Pictures of Vietnam

Ms Kahn making the best Bahn My which is a baguette with about 10 different things in it including pork, pate, chiles, vegies, very delicious and costs a dollar

 Men at the market playing dominoes, while the women work. Vietnamese man don't work very hard, but the women do.  They take take of the house, children and work too.  In the rural areas, the women take care of the gardens and rice paddies.  If they are luck, the men will help with the animals

 Dragon bridge in Danang, the world's longest dragon at 666 m

 Paper flowers, with lotus flowers in the middle. An art that has almost died, due to plastic flowers. The Vietnamese love flowers and buy many especially for Tet.   We had a class on how to make paper lotus flowers.

A young girl on her scooter.  Everyone drives scooters and most women wear masks, hats and gloves to protect them from the sun.  Light skin is highly prized.

 Garlic Christmas trees, candy pineapple for Tet. The Vietnamese go all out for Tet.  New clothes, lots of food and socializing.  They get 10 days off so they can visit their families and friends

Fishing in the early morning.  Most tasks are done by hand here.

A tangle of wires, a common sight in the cities

Fresh flowers are found everywhere

Hanoi, old quarter.  Each street has shops which sell the same products, this is the metal street.  There are streets where they sell hardware, kids clothes, shoes, jewelry and anything else yu can think of

Candy and booze store

Beer delivery, they overload their scooters.  They pile everything on them.

Hue

River boats

Hello
We have spent the last 3 days in Hue which is the old capital of Vietnam, during the Nguyen dynasty before communism.  The Imperial city was built by the Nguyen dynasty which ruled from the mid 19th century to 1940's.   Each emperor had many wives and children. His concubines, servants, bodyguards and eunuchs also lived in the Imperial city.  Some of his mandarins or administrators  lived here also.  The Citadel is fashioned after the Forbidden Palace in  Beijing.  It encompasses 6 km. 
The Citadel is surrounded by 7-10 m thick walls with a moat outside.  Inside is the Dai Trieu Nghi (great rites courtyard) and the Hoa Palace (throne hall)  where the Emperor held court, met with foreign dignitaries and dealt with administrative issues.  The Citadel has three entrance gates, the middle one is only for the Emperor, the other two were for mandarins and court officials.  There are two more gates for soldiers, elephants, and commoners
The Forbidden Purple city was where the emperor lived with his "family" lived, only his family, concubine and trusted officials were allowed into the city.  There is a royal library which was destroyed, but is being rebuilt.
Unfortunately, the area was bombed during the French war and left to decay.  Some of it is being restored with grants from Unesco, but the work is progressing slowly, as all construction work does here.
We also visited the Thien  Mu Pagoda which was built in1601. It houses the oldest monastery in Hue and has lovely peaceful grounds and a seven storey tower with each storey containing a different altar to Buddha.  We then visited the tomb of Minh Mang.  All thee emperors designed their own tombs and had them built before they died.  There are many tombs in the surrounding countryside.
We traveled to the Temple by river boat, each boat is home to a family.  They live on the boat and take tourists for rides down the river.  They cook, sleep, and raise their families on these boats.

building in the Imperial City

The grounds of the tomb of Minh Mang

Tower at Thien Mu Pagoda

Almost all the roads are under construction, but they tackle huge stretches of road and never seem  finish it before they start something else.  A lot of the work is still done by hand, which accounts for some of the slow progress, but I think they lack much in the way of machinery and an overall plan.  It takes a long time to travel anywhere in Vietnam, about 3 times longer than home.

Silk village and around Hoi An

Spinning silk thread, it takes 50 threads (from 50 cocoons) to make one silk thread

Cham style weaving, a mixture of silk and cotton with bright patterns

No space is left to waste, most houses use their yards for vegetable gardens, the Vietnamese eat a lot of greens

Picking greens for our lunch, we ate at Baby Mustard which is in the middle of a large farming area.  All the food is very fresh.

We cycled around Hoi An and area yesterday.  Cycling is a lot safer than scooter riding.  We cycled through the city streets, which was an adventure.  Once you learn that an empty space in traffic is the cue to go, then things go well.  The biggest problem is when vehicles turn right, they do not look or yield, they just keep going and pull out into the street, no matter their size or whether there are other vehicles already in that space!
Once we left the city and cycled around the residential and farm areas, it was very peaceful.  This area has a large organic farm and most Vietnamese have plots of land to grow rice and they grow veggies in their gardens.  They collect grass from the river and bury it to use as fertilizer in their gardens.  The larger farms are communes.  Fruit and vegetables are very abundant and fresh in Vietnam and if you don't grow your own, there are many markets and roadside vendors to buy them from.
We also visited the silk village where they showed you the process of making silk from the eggs to the finished product.  Most silk is made from intact cocoons, which are harvested before the moth emerges.  They boil the cocoon which allows the silk strand to be unwound, it is then added to many others (from 10 to 100 depending on the quality) to form silk thread.  The boiling also kills the pupae which they eat, I tried one, it tastes like potato.
Raw silk is made from the cocoons that the moth emerges from, the strands are broken.  They let 20% of the moths hatch for breeding, they mate, lay eggs and die.  The moths cannot fly.   The eggs hatch, they feed the worms for several weeks, then they make their cocoon which is harvested.
The silk is then woven on the looms, it can be mixed with cotton as the Cham do.

boiling the cocoons to make silk thread

gathering grass to use as fertilizer

Hoi An and My Son

Greetings from Hoi An  on the central coast of Vietnam.
Hoi An used to be an important trading centre until the Thu Bon river silted up, now it is mainly a tourist centre.  Lots of shopping and great restaurants.  You could easily eat your way through Vietnam as each area has it's local specialties, all very tasty!
We have had a couple of days to settle and relax after a very hectic time in Saigon.  Hoi An is still busy but much less so than Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City (as no one calls it).  Scooters are still he main type of transport, but more bicycles and the drivers are not as crazy.  There are no rules of the road, just go when there is a space. 
We visited My Son which was the spiritual centre of the Cham Empire from the 7th to 11th century.  They were Indian people and lived in what is now southern Vietnam.  My son was a spiritual place and one of the oldest monuments left in Vietnam.  Unfortunately, it was a Viet Cong stronghold, so it was bombed during the American war (there were many wars in Vietnam).  The temples are made of brick and natural glue, no mortar.  Siva was one of the many gods worshiped here.  The heads of all the statues of Siva have been cut off as the Vietnamese (and Chinese) wanted to destroy his power.  We have not seen one statue of Siva with the head still on it, only the body.  The buildings have survived many centuries, like the Incas.  Some of the temples were rebuilt in the 20th century, but the brick is already decaying and the buildings falling apart.  They have them covered to help protect them from the elements, but the original Cham buildings survive without decay.  If the area had not been bombed, they would have all survived.
It was a very mystical place, with the old temples, misty hills and forest.  It was a very peaceful place, but you cannot wander off the paths, as there are likely still unexploded bombs in the area.

We had a display of traditional Cham dancing and music, it is very Indian and the costumes reminded us of Thailand. The Cham kingdom was eradicated in the late 1400's and now they are one of Vietnam's 54 ethnic minorities.

A newer reconstructed building, which had to be protected from the elements as the brick is decaying and the mortar is failing, unlike the original structures which still stand intact

The countryside-no area is left unused.  Rice fields are abundant and surround all buildings including homes and graveyards.

traditional Cham costumes and dance, Indian and Thai influence

Surviving Cham temple

sculpture on corner of a Cham temple

pictures from Saigon and Hoi An

view from the Reunification Hall, yellow lotus flowers line the streets for Tet (lunar new year)

market in Hoi An

market in Hoi An, the Vietnamese shop daily for food, no supermarkets here

Chinese temple in Saigon, they are very colourful with multiple gods

Chinese temple in Hoi An, the incense burns for one month, the yellow cards have the wish maker's wish and address, so when the gods grant their wish, they will know where to fine them

Saigon and Hoi An

Cao Dai Temple

High School graduation

         After 26 hours, 3 plane changes and 12 time zones,  we arrived in Saigon.   Immigration is an interesting experience.  We applied for our visas before we left, we completed the applications and sent photos, and received a visa, or so we thought.   But we had to submit our visa with more photos at the airport.  Fortunately we had  a guide to lead us through and fast track the process for us,  we thought we already had our visas,  I don't want to think what would have happened if we had tried to go through immigration with our "pre-visas".  There were officers everywhere in their green uniforms, with a red star, reminding us that Vietnam is a communist country.
Saigon is a very frenetic city, fast paced and noisy.  Scooters buzzing around everywhere and traveling in swarms.   They reminded us of hornets after their nest had been hit.  They carry everything and anything on the scooters, mirrors, building materials, balloons, food stalls, you name it, it has probably been loaded on a scooter in Vietnam.  We saw a family of 5 on one, two of the kids were sandwiched between their parents and the other was between dad and the handlebars.  Most Vietnamese travel by scooter as cars are very expensive and taxed heavily, 150%, plus there is no place to park a car.  Scooters park on the sidewalks, so pedestrians have to walk on the road. Traffic flows, but it is chaotic, worse than Lima.  Traffic lights are just a suggestion, if there is a space, someone will fill it.  I am surprised there are not many traffic accidents.  Most scooter fatalities are due to drinking and driving.
Saigon has undergone huge growth in the last 15 years, before that there were no tall buildings (more than 5 or 6 stories).  Now there are many skyscrapers and 10 million people (all with scooters!).
We had a tour of Saigon and saw the War Remnants Museum which again reminded us that we are in a communist country as it was very much anit-American, making them out to be the evil aggressors who killed only innocent women and children.  Despite the obvious bias, it was a very moving and disturbing display of pictures of the war, it really made you aware of the horrors that the Vietnamese people and the American soldiers endured.  We also saw the famous gates of the Presidential Palace (now called the Reunification Hall) that the tanks crashed through at the end of the war.  We visited the rooftop bar of the Rex Hotel where the "Five O'Clock Follies" occurred.  It was very interesting to see places that we heard about during the war.
The next day we had coffee at the restaurant owned by Kim Phuc's (the little girl who was burned running down the road, which was on the cover on Life) family and then visited the Cu Chi tunnels.  We met a Viet Cong war veteran who told us about life in the tunnels.  He lived in the tunnels for 12 years with his family, 2 of his children were born in the tunnels.  They had kitchens, sleeping quarters, uniform and weapon making facilities and hospitals in the tunnels.  We got to travel through a few of them, one 100m long, they are small, Dan had to crawl on his hands and knees, even I had to at one point.
We also visited a Cao Dai complex where they worship Jesus, Buddha and Confucius.    It is several square kilometers with its own facilities.  It is like the Vatican as they do not pay taxes.  They even had their own army before 1975.
 Our experience in Narita Airport:
We left a camera on the plane in Tokyo, so Dan asked a policeman for help.  He escorted Dan to the  head of the line at the airline desk where they immediately had the camera returned.  While I was waiting for him, another officer, brought me a chair so I could sit while I waited.  What a pleasant and unexpected airport experience, take note Toronto Pearson.

Scooters in Saigon

Surgery in the Cu Chi Tunnels

House decorated for the New Year in Hoi An

Post Office in Saigon

Working in Okra fields

Cao Dai ceremony