| Our flight left at one in the morning, so we were already tired when we got to the airport for the first 12-hour leg. The flight to Taipei was long and miserable, and the last two hours were a minor roller coaster, so I spent twenty minutes in the bathroom deciding whether or not to lose my lunch (airplanes still have terrible food when they decide to serve it, by the way.) When we got to Taipei, we glanced outside. It looked a lot like Dallas airport - even the cars were the same. The only difference was a few vans. We had a couple hours, then we flew from Taipei to Vietnam. That was only a three hour flight - so much easier. Walking off the plane in Vietnam, the air and humidity was a little like a suffocating drink. It's very humid here, and quite warm, in the upper 90s, I think. Flying into the country was interesting - everything is sectioned out into little quilt patch squares. Some are green, some are full of water (rice fields) and some are full of houses. The villages are very neat and tidy; they take up two quilt patches all the way to the edges, but not beyond. Outside of the villages, there are no buildings, so everything has a tidy look. All the roofs are red which make a pretty effect against the green and brown fields and paddies. When we got to the airport, we went through customs, which was a little nerve-wracking. The officials didn't speak any English and didn't smile, but there were no difficulties. The airport is definitely not a US airport, but is much better than Samoa's. We got our baggage, went out to the curb and avoided a false taxi man (good luck for us, one of the girls on the team got into a false taxi, and was robbed of $250 by the driver), got a real taxi man and headed into Hanoi. The airport is about 25 km outside of the city, so we got to see quite a bit on the way to the hotel. Everyone here rides mopeds like they're not planning on making it to tomorrow. There seem to be very few traffic laws, the cars and mopeds just fling themselves into the intersections and make their way across to wherever they are going. One of the Vietnamese doctors said they have 55 deaths a day in the city from moped accidents. Many people are wearing surgical masks or bandanas over their face to deal with the pollution while they are riding, and sometimes while they are not. Many of the mopeds and bikes are loaded down with baskets, boxes, computers, luggage, chickens or ducks, four or five people and numerous other things. Then there are also people walking down the streets carrying large baskets on poles over their shoulders. There are many roadside restaurants of the type Americans are warned against, and we saw numerous cows and buffalos wandering around in the fields. The houses closer to the city are amazing - very tall and skinny. They might be one room wide and two rooms deep, but five or six stories high. They're painted many colors and often have trees or plants growing on the second, third or fourth floors. There are billboards in English and Vietnamese, advertising Liberty Insurance, cell phones, computers, cars or mopeds. Many of the cars here are the same as we have in the US - Trailblazers and Lexus compacts. And, scary as it is, many of the young adults here text on their cellphones while riding a moped. Our taxi driver drove us (praying for our lives) to our hotel, which is in the Old Quarter. The streets are packed with mopeds and cars, and the sidewalks are lined with little shops. Behind the room that is the shop is another room that is someone's house, and then another four or five apartments are stacked on top of that. You walk down a street, and see all these shops, and then look up, and see laundry and trees hanging from people's balconies. Our hotel is very luxurious, doormen at every door, bellhops, marble floors and silk pillows. We're in a little tiny building across the street from the main hotel and on the seventh floor, so we take the elevator to the fifth floor - it has a sixth floor button, but there is only a coat closet where the elevator doors should be - then hike up the last two flight of marble stairs to our room. You must have the key in order to turn on the lights in the room, but they have 45 channels of cable. They also have high speed internet on the two guest computers. There's a restaurant that serves both Vietnamese and American food, but we've only eaten there for breakfast. Breakfast is usually a combination of 15 to 20 hot dishes, including eggs, bacon, congee (Chinese rice porridge), stir fry and chow mein, then there are another 10 or 15 small pastries, like eclairs, cream puffs, flan, croissants and other goodies. It's very French in that way, and delicious. I think Mom and I shall both gain about 20 pounds. I hope you will still love us. The first day we went out into the streets and wandered the Old Quarter. Here, every street has a theme. There is the hardware street, where you can buy tools and wood, the paint street, the old medicines street, the toys street (all manufactured toys, like barbie and hotwheels) and about twenty clothing streets, of which two sell Vietnamese clothes and 18 sell western clothes. We did some shopping, saw a temple with a 500-year-old mummified turtle (a symbol of longevity and one of Vietnam's sacred animals) and ate gelato. Then, yesterday, we had our orientation with Buffalo tours. They had a very nice conference room that they took us to for that and then we piled on a pink tour bus, similar to a greyhound to go to the restaurant for lunch. Neither Mom nor I ate the chicken head or foot, but we promise to try before we leave. Then we headed out for a short tour of Hanoi.
When we went to visit Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, our guide explained to us why 'all Vietnamese love Uncle Ho.' He is their George Washington figure - the one that brought independence to the Vietnamese people, at least according to Communist tradition. His tomb is his monument and there are guards in front of it. Apparently, they are chosen at random and to have the guard duty is a big honor. They also blow whistles at you if you go over a white line painted about two hundred yards away from the tomb. The tomb is open for viewing all days but Monday and Friday morning, so we didn't get to go in. Apparently, Uncle Ho has been embalmed and you can go look at him. I think that's creepy, myself.
After Uncle Ho's, we went to the Temple of Literature (Yay for AP Lit, Joy), which is both a temple to Confucian scholars and also the oldest university in Vietnam; it opened in the 11th century. Now it is mostly a collection of old buildings and stone turtles with the names of famous scholars carved on their backs. While we were at the temple, which is no longer a functioning university, we got to hear some traditional music from a local group - Kyle, you would have loved it. They had made an instrument out of pieces of bamboo of different lengths. When they clapped in front of the bamboo, it made a dull echoing sound, similar to tapping on the top of a bottle. After that, they put us back on the pink bus to take us back to the old quarter, where our hotel is. Cuong and Thang, our tour guides, also gave us a short walk through the streets, taking us to the old medicine street and pointing out a few interesting sites. Then it was time to clean up before dinner. Mom and I went back out and did some shopping - neither of us is very good at bargaining. Dinner that night was at a very fancy restaurant called Da Lien, Wild Lotus. To get to the restaurant, we had to cross beautifully constructed ponds filled with floating lotus flowers, and climb three sets of very steep stairs. Mom said such a restaurant would never last in the US, because all the fat people would be intimidated by the stairs. I said the ACLU would sue it because it didn't have an elevator for wheelchairs. Dinner was very nice, and then back to the hotel for one more night. In the morning, we had our breakfast, and then loaded into two smaller buses, with just our backpacks. We drove out of the city for about four hours. The progressions from old city to young city is interesting. All the noveau rich live on the outskirts of Hanoi in new and fancy apartment buildings, and after that, you are in the country with the villages and the farms. As you go south from Hanoi, the villages are not as tidy as the ones we saw from the air. There are many scattered houses and random plots of land. We passed through several medium sized cities, and the streets are always crowded with little open-air shops. One of the hills we passed had a giant statue of Uncle Ho on it and our Thang taught us a famous song about him. We stopped in a little roadside cafe, where some people had green tea, and some tried smoking a Vietnamese bong. They said they almost died. Then back into the busses and up some very steep mountain passes. It's very beautiful, and the mountains are very green and sheer with rock faces and cliffs. Our bus drove up a very steep incline, avoiding several water buffalo, and then finally reached the top, from where we could see the Mai Chau valley, which is where we were headed. We piled back into the buses, drove down the cliffs and across some road that should not have been called road, and ended up at a four star hotel, brand new, which is also owned by Dr. Kien, who owns Buffalo Tours. There we had another fancy lunch and were treated to some traditional dancing by White Thai girls. After that, back into the buses (nice buses, with AC and cushy seats) for the ride up to our hike. The buses climbed back into the mountains and dropped us off on a dirt road. We began to hike into the H’Mong village where we had our first clinic. It was quite steep, but at first we didn't know why we were hiking, as the road was still passable by car. We continued to pass beautiful little houses and many chicks and cows. The children would come down to the road and wave and yell “Bye-Bye” at us. Soon, however, the road became passable only by jeep or motorbike, which is why we were hiking. 40 people is a lot to put in a jeep. We hiked up to about 900 meters before descending a short way into another valley where the H’Mong people lived. We got caught in a torrential downpour about 10 minutes away from the house where we stayed. This house was not Mom's favorite place. It was low and dark and the ceiling was cement with a cement fire pit that liked to trip people. We ate outside underneath a little porch roof, and the shower was a bucket with a dipper. Don't ask about the toilet. Unfortunately, we were wet the whole time we were there, as it was a little cold, maybe just in the 70s, and damp the whole time. That first night, we ate our food and more or less went straight to bed. We set up our first clinic the next day. Most of the villages in Vietnam have a clinic with a healthcare worker. These people usually have minimal training in basic health and nutrition and oversee the vaccination program of their village. The clinic was not very large and had very little equipment, so we brought most of our own supplies with us, including a large number of prescription and OTC medications. During this clinic, I believe we saw about 150-200 people, mostly women and children. The women almost all had babies strapped to their backs, and girls as young as 8 carried their siblings. Most people were still wearing what we would call ‘Their Native Costume” and it wasn’t out of deference to us, that was just their normal, everyday wear. The skirts are intricately embroidered, and Thang told us that a single garment will often take 2-3 months to finish. (Try that rate of production as an apparel designer, Beth.) Girls begin to sew their own skirts around the age of 14, which is approximately the same age at which they marry. Most of the people here were quite healthy – we saw very little evidence of malnutrition or chronic diseases. I didn’t do a lot of work in this village – mostly worked in triage/registration or running patients. I also chatted with Michelle, a girl on our team, for a while. (Hey Morgan, she was in Chinese class with you and your folks at BCC – she said to tell you ‘hi.’) I spent quite a bit of time with the children here. They loved having their pictures taken, and would crowd around to stab at the tiny camera screen with grubby fingers. Mom did a lot of work with fluoride in this village. Many of the children had terrible teeth, rotting, bleeding and showing the nerve. None of the children cried as the fluoride was applied, and all smiled when they were finished. That night was more rice and fried food, again with chopsticks. (Thank you, Curtis, for teaching me to eat with chopsticks. I would have starved to death otherwise.) The next day, we began our hike down to the White Thai village. The first 5k were on roads that were accessible by motorbike or 4x4; after that, we branched off onto a very steep and slippery stone trail that wound down the mountainside for another 7k or so. (We passed a pig about to be butchered on the way to the trail.) The view was gorgeous, all down the valley were rice paddies and up the mountain were cornfields. Seriously, they grow cornfields on hills like Nash and Snake Dance here. It's amazing. We heard a loud group of lumbermen cutting down the forest, but it turned out to be only cicadas. The trail was amazingly steep and slippery and we were surprised that some in our group made it down. Mom took one nasty spill, but didn't break anything, luckily. The whole mountainside was beautifully green and we saw many interesting bugs. We stopped at a few small streams, which were very nice, and finished the last portion of the hike through cornfields, bamboo forests, rice paddies and small villages, instead of through the rainforest. Lunch was held at a little restaurant where our cooks had stationed themselves, and I don't know if I've ever been so glad to see a cold Coke. We had another few kilometers after lunch, and I chatted with Dr. Kien, who owns Buffalo Tours and was in charge of the group. He talked to me about med school in Vietnam, and it sounds surprisingly similar to med school in the States. He also chatted with us at lunch about literature - he was reading Jack London. All in all a very interesting man. We got to the White Thai village about 4 in the afternoon, and climbed up into the house, which was on stilts. The floor was made of flattened bamboo and was just laid on top of the rafters. (No, Kyle, you still have to nail down the deck.) The first time I stepped on it, I was mildly afraid I would crash through to the ground, 10 feet below. The woman who owned this house was very friendly and plugged in fans (!) and made us all at home. We had more food, then Sophie (a girl I met on the trek) and I went out and looked at stars. The last time I saw the Milky Way that clearly was when we were at Jan's cabin in Montana (remember, Rachel?). We set up a clinic again the next day and began to see patients. I had more to do this day as I taught some of the prenursing students how to do BPs and helped with triage. Mom went and helped the rest of the team and the villagers put up a kindergarten. She said you would have really liked it, Dad, as it was the Vietnamese version of an Amish barn raising. It was framed out when they started, and two days later, the whole building and its outbuilding kitchen were finished - railings, walls, roofs, fill dirt, cement floor and entryway/gate and fence. The villagers worked like bees - about fifty of them to the 10 US volunteers, so it was really fun for Mom to get to work with the Thai. She had one village woman who worked with her a lot. That day at lunch, we ran down to the river to cool off with Mark. When we got to the swimming hole, we found a water buffalo in our spot. The cow slowly stood up, pooped in the river, and then meandered off. (We got in upriver of the poop.) We sat there for about an hour, as it was the first time we'd been cool since leaving Hanoi and air conditioning. We had another clinic the next day in the same place, and I shadowed Dr. Kien for the morning. It was very interesting, and in the afternoon, I went back to triage. Mom worked at the kindergarten again in the morning, and then did fluoride in the afternoon. She also worked at triage and took some blood pressures! I have photos. Unfortunately, Sophie got a call from her father, who is dying of cancer, and had to leave early to go home. We don't know how she is doing, no one had heard from her by the time we left Vietnam. The other thing that happened in the White Thai Village is that I nearly died. Not really, but I almost stepped on a bright green snake on the trail between the clinic and our home stay. Later, I asked the guide what the poisonous snakes were and he said,
"Oh, the green one is the most poisonous. Then the brown, then the red..." Icky. After a third sweaty and mostly sleepless night with a power outage (we were one of the few beds out of range of a fan, and it was very hot), we had a banana cake for breakfast (no egg sandwich!)(but the day before we had ramen, Curtis) and began our hike out. On the way, we stopped to officially turn over the kindergarten that Mom helped build and our trip funded. There was a nice little ceremony and all of the kids seemed very pleased with their new school. The hike out was only about two hours, through some more villages and along rice paddies. We got to another small store where our busses were parked, and that is the second time I have never been so glad to see a Coke. We went back to Mai Chau for lunch - another fancy one, then headed for the four hours back to Hanoi. That evening, Mom and I had dinner in 'Gecko' which served an amazing avocado salad and yummy mocktails. (Seriously, I do like avacados.) The next morning, we loaded onto one bus to go Halong Bay. We stopped at a store selling handicrafts by handicapped people on the way - lots of beautiful stuff, but quite expensive. When we got to Halong Bay, we were shown to our junk, the Jewel of the Bay. I wanted to bring her back for you, Dad. You would have liked her. Mom says you wouldn't have liked her - she was too big. She was very luxurious - five beautiful staterooms on the first level, plus the galley and crew quarters. The second level was a gorgeous dining room, and up on the third level was the roof/sundeck and the pilothouse. We cruised in Halong Bay until the next morning and have many beautiful pictures. Halong Bay has thousands of small islands scattered in the water - rising up as giant formations of sandstone. They are called the sleeping dragons in Vietnamese. We kayaked into some caves, including some that went all the way through the island to a round lake/sea water spot in the middle of mountains. One of those caves was 300 meters long and filled with bats. We also swam in the water, although we had to avoid jellyfish. One girl on our boat, Louisa, was stung by jellyfish, and it was really painful. (Halong Bay is in the S. China Sea, or, as the Vietnamese say, in the Eastern Sea.) I also jumped off the roof of the boat the first day, and Mom jumped with me the second day. She said it was her midlife crisis. It was about 25 feet to the water, we think. We were served amazingly fresh seafood for the meals, and the next day, we had to get back on the bus and go back to Hanoi. That night, we had a cruise on the riverboat with all the Vietnamese doctors, volunteers and the whole US group. It was a nice time, but I think more people were ready to be done. The next morning, we did some shopping, then caught our flight to Cambodia. The Cambodian customs officials are much friendlier than the Vietnamese ones. The airport was reminiscent of Apia. For the first time ever, Mom was met at the airport by someone carrying a sign with her name on it. The Palm Village people drove us to our hotel, which is similar to Aggies, although less polished. We stay in a little bamboo bungalow by the pool, and the whole property is beautifully landscaped into a tropical garden. That first night we didn't do much besides eat dinner and crash. The next morning, we got a massage, which hurt, and then went to see the temples, which were amazing architecture, but not fascinating. They look like a set out of Indiana Jones. We got to ride in a tuktuk, though, which is very fun! Time by the pool, dinner that night, and lots of reading. The next day we had another massage (a different type), then went into the city. We visited a rehabilitation center for amputees and mine victims. They're doing amazing work with not much money or technical facilities. Then we went out to the war museum, which was really depressing. Our guide had been shot three times, injured by a landmine five times, imprisoned and caught on fire. His wife had died in a landmine, and he said he had just lost his job at the museum. It makes me wonder what to do with that information. How do I help in situations like this? That night we went out for dinner at a very cool restaurant built on many different levels. It's something college students would love, but it would never pass fire code in the US. The next day, we took bikes out and toured the countryside, and went past some more temples. We had coconuts, which are HUGE over here, talked with some kids and saw some elephant rides and monkeys on the road. We also went back to the restaurant for lunch, then came and chilled by the pool. Overall, the trip was a wonderful education. I learned a lot about running a clinic, especially the flow of operations and the initial triage/registration area. It was great experience, as I’d love to run clinics someday. The government in Vietnam is also still very communist. Cambodia is not any longer, and Thailand never was. The contrast between the three countries is almost heart breaking. It really makes me believe in democracy, or at least people’s choice. The brutality of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia also struck me – as a Christian, I have an obligation to do something about issues like that, but what? It was also challenging to be a Christian on a secular trip – I felt like the medical team was missing a focus and that was also hard to deal with. But of course, coming back to the States is hardest of all. |
