Da Lat (Central Highlands)

Two days ago we took a comfortable bus ride for 7 hours from hot, hot Ho Chi Minh City up to the city of Da Lat, located in the Central Highlands at 5000 feet elevation. It is a relief to be in the fresher air of the highlands . The bus ride passed beautiful, thickly forested mountains on the way up to the highlands. Here in the highlands there is quite a bit of agriculture, lots of vegetable farming and some coffee growing areas.

Da Lat seems to be a city of about 100,000 people. Da Lat was a popular escape from the hot, muggy lowland coastal region for the French during the colonial period, and it still plays the role for the tourists today. There are many hotels and we found an inexpensive family run one with friendly service and a great breakfast included. We have been enjoying the fruit, eggs, French bread with butter and jam, and especially the extra strong coffee with sweet milk typical in Vietnam. After eating a couple of times in nicer restaurants where you get small portions at high prices, we have settled into a routine of eating delicious, nourishing pho noodle soups and great French bread sandwiches bought on the streets. We have delicious pho in a tiny family owned restaurant with a few rickety tables and stools. The food is cooked and prepared right in the open as you walk into the place. The pho here costs 20,000 dong with meat or 15,000 without, and the sandwiches cost 5000 dong. $1 U.S. =17,400 Vietnamese dong at present.

Yesterday, Ana and I rented a motorbike and rode out to a mountain outside of the city. We parked the bike at the foot of the mountain near a village of the Lat minority people, and started walking up a dirt road and then a poorly marked trail. We walked for a couple of hours and then the last half hour was very steep uphill through dense forest leading to a grassy area at the top with a splendid view of the surrounding countryside and of Da Lat about 15 kilometers away.

Cu Chi tunnels and the American War

Today we took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels located about 60 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City. This is an area where the Vietcong had, over many years, built an extensive underground tunnel system, a 200 kilometer underground network designed to help them fight the war against the American aggressors. Our van, filled with about 14 tourists, headed out of the city. We stopped for about an hour at a workplace where victims of agent orange make beautiful wall hangings. Then we got in a terrible traffic jam and inched our way out of Ho Chi Minh City for about one and a half hours. Finally we broke through the jam and were soon out in the beautiful tropical countryside. We passed a former U.S. infantry base and then arrived at one of two Cu Chi tunnel sites for tourists.

According to our tour guide, the people of Saigon were against the Vietcong and supported the Americans because they brought a lot of business opportunities and provided decent public services. He told us that when the war ended, the Communists took over and expropriated people with property and money and also sent many to "re-education camps". The harsh conditions resulted in hundreds of thousands of boat people leaving Vietnam. He lamented that Saigon had more than doubled in population since 1975 to 8.5 million people. He said that now that everybody can buy a Chinese made motor scooter for about $400, the traffic is a nightmare. Nobody walks. It seems that with full bellies, a motor scooter to get around in, and time to relax with friends drinking iced coffee, life is more than bearable for many, at least in the areas we have visited so far in the south.

Our guide took us around showing us the entrances to the tunnels and how the guerrillas lived, explained how they built the tunnels and protected themselves from attempts to destroy the tunnels. Women participated fully in the war effort. We saw a video, a kind of a propaganda film made in the 60s about the Vietcong struggle and their heroism. We entered one of the tunnels and I crawled in the pitch black tunnel for about 25 feet to arrive at the other side. (It was a claustrophobic and unpleasant experience. We were disappointed when our guide later told us that these are not the real tunnels and that to see the real ones, one needed to go about 20 kilometers further to another part of the tunnel system. Of course, that would cost extra money. But they did seem authentic to me, so I wonder what the real story is.

We also saw a destroyed U.S. tank, a guerrilla kitchen area, several kinds of bombs and guns used during the war, and B52 craters left over from the war. Numerous kinds of booby traps set by the Vietcong were shown and explained as well.

In the afternoon, we were dropped off at the War Museum which offers a well-done account of the war and the resistance fight through photos, exhibits of war materials, children's anti-war drawings, and a section describing the horrific prison system run by the French and later the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies. The focus was on the atrocities committed by the U.S. and there is also a section on the international solidarity efforts that went on in support of the Vietnamese people.

I felt very emotional about being in this museum. In 1968 during the Vietnam war, I was 17 years old. Although I was able to obtain a conscientious objector status to avoid military service (with the help of some good draft counseling from the American Friends Service Committee), some of my classmates got drafted and some served in Vietnam. I was very active in opposing the war from 1965 to the end of the war in 1975, and today's visit to the museum was very moving for me. Long live the Vietnamese people and all peace-loving people! Convert military spending to spending for human needs!

Vietnamese people work long hours

Vietnamese people work extremely long hours either as self-employed or for a small business. There is no such thing as overtime pay and people often work seven days a week. There are so many small family owned businesses and individuals hawking food, lottery tickets or other things on the streets. The last couple days in Long Xuyen I have gone out about 5:30 am to get my exercise. It is about the only time that it is cool enough to do exercise (feels about 80 degrees.) Even though it is still dark, there are many people in the park exercising, doing tai chi, aerobic types of activities, stretching or just walking. The park is a long skinny strip, the median area of a boulevard that stretches several blocks beginning from a market by the river. After I stretch, I go jogging through city streets being careful not to get run over by a motorcycle or bicycle in the semi-dark streets. People are already up preparing their little restaurant or small business for the days activity. Some are sweeping the sidewalk in front of their business or cleaning and setting up their restaurant or street stall. After about a mile, I find a paved path that runs along a canal. There are houses along this path and I pass people up cleaning and preparing breakfast outside. After about 20 minutes of jogging, it is time to turn around and jog back to the hotel, shower and have that wonderful buffet breakfast offered on the roof with a beautiful view.

Today we took a minibus back to Ho Chi Minh City. We arrived in the sweltering, noisy, crowded city about 2 pm, and negotiated with two motorcycle taxi drivers to bring us from the bus station to a hotel area described as a kind of a backpacker ghetto with lots of hotels, restaurants, and agencies hawking various tours and trips. There are many Western tourists here, most of them Europeans, Israelis and Australians and they a lot younger then we are. We mounted the cycletaxis with all our gear and the drivers gunned their way through the crowded blazing streets, weaving in and out of the traffic and passing everybody. It is amazing how at intersections or at traffic circles the drivers manage to get through without smashing into oncoming traffic, kind of like two opposing waves of water that manage to get through each other. It was a harrowing experience for us and we were thankful we made it safely to look for a hotel in the sweltering heat.

Visiting An Giang University

We are staying now in the city of Long Xuyen, not far from the Cambodian border in the Mekong Delta. Today I observed two English classes at the university. The students are all about 18 to 20 years old, mostly female. I was amazed at how advanced their communication skills are. The students speak English very well, seem self-confident, and love to participate in the discussions. The teachers used teaching methods similar to the communicative and more student-centered approach used frequently in the ESL department at City College. In the first class, the instructor used power point to introduce vocabulary and discussions regarding money,banking and income issues. The teacher had the students discuss how to tell if someone is rich and what are the best ways to save money. The students were then asked to tell their partner (randomly chosen) a good way to make money and the partner had to respond why this was not a good reason. This was to practice how to disagree politely. Then the students had to nominate the five best ways to get rich and finally they got to vote on the very best way to get rich. In the second class I observed, 6 groups of students had to do a skit in which two people broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend. The students were very enthusiastic and laughed a lot.

The next day, Ana and I had lunch with several of the faculty members. Three were from the U.S.including one of Vietnamese background, another was from Australia and three from the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. They seem like good friends and several were going on an outing to the beach on the weekend. One of them is doing research on agriculture and was telling us about the heavy use of insecticides and its dangers. The insecticides are necessary because the new kind of rice, although it is more productive because it can be harvested several times a year, requires much more insecticide than the one crop a year kind of rice formerly used. Vietnam has become the second largest rice exporter in the world after the U.S., but at a great cost to the environment and to the small farmers who are being squeezed, according to this source. An Giang University has a large department devoted to studying agriculture.

An English student that we met last night was telling us that some students do not have to pay tuition depending on what your major is. The students have to pass very rigorous tests and be among the best in their high school in order to be eligible to study here.

Mekong Delta Experiences

Leaving the city of My Tho, we hired two motorcycles taxis to take us to a home stay on one of the Mekong tributaries, about 40 miles away. At first we enjoyed the ride as we traveled over the new bridge to Ben Tre, and then along a paved road past beautiful scenery with lush foliage, some rice paddies, and over several channels and small rivers; the road traffic was almost completely motor-bikes and bicycles. It is very common to see women driving their motorbikes. Often there are two, three even four people (the whole family) on a motorbike. But then the trip turned difficult, taking a hot, dusty, dirt road. It was the middle of the day and burning hot. The road was quite bumpy and my reading glasses fell out of my shirt pocket. We stopped but I couldn't find them and we continued on. We stopped for lunch in a dusty, forlorn looking village at a restaurant with a pile of coconuts in front. There was nobody eating in this place and I had my doubts about the cleanliness, but the woman who attended us made a good impression. We invited the drivers to have lunch with us and we all had pho, the great Vietnamese rice noodle soup made with beef or chicken. Ana and I asked for the soup without the beef. The soup comes with a plate of greens including sprouts and some sauces that you may add to your soup. It is really delicious and helps fight off dehydration.

After crossing another river (the Mekong again?) on a ferry we turned off the main road and followed a narrow paved path only about 4 feet wide at the most, past houses, forests, fields, fruit trees, and many people. It was frightening to go over the high narrow bridges over the canals riding on these bikes. We finally arrived at our place and checked into a simple but clean room with a fan and mosquito netting. The place is also has a nursery growing different kinds of flowers and is owned by ex Vietcong fighters who also play some traditional Vietnamese music. We listened to some of the music, but unfortunately were unable to communicate due to language difficulties.

First days in the Mekong Delta

We are staying a couple of days in My Tho, a city on the Mekong River about 75 kilometers (2 hours by bus) from Ho Chi Minh City. We have a very nice hotel, clean with an airy room and a balcony overlooking the wide river, for about $15 U.S. a night. The view is magnificent and we get a nice breeze. We can observe the river traffic and all what's happening on the river. It is time to relax.

The people are very friendly in this town in spite of our language difficulties. I am trying to teach myself some Vietnamese with the help of my guide book and some of the Vietnamese we have met. I use a lot of sign language, too. Another difficult thing is to cross the street, which makes it hard to go for a walk or a run. There is a constant flow of traffic, mostly motorbikes and some bicycles and there are almost no traffic lights. To cross the street, one moves slowly into the flow and the bikes weave around you. It is a little unnerving. Since the traffic is constantly moving, there is less gas consumption that way.

In the afternoon we visited a snake farm run near My Tho. The place is run by the Vietnamese army which breeds the snakes and uses the venom from the cobras to make anti-venom medicine and also sells the snakes for food. The huge pythons are in miserable small cages. There are hundreds of cobras of many colors and sizes, many in its own small screened cage so that you can see them close up if you like. But the most amazing thing was to see hundreds of cobras swimming in an area the size of a small pool with an island in the middle. You have nothing to protect you except a five foot wall that the snakes are unable to climb over.

Vietnam: first impressions

Yesterday we flew from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City. We are staying in a small room in a small guest house tucked away off an ally near the heart of this crowded city. This morning we began a long walk at 6:30 am and walked around for about three hours. First we went through a park with many people doing their tai chi and aerobic exercises. Then we made our way to the Saigon river and walked along the river and found the zoo. After visiting the zoo (beautiful well-kept grounds, but not so great conditions for the animals) for a short while, we continued on our way, getting kind of lost for a while and finally found our hotel.

Crossing streets can be very difficult here since there is a never ending flow of traffic, mostly motorbikes. You have to inch your way across, angling downstream, as the flow of motorbikes weaves around you.

After being in India, Vietnam is kind of a relief. We haven't seen homeless people here so far, and it is cleaner too. There is a lot less visible garbage. But it is more difficult to travel here because people don't speak English like in India. Also, India had the very cheap three-wheeled taxis so convenient to get around in.

Final days in India

During our final three days in India we took a day hike from a small town about 30 miles outside of Jaiper. The town is very old with narrow streets and many crumbling walls and city gates, the usual fort, and a palace converted into a 5 star hotel. We began a long climb up some steps leading to a trail that gets to a temple after about a 2 mile hike passing through rocky, arid country with big boulders and some cactus. We enjoyed the conversation with the young man who accompanied us on this hike. I suspect he wanted to be our guide at first even though we didn't want a guide. We had a wide ranging discussion with him about the problems of society, religion, and gender equality. We veered off the main path before the popular temple continuing another mile or so to a more isolated temple with lots of monkeys around. The scenery was wonderful and the air fresh. We left the man praying to his gods in the small Hindu temple at the end of the trail and made our way back down to the car and rode back to Jaiper.

That evening in spite of the horrendous traffic, we went for another walk near our hotel. We saw so many homeless people on the streets in very desperate straits. We also saw a couple of elephants lumbering through the crowded streets with their human riders on their backs.

The next day was spent driving to Agra, the site of the magnificant Taj Mahal. The Moghul emperor of the time (17th century) ordered the Taj Mahal to be built in memory of his deceased wife. On the way, we stopped in a medium sized city (Barahtpur) and walked around looking at the crumbling old buildings and the fort with a moat around it. We also visited a small English language school and briefly talked with a teacher and administrator there. Unfortunately, the students were not there as the morning classes were finished.

Our last day in India, we got up at 5:30 in order to walk to the Taj Mahal, hoping to catch the 6 am opening to see the sun rising over the site. However, we encountered a long line of tourists waiting to buy tickets and then waited about an hour until the doors opened at 7 am, an hour late and well after the sunrise. This place is truly awesome in so many ways, definitely worth visiting although you would have to endure the extremely aggressive street and stall merchants trying to hustle up some business from the foreigners.

That afternoon we drove to Delhi. It seemed to be practically one city all the way from Agra to Delhi, about 130 miles. It took us about 6 hours because the traffic was so bad. We found Delhi to have a very large quantity of shanty towns and many people in quite desperate straits. Sometimes when waiting in traffic, children would knock on our car window pleading for a handout. It was quite depressing. In spite of the high percentage of homeless people,we have not seen evidence of housing construction for low-income people. All this with India participating in an international military air show extravaganza in Bangalore this week. What mistaken priorities. Reminds me of the United States.

In the evening, we drove by the independence monument in New Delhi located in the wealthy sector where the embassies can be found. Then, Shambhu brought us to the airport. We paid him a hefty tip, said goodbye, and entered the airport to await our 1 am flight to Bangkok.

More on Rajasthan

Rajahsthan is a heavily populated (56 million) desert province of northern India west of Delhi. Rajasthan seems much poorer than Kerala; there are a lot more miserable people living on the streets and at times we have been accosted by people demanding a contribution. these are people who eat, sleep, on the street, have no access to running water or a toilet. When you give to one, you may be surrounded by several others in the vicinity demanding payment; it is an extremely uncomfortable and delicate situation. You also see some terrible shanties and sizable shanty neighborhoods in the cities.

Rajasthan is also one of the most popular tourist destinations in India because of its many palaces and ancient forts, many of them built on hillsides, its colorful street life, and its crafts and art. The women wear beautiful saris, there are markets all over, and you can see many camels pulling carts. We also saw an elephant lumbering down a boulevard in Jaiper.

Yesterday we visited a fantastic fort and palace built in the 15th century in Jodpur (the blue city). It is amazing to see how the rajahs lived with their many wives and very interesting to learn about the history of the place, the many conflicts and actually see the artifacts associated with this history.

We are getting along really well with our driver, Shambhu. He is very considerate and always helpful to us. He stops when we want to take a picture, to use the "open toilet" or go for a hike. We always invite him to have a meal with us and he takes us to some cool lunch stops where you can have a "thali" for the equivalent of about a dollar. A "thali" is a complete Indian meal with a little bit of several dishes: at least one veggie dish and legume based stews, some rice, a little curd (sour yogurt), a little cucumber salad and some chapatties, for instance. You don't get a whole lot of any one thing, but the cooking here is excellent wherever we have been. We haven't had one bad meal in India, and haven't really gotten sick either.

Moving around Rajasthan

The next day, we visited nearby Sariska park in the morning. We walked around with a required guide for an hour along a river and saw bird life and the skin of a sizable snake. Then we got back into the car and drove to Jaiper, Rajasthan's capital and largest city.

Jaiper is an overcrowded, chaotic city, fast growing with heavy traffic, constantly honking horns, dirty, dusty, extremely busy and commercialized and many poor people including many beggers and homeless people in very dire circumstances. It is strange and disturbing to be confronted by such beggers, some of them children or mothers with children looking hungry and dirty, and then later sit down to a delicious Indian meal.

The following day we continued on our journey traveling another 175 miles (5 hours) to a smaller city, Bikaner. There, we took a tour of the impressive fort and palace of the majaraja which lies in the heart of the city. The museum included many items from the heyday of Moghul rule in the 17th and 18th century before the British took over as well of some photos of the Maharaja and his family during the 19th and 20th centuries.

From Bikener we drove another 200 miles west towards the border with Pakistan. As one travels west the terrain gets drier and more desert-like. Yesterday we stayed in a tent near some sand dunes in a beautiful desert. We were the only ones staying in this tent hotel and enjoyed the moonlit evening and the dry and warm desert air. Around 5 pm two local boys took us on a camel ride to some sand dunes about 2 kilometers away. It was our first time riding a camel; we enjoyed the late afternoon air and the fine view, said goodbye to the boys who accompanied us on the camels, and then walked back to our tent watching the sun go down. Later that evening we went to a nearby place to hear live Indian music and watch dancing by two lovely young women wearing beautiful colorful costumes. The musicians used drums, flutes and other instruments which I don't know the name of. After the women danced for a long time and did some acrobatics , one did nervy things like bending over backwards and picking up a razer blade with her eyelids. Then, a man in a colorful dress danced energetically while balancing a large wooden thing about 5 feet tall that he placed on his head. He did all kinds of amazing dances and movements while balancing many different things on his head and also balancing things on his feet. He also danced on mashed glass (it appeared) and somehow didn't get bloody feet. At the end, the dancers invited the audience to join in and dance together (men with men and women with women), many of whom did. Then we walked back under the starry night sky to our candle lighted tent.

It is worth noting that we feel very safe in India pretty much where ever we have gone. We walk around in the village and in the desert without a guide and have no lock to our tent. The traffic on the other hand, is really something else. In India single road lanes become three way traffic sometimes, and two lane highways often spontaneously become three and four lane highways when the situation demands it. So far, at least, we have seen a great deal of cooperation among the drivers to avoid accidents and have yet to see any driver lose his temper.

Rajasthan beginning

On Tuesday morning we took a 3 hour flight from Kerala to Delhi in the north of India. We were picked up at the airport by Shambhu Dayal, our driver and guide for the 9 day tour of Rajasthan we have booked. This is our second tour since we have started traveling together 25 years ago. We enjoy the independence of traveling on our own (and the lower price). However, to avoid the stress of traveling on our own here and booked this economical tour.

From the airport, we drove about three hours to get to our hotel near the Sariska Tiger Reserve. Sadly, there probably aren't any tigers left here due to poaching we are told. However, there are lots of birds, wild pigs, antelope, and snakes including cobras and pythons.

We were the only ones staying at this quiet hotel with beautiful grounds and architecture. I told the young man at the hotel who helped us to our room that we wanted to go for a hike and he offered to go with us. We took a trail from the back of the hotel going past some fields, an old Muslim temple, and up the nearby mountain. The three of us started to walk through the dry scrub land with a few trees and bushes. We walked past a very poor small village, no more than a few houses. We climbed up a rocky path passing some sheperds and hundreds of sheep and goats on the way down. As it was getting late we decided to turn around and stopped on the way back to talk to the people by the cluster of houses. We met two women, dressed with beautifully colored saris, an older man with a turban and about 20 children. The kids had attended school that day. One woman wearing a beautiful purple sari covered her head and stayed away from us. A small child was playing with clay. The other friendly woman offered hot tea (very sweet with milk) and Ana played with the baby. We asked the kids to sing a song and then we briefly sang "This land is your land" for them which I am sure they didn't understand since this group was not fluent in English. We communicated with the help of our friend from the hotel sho, although he spoke some English, was quite difficult to understand. Apparently the men were still working in the nearby fields, ripe with tomatoes, wheat, onions and other produce. These people were extremely poor and we gave each woman 50 rupees and one woman responded by offering us her beautiful shawl which we declined. We took some photos (to the delight of the kids) and continued back to our hotel.

Getting lost and an excursion to the backwaters of Cochin

Last night we wandered along the waterfront through the crowded city and tried to come back along a canal but got lost in what appeared to be a predominently muslim neighborhood. The waterfront area has these huge "Chinese fishing nets" that the Chinese sailors introduced between 1350 and 1450. The nets are lowered into the water via a pulley system for a time, and when they are brought back up the the fish and other seafood is harvested. Some of the fine looking fish is sold right there on the waterfront and you can have it cleaned and put on a grill for you.

Walking back along the canal we realized how primitive and bad the living conditions here are for this community. There are open sewers and a lot of garbage and filth. Family life does go on and you see people washing, getting water and talking to their neighbors. It was just after dusk and everybody was out when the lights went out and we had to try to continue in the dark streets. At this time the muslim call to prayer service was very loud and we also noticed that only men were out on the street. We were getting nervous about our situation and after a while found a rickshaw to bring us back to our hotel.

Today we went on an excursion to the backwaters of Kochi which is on a peninsula. We went with about 14 other tourists, most from Europe and one Indian man who owns a restaurant in London. First, we were driven about 25 miles to a beautiful spot on a wide river where we got on two boats and were paddled through some narrow channels that run through the thick, shady, palm dominated foliage. It was really beautiful. We stopped at a house along this channel and watched how the people make rope out of coconut husks. We were explained the process. Then we went to another place and saw how coconuts are used to make coconut oil which is used for cooking, shampoo and other things here in Kerala. We were told that the rope production is organzied through a cooperative and that the people pretty much share the profits. The women do this work and the men go out and try to supplement the family income in other ways such as digging sand. Also, Kerala's Communist-led government limits how much land an individual can own (15 acres max) and helps to subsidize the income of these people. We were told that education is free until 15 years old and there is free medical care too and that nobody starves in Kerala. There is also a two child policy here. Our gudie was very positive about the govenment of Kerala. Two of our group said that they had seen a workers march of several thousand people a few days ago. The unions are very strong here in Kerala.

We were also shown many different kinds of trees and plants including pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, bay leaf and other spices.

Lunch was included in the package and the tour leader had us all sit down along a narrow wooden table. Another group of excursionists, I think from Pakistan and India, joined us. We were given a green banana leaf which served as a plate and then the servers came around and dished out rice and a variety of stews and other tasty concoctions to eat together with the rice.

Fort Cochin

This morning we took the 6:55 train to Cochin, a six hour ride. We rode in the first class air-conditioned wagon this time. The countryside of Kerala is truly magnificent. Kerala is appropriatly called the land of the coconut trees as we see millions of these beautiful trees everywhere and there are so many rivers, marshlands with bird life, rice paddies and canals.

I was reading in my guide book about the agricultural problems India has had in recent years. It seems the much touted "Green Revolution" contributed to a growing disparity of wealth and has driven many poor farmers to give up and move to the urban slums or even to commit suicide. Free trade agreements (pushed by both Clinton and Bush) have limited government provided help for farmers who find it hard to pay for the seeds and chemicals required. There have been many protests. In Bangalore, I was reading in the papers about an upcoming conference of organic farmers. 50,000 was the expected attendance.

Cochin is a very old city and there is quite a bit of tourism in the area known as Fort Cochi. The Portuguese established themselves here and had two churches built in the 16th century. Then the Dutch took over, followed by the British until India's independence.