A Quick Visit to Hoi An

Hoi An (which, I just noticed, anagrams to Hanoi) is listed among The 1000 Places to Visit Before You Die, but for the life of me I don't know why. For one, it is way, way too touristy. Older son compared the number of white people (Westerners) seen there to the number seen on the Downtown Mall at home. And while the vendors in Hue's Dong Ba market will generally let you pass if you politely decline what they are offering, those at Hoi An will literally grab you and pull you into their stall. Their prices are also inflated compared to those in Hue. All that said, I did take a few photos there that might be worth sharing. Like this flower? If you look closely, you'll see that the it's made of dried squid. For comparison, here's a real flower. And here's another one. Sometimes the flowers are floating. These dragons were on an altar in one of the shrines. I'm not sure what sort of ceremony these monks were performing, but it was interesting to watch. Hoi An is noted for its colorful lanterns and has a lantern festival each month in conjunction with the lunar calendar. One of the attractions of Hoi An is a Japanese covered bridge. This is another bridge. A window in one of the houses we visited. Finally, this is one of those quirky things I just had to photograph. Hoi An now somewhat disposed of, let me set up my next couple of blog posts by positing that you haven't lived until you've (1) careened through the countryside with a driver who can't take his hand off the horn and who may or may not know where he's going, (2) tried to shoot (as in photograph) water buffalo while doing (1), (3) walked through ruins of a temple complex active from the 4th through 13th centuries and for which the guidebooks say not to "stray far from the towers and marked paths, as unexploded mines may still be in the ground" (emphasis in the original), and (4) gone 45 meters beneath the earth in a North Vietnamese tunnel complex. I left out the one about eating a somewhat formal dinner with some of the higher-ups of Hue University at which my glass of beer miraculously refilled itself whenever I looked away. Suffice to say I did not embarrass myself or my husband, and I was able to walk down the staircase at the end of the evening and not trip over the ankle-length skirt I was wearing.

Myo Sim on the Road, Parts 2 and 3

Several important people commented on the lack of kiais in the first video posted. In older son's defense, he was on a public monument (albeit at the back) with people at a cafe to the cameraperson's (yours truly's) left and other people behind her. Not wanting to draw any more attention to himself than he was already, older son kiaied in the spirit of Sunday morning kendo on the gym floor, by exhaling sharply w/out vocalizing. The same holds true in the Part 2 video, the jungle/temple installment, done at the My Son complex south of Hue. We were to the back of one set of ruins but on a public path. Besides not wanting to intrude on the spiritual nature of the place, we also didn't want the guide or any other visitor to think there was something wrong and come running around. Finally, to put the video that follows in context, here's the path on which older son did the kata, Am Hak. And here, for your viewing pleasure, is Am Hak done at a temple in the jungle. Part 3 of the kata-on-location assignment proved more problematic than expected. First, the Vinh Moc tunnel complex was a Viet Cong tunnel complex, belonging more appropriately to the North Vietnamese. Secondly, it's basically pitch black in there, and my digital camera won't shoot video requiring a flash. Finally, we had guides at front and end of the line to ensure that no one was left behind (at our deepest, we were 45 meters beneath the surface). The compromise was that older son moved through the passageway as much as he could in fight stance while practicing parts of the kata. I photographed from the rear, and younger son photographed from the front. Here's as much of Am Hak as we could shoot, done in a tunnel. If these don't suffice, it is possible we will be able to shoot underground on a bit grander scale, as we're scheduled to visit the Phong Nha cave in two weeks. Before that, though, is the beach, so stay tuned for more Myo Sim on the Road.

Myo Sim on the Road

I couldn't figure out how to upload a video clip to Facebook, so let's see if it will work here. This is older son practicing a second dan karate kata or form called Am Hak (Crane on a Rock) at the base of the Imperial Monument in Hue. The ledge he is doing it on is a bit under five feet deep. It's also pockmarked and dotted with shards of glass; hence, he's doing the kata in sandals rather than the traditional bare feet.



And to be fair to older son, here are two still photographs of yours truly doing a simpler form called Elbow 1 on the same ledge. Photos also exists of younger son doing the same simpler form, but since they're on his camera, I don't have access to them.
The plans for the weekend have changed, "weekend" being Sunday and Monday, the two days the husband doesn't teach. Instead of spending Saturday at the beach, we'll be in Hoi An, an important trading port from the 16th to 18th century; it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. We'll also visit My Son, a temple complex that was active longer than any other in Southeast Asia, including Angkor Wat. I'm hoping that the terrain around My Son will be enough of a jungle to allow older son to perform the same kata there in response to a challenge from one of our master karate instructors. Monday, we're still set for a tour of the DMZ and other war sites. If the part of the Vinh Moc tunnel that we visit is the one that's two meters high, he'll do it again there. Have kata; will travel.

Another Day, Another Walk

I would call spending a month in one place “living there” and cite as evidence that I have already twice said to one son or the other “when your dad gets home.” No, it wasn’t the threat it might have been in days past; it was just a statement of when we might do something. I say all this to lead into the fact that one of the luxuries of living in a place as opposed to visiting it or, on an even shorter scale, just passing through it, is that you don’t have to rush to do something. Our plans for today included finally visiting the Citadel and the Imperial City. Did we make it? No. Did we have another great walk through some new parts of the city? You bet!

The plan was that the sons and I would reconnoiter a walk this morning that went around the Imperial City, and then the husband would join us this afternoon for a similar walk but this time actually going into the Imperial City. Thursday is the day that the husband lectures from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. The plan was for him to get tomorrow’s lectures ready, meet us for lunch at 1:00, and then we’d do the second walk. It was already quite hot when the sons and I set out at a bit past 9:00. I’m still contemplating changing my Facebook status to something like “Jean had to choose DEET or sunscreen; since the walk was by water, DEET won.”

The first part of the walk was down the river to one of the main bridges. Can you imagine this as the Kinko’s of Charlottesville? Yep, that’s a free-standing stall, maybe 10 feet by 10 feet if that, and by all appearances it is a major copy center. If you wonder where the power comes from, it might be something like this, from a shot I took later on the walk. Yep, that’s an electrical outlet on a tree. The wire comes down from the top. People make do with what they can here, and if that means making do with what they have. If that means rigging an outlet onto a tree, that’s what they do. Just past the FujiFilm copy center, we stopped at another stand so older son could purchase a notebook. The shopkeeper was quite gregarious and spoke much better English than most of the shopkeepers we’ve encountered. Before too many minutes had passed, she was helping older son with some Vietnamese phrases he’s been trying to learn, and I was reviewing some English she’d written in her journal to help her practice. Her motivation and enthusiasm were so incredible that later, I took the husband by, and we helped her with some more of her writing. I told her I would try to come back and see her again tomorrow, and I may take her one of the novels I brought along with the intention of leaving them here. Although her English is relatively very good, I think the Tolkien ones would be a real reach, so that leaves Ender’s Game. I will have to make sure she understands the science fiction nature of it.

We took another swing through Dong Ba Market, at which time younger son made a very interesting observation. When we walked through there before, on our rainy day walk, the ground was covered in mud. Not three-inch deep mud like we had at the Fall Fiber Festival two years ago, but mud nonetheless. Younger son noted that the path on which we were walking was not, in fact, a dirt path, but some form of asphalt. Where the mud came from, we don’t know, but muddy it was in the rain. We went through the market fairly quickly, though we did stop to purchase the latest addition to the homestead here. Younger son got one, too, (actually, younger son got two), so there’s a hammock on their balcony as well. I almost dozed off while reading there, the breeze was so pleasant.

After the market, we crossed an inlet off the river into another one of the neighborhoods I doubt many tourists hit here. I again wrestled with wanting to get some photos of daily life without being too intrusive. I usually tried to do this by looking as if I were taking a longer range shot, then quickly changing the angle and zoom to get the more personal shot. The boats below were on one side of the inlet, and the people washing clothes are on the other. In the case of the people, I tried to look as if I were taking a shot of the distant view rather than a closer-up onehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif. We were guiding ourselves using the “Walking Tour of Hue” brochure developed by Mr. Cu, the owner of the Mandarin Café. Marked as being along the street on which we were walking were the Bien De Pagoda and the Chun Ong Temple. (Both of those names have some of the assorted diacritical marks common in Vietnamese, but I am not about to try to figure out how to do those in Blogger.) We did see these buildings, but in all honesty I did not find them as interesting as the everyday things such as the woman fishing for what I think were shellfish using a huge net she put down into the water and then folded together to lift and empty. There were also several altars in trees and on tables along the street. I don’t really know the significance of these, though we did ask Mr. Cu about the rituals we saw being performed the other evening in which a complete dinner was set on an outside table, with incense lit in a ritualistic manner. Mr. Cu said that it was a ceremony dedicated to one’s ancestors and performed twice each lunar month, in association with the new moon and the full moon.

There were also some boys who wanted to mug for the foreign photographer
and a cyclo driver taking a siesta, and even a rooster hamming it up. I told the sons to keep this walk in mind when we got to Amsterdam, that I was greatly reminded of the canals there. The houses on the streets are different, but the water flowing, the streets along each bank, it all gave me much the same feeling. When we got to the end of the street along which I took all these photos, the map had us crossing a bridge. Unfortunately, said bridge did not look at all pedestrian friendly, so the sons argued for just going back the way we came. I argued a bit for making it all an adventure, but after a couple more motorbikes whizzed by, I conceded the two-to-one vote and back we went. Truth in advertising requires that I say here that some of the previous photos were taken on the way up the street, while others were taken on the way down.

The rest of the walk was not nearly as scenic as the first part. Did I mention it was hot? We walked down one street that had more electronics places than I think exist in all of Charlottesville. There was not, unfortunately, a café selling water. I got a bit cranky, a situation swiftly relieved when we got to the end of the street and found water. How dehydrated was I? Well, let’s just say I had no need to rush back to the hotel room’s bathroom despite downing a 1.5 liter bottle of water on the rest of the walk. I have gone back and forth as to whether I should post what is probably the most interesting image from that part of the walk, which was through a predominately business district. I finally decided to post it but offer up front the caution that I hope it does not offend anyone. One reason I travel is for the differences I see in other cultures. You would certainly not find this bottle holder in the States, and it is the only such one I have seen here, but I thought it merited a photo. I should also note that to the left of the figures shown were a series of white figures (dressed similarly) facing the black ones.

On the horizon are a welcome dinner, tomorrow, put on by the university for the husband and the other UVa professor teaching here at the same time; a day at the beach 14 km from here (the mouth of the Perfume River) on Sunday; and a 12-hour tour of the DMZ and other war sites (including one of the tunnel complexes) on Monday. In other words, stay tuned.

Routines

It seems we're settling into a bit of a routine here after only a couple of days. In case anyone is wondering what it's like to live in a hotel room for a month, I don't think it will be too bad, at least not here. For one thing, the sons have their own room, just across the hall area outside the elevator. For another thing, it's not the hotel we stayed in for one night in Ho Chi Minh City. To make my point, here are two shots of that room taken from corners diagonally apart. I took the first one from the corner into which the door to the room opened. The second photo I took from the corner shown in the first shot, up by the head of the bed. In the second shot, the door shown at the left is the door into the room. The middle door is the closet, and the door on the right is to the bathroom. As you can see, it was a pretty darn small room. And if you're thinking that you don't see any windows, you're correct. There weren't any. I told the husband as we were packing to leave for Hue, that our hotel room here had better (1) be bigger and (2) have a window. It won on both counts, as you'll see in a minute. I will say that having a totally interior room made for a quiet room which, given the traffic and honking in Ho CHi Minh City, is no small matter. I can, however, say that the room had a cute trash can.

So, our room here in Hue is larger. Here's a photo I took from the entry hallway, where the door to the bathroom is. That's the husband there, surveying the chaos. When I took this photo, we were still getting organized. Now that we have some clothes put into the small wardrobe, and the suitcases positioned nicely on the twin bed, it's looking pretty homey. The curtains cover picture windows or, more specifically, a sliding glass door out to a small balcony, the railing of which would never be allowed in the US given liability lawsuits.

As I said at the outset, we're settling into a bit of a routine. We get up at 6:00 and shower, and then knock on the sons' door when we're ready to head down for breakfast. They join us, which is nice. It's the first time in almost a decade that we've had five family breakfasts in a row. After breakfast, the husband leaves for the university, and the sons retreat to their room, sometimes to go back to sleep. I come to our room and organize photos from the day before or, as I am doing now, work on a blog post. In a while, the maids will have worked their way up to this floor (the fourth), and the sons and I will take the Scrabble board and tiles down to a breakfast table in the lobby for a game. It's becoming something of a spectator sport, with a different staff member watching us each day. I had planned to take the board and tiles (purchased at a thrift store) home to use in creative endeavors, but I may end up leaving them here if the staff is interested in having them.

After Scrabble and room-cleaning, we've been heading out to walk. We usually don't have a plan of where we'll go; we just make it up as we go along. Judging by my digital pedometer, we walk somewhere between five and ten miles. Lots of photography happens, as you can see here. That's younger son with the ponytail. He's carrying three cameras: the Canon digital SLR we gave him for high school graduation, my old Canon EOS film camera, and his dad's old Nikon film camera. He's shooting color film in one and black and white film in the other. I'm carrying two digital cameras, one an SLR identical to younger son's. Older son just has one digital camera but is using it to, among other things, document the dogs, street and pet, of Hue. Older son is a bit of a dog fanatic, and promising not to pet every dog he meets was a condition of his coming along given the threat of rabies.

Somewhere along the way, we will eat lunch, sometimes meeting the husband. This is made a bit harder by the fact that the sons and I do not have a cell phone. The university gave the husband one to use here, but the sons and I are unconnected. It's actually sort of nice. We have spent a bit of time in the mid-afternoon each day back here at the hotel, resting and re-hydrating before venturing closer to home in the late afternoon. We have done a bit of shopping, though there is much more to come. We eat dinner later here than we do at home, though at home I only make a "real" dinner three or four nights a week due to the martial arts schedule. We're going to bed earlier here than at home. I am at least, though the husband stayed up last night working on today's lectures. I can't remember the last time I actually was getting seven or eight hours of sleep on a regular basis. I could get very used to it.

I got an email last night from an old friend noting that Google Maps has Hue as a spot on a road, that there are no street maps given. I had already learned that, having looked for a map of Hue there myself. Here are a few more street shots to assure anyone who wonders that this is a real place, not just a dot on the map. The first is of a man carrying what looked like a load of rugs on one of the bicycle carts.
A promenade of sorts along Le Loi, one of the main streets. The river is to the left; there's a park-life strip in between the street and the river. The sign at the right edge of the photo is for a public WC, something I admit I haven't tried yet having seen the "warnings" in some of the guidebooks about carrying your own toilet paper, etc.
I took this one from the somewhat rundown Imperial Monument. In the background is what looked like a boat village. In the foreground is a woman in one of the long boats you see going up and down the river. Sometimes these seem to be carrying supplies; at other times, it looks as if people are fishing from them.
The front of the Imperial Monument ...

and a shot taken at the rear.

I told you it was somewhat rundown.

And now I'll post this, apologizing up front that the "Preview" function on Blogger is suggesting that some text might overlap some photos. I hope this won't happen on the published version, but here goes.

Walking in the Rain

When last we met, I was off on a walk with the sons, and it was a good one. We walked further down a street than we'd been before and found a huge traffic circle we had no idea was there. Then we backtracked, crossed over the Perfume River for the first time, and went to market. I had read about the Dong Ba market in the guidebooks; it's cited as one of the places to buy conical hats that have poems embedded in them that can be read when the slats of the hat are viewed in the right direction. We entered the market, though, somewhat through the back door of the open-air produce area. Now, open air plus rain all morning equals mud, which made for some fancy stepping. I didn't realize until later that older son was wearing sandals; it was only much later that he said to remind him to wear shoes when we went back. Oops! The whole thing was somewhat of an exercise in over-stimulation. On one level I just wanted to stop and stare at the displays of fruits and vegetables, listen to the haggling or chit-chat not to mention the motorbikes coming and going, and smell the different odors all tinged with the smell of wet. On the other hand, I didn't want to be intrusive, and since we were the only Westerners in there, I already felt a bit out-of-place. There may have been more Westerners in there had the weather been better. I do know that there are a lot more Westerners walking around here than I thought there would be, though not many of them are speaking English. French, German, Russian, but not too much English. I thought just for an instant about trying to buy something, preferably something I didn't recognize, but decided against it. A lot of the purchases seemed to be being done in large quantities, so for all I know this is where the cafes go to purchase produce, not single user types like me. I didn't really see any prices posted either, so making a purchase might have been a bit awkward. When we emerged from the produce market, we were out on the street. We walked down a bit in front of all sorts of colorful shopfronts, then turned down a narrow path into what was, I think, the Dong Ba market mentioned in the guidebooks. "Madame, madame!" "Madame, you like this?" "Madame, look here!" T-shirts, lanterns, a bit of silk, and even conical hats, though I couldn't tell if they were the ones with the poems. It was like a maze, and I know we saw only a small fraction of what was there. The pathways between displays were so tight that I didn't try to take any photos, again not wanting to be intrusive or too touristy. When we got back out on the street, I did shoot some photos for the incredible colors and variety of the things for sale. Here's a sampling, starting with flowers
and continuing with something whose identity I now can't figure out, but hey, it was colorful. There were also doorknobs, pottery, and my personal favorite, though not one I would ever purchase, in what looked like an apothecary shop. Yes, those are what you think they are.

After the market, we went back across the river. Younger son wanted to make sure that his film had not been fogged by any of the airport X-ray machines, so we stopped at a couple of photo places to look into developing. Alas, most of them were digital only. We finally went into the Mandarin Cafe, where the owner greeted us by asking about the camera older son was holding. Then he and younger son started discussing digital versus film, and color versus black and white, and the next thing you know younger son had been steered in the direction of a photo shop that would develop color film. The owner, Mr. Cu, is a bit of a photographer himself and shared with us several of his albums as well as the flyers for photo shows he'd had at studios in France and Italy. We also learned how he could not work from 1975 until 1990 because he had driven a firetruck for the Americans during the war. It was one of those wonderful experiences that make travel the adventure it is. Plus, the food was excellent not to mention dirt-cheap. I have told the sons not to get too used to it because when they are touring Europe they will not be able to get three coffees, one fresh fruit juice, one fruit shake, one sparkling water, one sauteed beef with rice, one fried rice with seafood, one tofu and vegetables, and one order of French fries, all together for under $9.00. And the Mandarin is actually pricier than the Stop and Go, where five adults last night ate dinner (including beer) for less than $20.00. I'm starting to ramble now, so it's time to post this and move on to other things.