections of the tunnel that had served as the VC’s mattresses. I felt like we were walking through history and tried to imagine what it was like in that tunnel when it was occupied by the VC.
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Being inside the tunnel with only the light from one torch and one headlamp was eerie, but we were okay, moving forward, and prepared to hit the other side in 15 minutes. That is, until I saw something flying. Everything got a bit confusing after that. Nhan first told us it was a moth, but this was no moth. When it flew at me, I knew it was a bat. Then there it was, sitting on the ground, Julie on one side of it and me and Nhan on the other. Julie refused to walk past the bat which had conveniently planted itself smack in the middle of the path. We froze for an instant. Then Nhan tried to shew the bat out of the way. Vietnamese Dracula took flight, right for Julie. I heard her scream and the light from her headlamp shot all over the tunnel walls and she started running. Nhan tried to calm us both down and told us to turn off the lights so they don’t attract the bat. So now we’re standing in the dark in a tunnel with a bat whose location is unknown to us. I feel something on my leg and I start screaming. And then we’re bolting towards the exit trying to get the hell out of there as fast as we can. Once out in the daylight we are shaken with fear and hysterical with laughter. Nhan – could you have warned us about the bats?

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And for the record, this version of the story leaves out the leaches who found Julie’s foot on today’s hike. Bach Ma – so glad we went – and so glad to be back at our hotel in Tam Ky City. More photos from the weekend to come soon...

Photos from a day in Tam Ky City

Click here for lots of photos from today:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=97233&id=530276774&l=da57e12a86

Hold the Squid...And the Chicken Please

Just returning to my hotel room after a killer game of cards with Julie, Supriya, and Vijay. Hard to believe it: was just last night that I arrived in Tam Ky City. The journey from Hanover to Tam Ky included reindeer dogs at the Alaska airport snack shack; "in-flight entertainment" on a 9-hour flight that consisted of 2 bad movies on a fuzzy screen in the middle of the aisle; five hours hanging out in a smoky Hanoi airport cafe watching Vietnamese pop songs on the tv; and finally a drive from Danang to Tam Ky with 2 strangers who called me Ms. Kelly & spoke almost no English. I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at the hotel and my room had A/C, a hot shower, and no signs of cockroaches or bedbugs. I was even happier when I heard Julie's familiar voice in the hallway & saw Supriya & Vijay's smiling faces for the first time. Tired as I was, I was hungry too so we hit the "town" for some dinner.

The humidity was oppressive & besides some stray dogs in the streets, there weren't many people around. We settled on the first restaurant we saw. The name outside said Dung. We didn't think this was a great name for a restaurant, but we learned today that it is actually pronounced "yum." We attempted to speak English to our waitress and she literally giggled at us and ran away. I decided I would stay away from the meats, as Julie had recently described the cooked dog (full face & teeth) that she saw sold at the market in Hanoi. I wanted to avoid inadvertently ordering dog dumplings. The entire menu was in Vietnamese & none of us had thought to bring a phrase book. We knew the word for chicken - which I also learned today is very similar for the word for yes, blanket, and something else that is not chicken - so we ordered 3 chickens. Vijay was excited to remember the word for vegetable so he ordered me a vegetable plate. Only when my vegetable plate arrived, it was actually a big plate of squid. Oops. I guess we have more work to do on our Vietnamese.

So this morning, our work at the IDE office began with Ky (one of our IDE contacts) teaching us some Vietnamese vocabulary as we scribbled down what he said & butchered the pronunciation of everything. We learned so much today, from how to order vegetables to how many litters of piglets a sow has each year, to gender roles in pig and rice farming....not to mention all that we learned just over dinner tonight. We went out with a group of IDE staff members, including Ky and the small & enthusiastic Trang, plus others whose limited English meant they couldn't enjoy all the ridiculous things we said. We ate delicious steamed clams & giant prawns in a private dining room big enough to just barely fit our one table. At one point I noticed the chicken on the plate in front of me had many parts I didn't recognize. We made the mistake of inquiring about this only to discover we had not only chicken feet and stomach in front of us, but chicken head, eyeball hole and all. Ky picked up the chicken head and made it squawk at us. I think I'm done with chicken here.

Tomorrow we get up bright & early to move to a new hotel that is closer to the office and then begin another day of drinking excessively sweet Vietnamese coffees while contemplating pork production & rice fertilizer.

Hanover - NY - Anchorage - Taipei - Hanoi - Danang - Tam Ky

I leave tonight for Vietnam on an 11:40 flight out of JFK. The journey will be long & unfortunately I won't have any travel companions along for the ride. I started yesterday up in Vermont. Today New York. From there I go to Alaska & then to Taipei in Taiwan & then to Hanoi in Vietnam. Once I arrive in Vietnam & pick up my visa, I get a small plane to Danang City & from there a car for a few hours to Tam Ky, my first destination. Needless to say, I'll be relieved when I arrive.

Once in Tam Ky, I'll be reunited with Julie (see earlier post for info on her) & I will meet Supriya & Vijay for the first time. The four of us will be working as pro-bono consultants for International Development Enterprises, an NGO dedicated to "ending poverty in the developing world by helping farmers invest in their own success." I'll likely be working on a "pork value chain" project with pig farmers in the Quang Nam province. I could also work on a project up north with rice farmers. We'll see when I get there! I just got information on where I'll be staying yesterday - good to know these things at least on day before I leave, right? I expect this adventure to be yet another exercise in dealing with ambiguity & expecting the unexpected.

I've never done a blog, but hey - I love keeping journal entries & taking pictures & sharing them with my loved ones. So here we go...hope you enjoy coming along with me on this adventure. This begins 2 months in SE Asia.

Library Man makes his way to SE Asia

This is Paul, the love of my life. Those of you who knew me 13 years ago know Paul as Library Man, because he worked at the BU Library & I had a mad crush on him as a freshman at BU. That was back in our Goth days (yes, you can laugh at this) & we both went dancing at ManRay in Cambridge regularly. One night at ManRay, Library Man came over & talked to me. I was so ecstatic that I skipped the entire way over the Mass Ave. bridge back to Baystate Road that night. We dated briefly around that time. Things didn't work out then, but we remained friends over many years. Eventually, we realized we were in love with each other & we've been together ever since - must be 8 or 9 years now. Paul has been my travel companion on many adventures, including the grand one we had to India this past winter. All these photos are from our time in India. I'm so sad to say goodbye to Paul for now, but he'll be joining me in Cambodia in September. Keep him company between now & then.

From Chai to Vietnamese Coffee

Julie & I met while on exchange at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. Julie has a great laugh & joyful spirit. We were neighbors in the H block at ISB and share a love for cutting things up on the dance floor, stuffing ourselves silly with biryani, and slurping down chais made by roadside baristas. Here we are doing just that in Chandigarh. Yum. (Note the child barista in the background.) Coincidentally, both Julie & I will be working at L.E.K. Consulting in different cities in the States. When we discovered that our start dates for work were moved to December, the seeds for this recent adventure were planted. Julie said, "hey, want to go work with pig farmers in Vietnam with me?" and I mean, of course, who wouldn't just jump at an opportunity like that...So I guess we'll be trading biryani for noodle soup & chai for Vietnamese coffee.