Vietnam, September 2024

Day 5: Sa Pa, Vietnam

This morning, I woke up early and met Lam for our six hour ride to Sa Pa. If I had thought for a minute that him and I would not pick up where we left off last January I could not have been more wrong. The car ride was full of conversation ranging from the politics of Vietnam to the United States, the similarities in our families, our career paths, and so much more. I am sure we kept the other travelers in the van awake with all of our talking.

We arrived in Sapa around 2 PM. My hotel has a beautiful view of the rice terraces that are built into the mountain side similar to those that I saw in Peru.

Later I met up with Lam and we walked around the local market and then had dinner. We were joined by our new friend Mae from Malaysia. Dinner consisted of snails, frog legs, octopus, prawns, beef, banana leaves, corn, kale, and banana peels among other vegetables. I wish I had gotten a picture of it before we put it into the pot for cooking because I am sure I am missing many of the other items that were on the table. We also shared a bottle of plum wine. I have found that I am far more adventurous with my eating when I travel than I am when I am at home.

After dinner, I returned to the hotel because next up is trekking to the local village.

Day 6: Sa Pa, Vietnam

I’m learning so much about this country and it’s hardworking people. Today, Lam and I met with his friend Song, a local Hmong woman who helps guests trek from Sapa to her village.

We started around 9am, with the sun beating down on us. We walked 8 miles, through the dense tropical forest and later along the village rice fields. Lam and Song took turns holding my hand and providing me with support as we climbed up and down the terrain. Song was incredible, dressed in traditional Hmong clothing, and carrying a basket on her back with stuff to be sold at the market. And yet still had strength to pull me up when I needed help. Where she found the energy, I will not know. I can surmise true grit.

When Song isn’t helping guests see her beautiful home, she is harvesting rice. It is a tedious process that involves separating the straw from the rice husk. Then they must separate the particles of rice from the husk, and then remove the cover from the grain of rice. They finish by carrying the rice to large open spots to dry.

When Song isn’t guiding guests through the jungle or harvesting rice, she is making blankets and other textiles to sell. They are made primarily from hemp, dyed with the leaves of the indigo plant, and embroidered with intricate patterns.

At the end of the trek, we went to Song’s house where she shared food and drink with us. Despite the language barrier, I could have stayed and laughed with her, Lam, and her SIL / neighbor for hours.

The experience is life changing. I realized I had so many reasons to be thankful and so many of my problems are truly small in the grand scheme of things. 10/10 would recommend the experience.

Day 7: Sa Pa, Viet Nam

Another beautiful day here in the mountains. We had a later start and began it with a train to the Fansipan, the highest point in the IndoChinese peninsula at 10,312 ft.

The train and funicular car rides to it were gorgeous but holy cow what a weather difference there was. You can see the clouds as they roll in and out.

We capped the night drinking a jug of opium wine and laughed the evening away.

Today we head back east where Typhoon Yagi is raging.

Friends and friends, for those of you following my travels, currently I’m safe, west of the storm. But I am headed back east tomorrow (towards Ha Noi) and due to fly south on Sunday.

I’d like to ask for your prayers not only for safe travels for me but also for safety for all the people affected by Super Storm Yagi.

Day 8: Bonus Sa Pa day

It rained. A lot. I don’t mind the rain so much as I worry about getting off the mountain. I also worry about what we’ll see once we are off the mountain as the storm continues to gain strength.

I did spend the rainy day reading, cleaning up the room, and I got an absolutely heavenly massage. The massage was just what I needed. After the massage, I met Lam for dinner once again. I value his friendship so much at this point and look forward to when I can come see him again. I also hope to see Minh while I am here. I enjoyed our time together so much last time.

Tomorrow: we leave Sa Pa for Ha Noi. Please send all your prayers for safe travels. The clouds are ominous and the dirt is likely runny.

Days 9-10: Sapa to Ha Noi to Ho Chi Minh City to the Mekong Delta area

As the above implies, the past couple of days were spent moving from place to place. We made it out of Sa Pa in just the nick of time as mudslides shut down the area. I was so fortunate that I only saw rain from Typhoon Yagi. Others really weren’t so lucky. I also want to thank everyone for their well wishes.

On Monday, working on an hour of sleep, I was up early to fly to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Lucky for me, Lam didn’t leave my side until I was properly checked in because when I got to the airport, I found that since my passport and Visa have my middle name but my tickets didn’t, I had to do a name change. He not only helped me drag my bags across the airport and get my name changed for that flight, he helped me get it changed for my other flights on VietJet. All for the amazing price of just $5 USD EACH!

After being treated like royalty for the flight , thank you SkyBoss tickets, I arrived at HCMC to start the third segment of my trip, a tour of the Mekong Delta.

For those of you interested, read on. The Mekong River runs from China south, through Laos, along Thailand, Cambodia, and ending in Vietnam at the East Sea. It provides nutrient rich soil for the rice and agriculture of the entire Indochinese peninsula. The river runs 2700 miles, making it the 12th longest in the world and nearly 1000 miles longer than the river system that make up the Great Lakes including the Niagara, St Lawrence, St Clare.

Tomorrow: Visiting a Khmer village

Day 11: Khmer Village

For this portion of my trip, I decided to use home stays instead of hotels. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I’m so glad I did. It’s a win-win situation. For them, it supports the local economy and they get to learn English (which they all desperately want to). For me, I get to hear their stories and have great company.

For day 1, I stayed at a home stay on a beautiful piece of property. We ate dinner together the night before. I shared with the host what I would like to get out of this stay. So we switch things up a little bit for the next day.

We rode bikes through the countryside and stopped at a local market. We ate treats and had iced Vietnamese coffee. It is so delicious. We continued our ride to a pagoda and a small museum of the Khmer people. On our way back to the house we were caught in a torrential down pour. It was quite an adventure riding bikes on the main road in the pouring rain.

After leaving the homestay, we drove a couple of hours further down the Delta to Can Tho. That evening we went on a motorbike tour of the city. It is incredible that the traffic just works in a big city with little to no stop signs or stoplights. There are also very very few cars. The constant horn beeping is to alert other drivers of their presence. So different than in the US where everyone gets angry when they hear a horn beep at them.

A little history lesson that I only learned about when I went to the Holocaust museum in Evanston, and purchased a book about the genocide in Cambodia. From 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot was a dictator who wanted to return Cambodia to an agrarian society. Sadly, 2 million Cambodians were executed for being educated or having supported the Americans during the war on Vietnam. It was incredible to visit this village. And it makes me want to visit Cambodia. I’m still kicking myself for bypassing it in January since it was a part of my original itinerary.

If you’ve never read or heard about the Khmer Rogue and Pol Pot in Cambodia, I strongly recommend you Google it. It is so sad that we don’t know about so many of these other genocide events.

Tomorrow: the floating market, a fishery and small island on the river.

Day 12: Floating Market and Fishery on the Mekong river

Another amazing day of learning about the importance of the Mekong River to the Vietnamese people. The Mekong is home to one-fifth of the Vietnamese population, produces roughly half of Vietnam’s rice harvest and nearly three quarters of its fruit, aquaculture, and fisheries products (usaid.gov). The Mekong is so critical to the country for their economic survival as well as food for the country. However, dam building by the Chinese, climate change, and plastic pollution threaten the Mekong and the Vietnamese people who depend on it.

Here on the Mekong, it is as if time has stood still, where simple yet efficient methods of doing things comes to my mind. As I did my tour, I wondered what the effects of time, technology, social media will be on the young people that may not want to continue the practices of their parents and grandparents and those that came before them.

We started the morning early by visiting the floating markets. These markets are necessary as many people only grow one crop. They then go up the river to sell it, where the buyers then take it back to the villages and city to sell. Many of the people sleep on their boats. And Each boat lets people know what they sell by hanging a visual on the boat.

After we ate breakfast on the floating market, we visited a shop on the river and then headed to a local fishery. Thousands of fish and all different types. We capped the morning with a visit to a local island of just 300 people.

After our day, we drove to our next stop for sleep. The evening deserves its own post for all the fun that was had, but plenty of karaoke, banana wine, and Saigon beer flowed.

Tomorrow, more of the village and then head back to Ho Chi Minh City.

Day 13-14: Hangover Day and Travel to Bali

It was bound to happen. With banana wine and beer flowing and karaoke fun the night before, a hangover was the main item on the agenda for today.

A little bummed that I missed the fruit garden (we tried later in the day but the torrential downpour that ensued when I was finally feeling better had other plans). While waiting out the rain at a random person’s home, we got a cup of sugarcane juice - yummy! Too bad the rain didn’t stop so notice my avant garde fashion statement 😉

I also did get a facial and hair washing. It might have been great except the one hour I had to lay on a hard table so I just kept praying it was going to be over. Lol

And finally, on our drive back to HCMC, I had an intense craving for a hamburger and it seemed like destiny that when I got to my hotel, they had hamburgers on the room service menu. Sadly, I wish I had stuck to the noddles.

Okay, so maybe this wasn’t a stand-out day but every trip is bound to have one.

The next day, I had two flights to Bali and the business class seats were everything on Malaysia Airlines. Best upgrade I ever paid for. But the drive to Ubud - we thought we had traffic in Chicago, this was out of the world and add in motorbikes everywhere. Insanity!

Next up: spending the day in Ubud and the Monkey Forest.