Odd facts

March 3rd was mostly just cruising on the boat so I am going to use this blog post to tell you about things that are interesting but don't need their own post.

The trees in Saigon have numbers on them.  It is so one can report to authorities that "Tree number 7 on Naga street is looking sickly."  The trees inside the park numbered over 1,500.  They really like their trees in Saigon.

Naga is the first being on the world according to the Buddhist creation story.  Naga is a snake father and always has an odd number of heads. Naga is the normally used in temple architecture for the banisters of the stairs. Cambodian Buddhists like odd numbers except on Wedding Days.  Cambodian statues of Buddha are slimmer and more youthful then in Chinese and Vietnamese which have a fat jolly Buddha.  

We were on a boat with 52 other guests, the two guides and 30 crew members.  They all remembered my name, my food intolerance and my likes.  I know that most of them are from Cambodia and that they spend 10 months on the boat with no full day break.  We left around 10 am and the next group boarded the boat at 4 pm.  I also know they serve enough alcohol on that boat to keep the Titanic afloat.

Speaking of the Titanic, I saw a restaurant in Phnom Penh that was named the Titanic.  It was huge, on the waterfront (with long stilts holding it over the river) and the guides had no idea why we were not interested in eating there.  There was also a Titanic Hotel in Hanoi but I am getting ahead of myself.

We are blessed

On Sunday, March 2, we went to visit the Udon Buddhist Monastery which is 70 minutes drive from Phnom Penh (which is said Pa-nom Pen.)  70 minutes drive could really only be 20 miles as the dirt roads are not made for driving over 20 mph with many stops for the cows and water buffalo in the road plus the pot holes that could hold large children in them.  The bus easily avoided them by driving into on-coming traffic and the traffic yielded to it.  I am thinking the rule is that the bigger you are the more vehicles must yield to you.  Also, traffic signals are only suggestions.

At the Monastery, we learned that Udon was really a place for charity.  It was a big facility with housing for the Monks, Nuns, boys who had been sent to learn from the monks, orphans and widows/divorced women.  Everyone worked at the facility and everyone was welcome.  The monks have a routine that is kept by everyone. Get up very early, eat, then go to the village to collect the daily donations of food and money.  After that eat again before 11 am then spend the afternoon in study and prayer before going to sleep early.  They do not eat after 11 am every day.  I am not sure about the eating habits of nuns, women and children.

We sat on mats around two monks, making sure the bare bottoms of our feet did not show to the monks. One chanted while the other echoed the prayers for 5 minutes. Then they gave their blessing us by tossing tiny white jasmine buds on our crowd.  They came down like a fragrant summer storm with cold wet kisses when they touched our skin.  I will never smell jasmine again without thinking of that moment.

That evening back on the boat, we were treated to a group of orphans who danced to help supplement the income of their center.  The girls did the traditional Khmer dances with the help of some of the older boys.  The older boys had a dance representing the fight of good and evil (which in Cambodia is the demons vs the monkey solders.) Then the younger boys did the dance of the monkeys and they really looked like monkeys with their little feet scratching their ears and their rough housing.  There was a dance that was kind of like jump rope except they used two long planks of wood.  The children jumped into the space between the wood and then back out before the two on the ends clanked the pieces of wood together.  Since I was easily the youngest guest on the boat, when they asked for volunteers, I was chosen.  It was fun but the kids went slow so to not catch my feet in the planks.

The highlight of the evening is when the boys who were likely around 7-12 years old performed a Michael Jackson Medley that looked move for move like this 1995 MTV performance . This included a boy that had white face paint, loafers and a fedora. We were so impressed that we could not stop clapping.  The kids were having so much fun that they took turns free style dancing to the tune of Gangnam Style.  I will never forget their little faces.

3 Years, 8 months and 20 days

On Saturday March 1st, we spent the morning at the Cambodian King’s palace.  There are 3 thrones in the throne room.  One for the King that he sits on once on his coronation day, one that the King sits on daily and one raised above the others is for the Queen. However, the Queen is the mother of the King, never the wife of the King.  They revere the mother of the King above all. Also, the new King is chosen by a group of (I believe) Cambodian nobles when the old King retires. The King now happens to be the son of the former and beloved previous King, but that is not always the case.  It seems that this King, who is 60 and not married, will not have children but because the crown is not inherited, it is not an issue to the people of Cambodia.

In the afternoon, we went to a Killing Field and S-21 prison. If you do not know, on April 17, 1975, after the American forces pulled out of southeast Asia, the communists of the Khmer Rouge took over  Cambodia.  There has been a lot written about this time but simply put, one quarter of the population were slaughtered after being brutally tortured to “confess” their crimes. Another million fled the country. If you were a teacher, engineer, doctor, lawyer, wealthy businessman, dancer for the King, worked in any government office or looked cross eyed at the wrong person, you were arrested.

The guide said all the confessions were written down for each victim as they were tortured and that for example a 19 year old girl once confessed to being a spy for the CIA and the KGB before being taken from the S-21 prison (which was a high school before 1975) to the “Killing Field” which was a place where they killed the people and buried them in mass graves. The Khmer "did not arrest innocent people” so very few survived and only 2 are alive today.  We saw one that was signing his autobiography at the S-21 prison.  He said in his book that he felt he must tell his story to try to insure it doesn’t happen again.

Those who were not being arrested did not have it much better. They evacuated all the cities and forced everyone to work long hot grueling hours farming in rice fields.   Anyone sick, weak or elderly were working slowly because they were a spy and they were undermining the work ethic of the country. So, they were sent arrested too. Children were taught to spy, even against their own family.  Families were separated and one had no idea what had happened to their loved ones.  The Khmer Rouge built things like channels and ducts for irrigating the rice fields based on theory without engineers or anyone who knew what the hell they were doing and so most of their creations did not last long. Idiots.

On January 7, 1979, the United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea was able to chase the Khmer Rouge into the jungle.  All documents, books, records, history of Cambodia that the Khmer Rouge could get their hands on had been destroyed.  When the people returned to the cities, there was no record of who owned a house or property. The new government had to say the house belongs to the person who is living in it. People would live close to their original home in hopes that love ones would return, one day.  Some are still waiting.

The children of Vietnam

I am behind but I want to keep this all in some kind of order.  On Friday, February 28th, we spent the morning in Tan Chau, a river village on the shores of the Mekong.  First at a fish farm and then on a rickshaw ride.  The fish farm was not well named because it was basically a floating house with a hole in the floor.  The in the hole there was a very large cage in the water and the fish were in the cage. We were allowed to feed the fish and then they had items for sale.  I got brightly colored scarves and they gave me a white bag to put them in.

The rickshaw ride was a rather precarious venture. The driver was up front and I was on a raised platform behind with no leg room and no back rest.  The guide yelled to everyone as we all sat in our places, “Don’t lean back.”  He was puzzled that we all giggled nervously, but then again he was puzzled that we laughed when he said, “No one has gotten the GI problems in this group… yet.”  Maybe we just have gallows humor.

So after the ride, happy to stretch our legs, we walked around Vinh Hoa and talked to the local children.  They saw my bag with bright colors inside and thought I had candy for them. After I convinced them that I had none, they walked with me. A little girl convinced her toddling brother to hold her hand and mine.  We walked down the way like that for a long while.  They were all healthy and happy abet very dusty.  This area is all dust in the months between the rain storms. The children practiced their english words on me. “Apple Juice” “Fruit Juice” “Orange” (meaning the color as a little girl pointed to her shirt) “Banana” “Rain” “Clouds” “Cow” “Chicken" 

Their families all were farmers. They grew corn, eggplant, tiny hot red peppers, pumpkins, very long green beans and a green yellow squash type thing that grew on a vine on a wooden frame.  The children went to school either in the morning or the afternoon depending on their grade level. In the rainy season, their family has to take the kids to school in a boat.  In the dry season, they walk or bike. They had nothing to sell, were not looking for handouts and there was not a pick pocket among them.  They were just happy to see us and to talk to us. I will admit however that they descended like seagulls on a woman who gave them a pack of gum.  

Sugar is the universal language. 

Good Morning Vietnam

This morning I woke to a strange noise.  It sounded like a huge flock of sick seagulls but as I stepped outside I realized it was roosters crowing, dogs barking and cattle mooing.  I believe every farm down the river has a bunch of roosters and each were greeting the sun.  It was a cacophony of animal sounds and I cannot imagine being one of those farmers who live with that every morning.  Then again, it sounded better to me then Justin Bieber on my alarm clock radio so maybe they have the right idea after all.

Our boat left Cài Bè for Sa Dec this morning. The anchor chain goes right under our room so we can hear when it drops and when it is brought up.  There are 4 decks on our boat.  The first floor has the movie room, the massage parlor and crew cabins. The second floor has guest rooms (including ours) and the dining room. The 3rd floor has more guest rooms and the bar/ WiFi room. The fourth floor is the sun deck.

In Sa Dec, we took a morning trip to a local market.  It was a long street filled with stalls selling all kinds of things. Fresh fruit and veggies, large live fish in a small baby pool, skinned chickens and ducks, furniture, baskets, and so much more. We tried some of the local fruit. I liked the lady finger banana, dragon fruit and mini orange but there is a slimy white fruit that has an acquired taste that I did not acquire. 

Zoo Day

The whole day was a zoo but I literally started my day at the zoo. The animals looked better treated then I expected. There were lots of families with little children and schools on field trips.  There was also young solders being trained to march with large weapons on their shoulders. (excuse the bad photo, I was shooting from the hip.) However, the solders were about as threatening as the school children.

We left Saigon on an hour bus trip to the boat.  There was a new toll road that Japan helped Vietnam to build that made our journey much smoother and faster.  We took a quick stop at an odd little church where they seemed to believe there is one God in many reincarnations.  Jesus was there with many other deities.

After boarding the boat and settling in, we took a trip to a floating market.  We saw candies being made from coconut and rice.  We drank snake rice wine (which made white lightning taste like fine wine) and I got to pose with a live Burmese Python.  We got back to the boat around sunset.

The boat is very nice and offers everything you could want.  Our room is plenty big enough and the crew is eager to please.  Our captain is from Germany and the rest of the crew is local but they all can speak English.  

I was out like a light after dinner and missed the evening movie.

 

Traffic in Saigon

Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it is still called by the locals, is a beautiful city. It has wide streets, trees, parks and it is very clean.  There are 9 million people who live in Saigon and 4.5 million motor bikes (like Vespas and small engine bikes, not motorcycles.)  The way people drive over here made me scared to get in a bus at first but by the end of the day, I think I understand it a little better.  

Cars and Buses have right of way. They beep their horns to say, “hello, I am here, don’t bump me.” if someone else is a little too close.  They beep their horns a lot but it never seems rude or mean.  I did not see an accident or anyone using their cell phone while driving (and everyone has an iPhone here too.)

The bus will pull out on to the street while 10 motor bikes are just about to pass by.  The motor bikes are expected to slow and change course.  They are like a river.  If you throw a boulder in their way, they just flow around it.  They go on the sidewalk, they move in front of other motor bikes, some may even go over the lines into a lane of oncoming traffic. All are acceptable ways for motor bikes to deal with cars, buses and pedestrians that pull in front of them. Crossing the street for the first time scared many of the people in my travel group but I was okay.  They are going at a slow enough speed that they maneuver around pedestrians.  

So, if you are ever in Saigon and must cross the street, here is how you do it. Wait until no cars or buses are coming and just a few motor bikes are coming. Then step out far enough for them to see you, walk at a brisk pace (don’t run or stop) and expect the motor bikes to drive around you, they will not stop either.

There are normally 2-3 people per motor bike.  I have a couple of photos of children riding in front of the seat of the motor bikes.  There are motor bike taxis run by old men who have retired from their main job but are still able to drive.  The guide said that is a hard job because of the air quality and that these men do not live as long.  Helmets seem to be optional but most wear them.