Jade Emperor Pagoda

Today we went to the Jade Emperor Pagoda, also known as Phuoc Hia Tu or Chua Ngoc Hoang. It was a photographer's heaven, and if there are any other travelers reading this, it's definitely worth the trip. It is not, however, so near the Museum of History and Botanical Gardens as some guidebooks say. Given another chance on a hot day I would spring for a taxi ride between those two stops.

One especially interesting room had an altar to the Chief of Hell with ten carved-wood panels depicting the ten torments of hell.

-Robert

New haircut

Today's big adventure was getting a haircut. I've been worrying about this since long before we came, because it starts looking like a duckling's fluff after about 3 weeks, and while it's the simplest thing in the world to cut it--electric trimmer on the lowest setting run over everything above the collar--lots of things that are simple get miscommunicated in my sign language. I can't tell you how many times I've ended up with two dinners when I only meant to clarify the one I was ordering.

Our street is hair-care central, in a way. There are about six places, but I need to find a local to explain to me what the story is with them. What they LOOK like is fronts for prostitution rings. I never see any customers in them, and there are always about nine or ten young women, dressed in identical cocktail dresses, different each day, either sitting in couches in front looking bored or sitting in the chairs doing one another's hair and makeup.

So I have kept looking for a barber and this morning set out determined to find out. The first two places I went into, the women inside took one look at me and said, "NO," and waved me away.

I finally figured out that the backpacker's ghetto has a few places. These are small shops, an arm-span wide, with an antique barber's chair, a mirror and a fluorescent light. I spotted one with another white person with long hair and wearing a tie--a sure sign of an English teacher who lives here--and figured that was my best bet.

When it came to cutting my hair with the clippers and the lowest setting, my barber knew what I was looking for. The short beard threw him, however. He had an electric razor going before I could stop him. I walked back to the hotel with my hat held over my chin like I was deep in thought and tried to even out what remained of it with my beard trimmer. If you enlarge the picture, you'll see it's pretty patchy.

The haircut cost $1.75, and it's the only thing that I have spent more on here than at home, because usually at home Ilene cuts my hair on a stool in the garage.

-Robert

Dairy fix

It doesn't look like much, but this piece of chocolate cake isn't a very common sight in Saigon, especially in the neighborhood where we're staying. Baked goods generally aren't, and neither is anything else with butter or cheese. On Sunday we decided to go to a French bistro downtown to get some comfort food. Specifically, in my case, before this desert, I had a French bread sandwich with salmon, olives and cheese on it. It cost $4, making it the single most expensive menu item I've had in Vietnam, but it was worth it.

English Club hits the town

Sometimes after the English Club on Sunday evening that Ilene attends regularly, and where she has made many friends, they all get on their motorbikes and move as a pack around the city. Notice at dinner that everyone is toasting with ice tea and fruit and yogurt shakes. (In these parties, Ilene and I always have to order first, and then everyone takes their lead from that. If Robert and Ilene aren't having beer, no one else is either.)

Next was a karaoke parlor. If you've seen Lost In Translation, you have some idea. There's a certain level of enthusiasm that's hard for most American's to gin up. (It's comparable to people who tailgate in NFL stadium parking lots before games.) We were good sports and each took our turns, though. Coincidentally, without realizing it, we had both picked Bruce Springsteen songs.

As usual, there's even more to see in the photo album. Click on the slideshow on the right.

-Robert

State Funeral

I had the unexpected opportunity to attend a state funeral tonight.

I have a standing appointment with my friend Chi on Saturdays at 5; when we got to her house she asked me if I knew who Vo Van Kiet was. I do—he was a former prime minister who died in Singapore a few days ago after a long illness. He was born in HCM City, and is credited with launching Viet Nam’s doi moi economic reforms in the 1990s. his body has been brought to the Reunification Palace, on the other end of the park next to our hotel, to lie in state for two days. She said she wanted to go and asked me if I wanted to join her. Sure, I said. Let’s go.

But I can’t go like this, can I? I asked, looking down at my shorts. Chi’s mother and great aunt laughed. No, no, no, he was the prime minister—long sleeves and pants. They try to get Chi to put on an ao dai without success; she agrees to a jacket and pants. We drop by the hotel and I find a skirt and shirt with ¾ sleeves that passes muster.

The reunification palace is draped with banners and tents are set up outside where visitors can sign in. The first policeman Chi rolls up to says foreigners can’t go in. We go around the block and ask another one right at the gate. Yes, I can come in, but I have to stick with Chi. No wandering off.

Getting there took longer than the event itself. We signed in, brought our slip of paper up the long circular drive past The Tank (#843) [in his book Shadows and Wind, Robert Templer, a former reporter for the Agence France-Presse points out that tank #843 is also on display in Ha Noi] and delivered it to a desk at the entrance to the main hall on the first floor. The traffic wasn’t heavy, maybe a hundred members of the public on the grounds at that moment. They queued us into groups of six, and we stepped across the carpeted hall to the first line of tape, got the go ahead and slowly advanced to the second line, close enough to see the altar with Kiet’s picture on it, and the insense sticks burning. Another go-ahead signal and we went single file next to the coffin, took a step up, and got a glimpse of his face under glass. We filed out past members of the family and into an adjoining hall with guest books to sign. Lots of TV cameras, but all Vietnamese media as far as I could tell from the trucks outside.

In abysmal Vietnamese—I was nervous, and I couldn’t remember in that moment some key tone and accent marks—I wrote that I was a tourist in Viet Nam and my friend had brought me today, and I knew Kiet was known for creating doi moi in Viet Nam. I asked Chi what she had written, and she said she was upset enough that she didn’t know what to write, so she didn’t write anything. I kidded her about this a little bit—so you let me write something in terrible Vietnamese instead?

It rained earlier today, replacing the super-hot humid air with a cool breeze, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it because I hate riding side saddle on motorbikes (necessary in a skirt).

-Ilene

Transitioning

We've done little that's very interesting the last several day except for just living and working here, but Ilene just got back from a once-a-lifetime experience that she'll share next time she's online, so check back for that.

After two weeks of hard work, I'm starting to transition from spending so much time at the hotel to seeing more of the country, I hope. Some of you may know that I intended to turn this time into a writer's retreat for myself, and I'm happy to report that yesterday I finished the first rewrite of my book, which I had been toiling at for the last nine months. I was able to tune out the construction noise and the tight quarters and made more progress in the last two weeks than I had in about the last four months. I'll be starting the next rewrite with any spare time I have left here.

With that transition in mind, I bought my tickets today for a sleeping berth on the Reunification Express to Hanoi and back. It's about 32 hours each way, and I plan to stay in Hanoi two nights. That starts next Friday night, so I'll have lots to report the week after next.

I also expect to start doing some volunteer work in a couple weeks with an organization that works with street children. It's a little up-in-the-air, but we had a nice visit at the office today. Ilene did an amazing job translating, by the way. She can speak a ton of Vietnamese by now.

Communication note: I think my email account is on the fritz. If you've been trying to reach me and haven't heard back, try another account: the-same-prefix-as-my-primary-account@gmail.com

-Robert

Temple visit

We met Ti again at Chua Tam Le today, about a ten minute walk from our hotel. He said he'd already been back to Long Khanh for a quick visit yesterday, returning in time for 4am prayers this morning. He also returned with another durian for me, double-bagged. It's resting comfortably in the fridge downstairs in the Khach San Hoang Trang's restaurant, awaiting Tuan's arrival tomorrow--someone experienced in durian excavation will break it open and share it amongst interested staff.

Slideshow of Chua Tam Le included--click on right. The temple is new, about 10 years old, build with donations solicited throughout Vietnam and overseas. Ti's brothers are monks, too--he joined the temple and began his dharma study when he was 15. (He's 38, a year older than me). There are two public spaces--a study hall on the ground floor and a prayer hall on the second floor. About 50 people a day come to public prayers at 6pm everyday, and about 20 come to dharma classes--mostly older folkds, but a few more young people these days.

Ti knows Mandarin Chinese--he studied in Taiwan for 2 years before going to the US. Most Vietnamese don't read Mandarin, so the monks need to translate the placards and signposts in the temple. Ti actually uses his Chinese more in the US than he does at this temple. HCM City has a large ethnic Chinese population in district 5. We're in district 1. He uses his Chinese at his temple in New Orleans. He's also hoping to improve his English and he's going to start taking college classes in New Orleans in the fall.

Ilene

Our park

One unanticipated advantage on this trip has been our proximity to Cong Vien Van Hoa Park--the largest, quietest green space in Saigon that we know of. We weren't really aware of the park before, and now it's turning out that we spend a lot of time there. We're 1/2 a block away, and the gym we go to is directly on the other side so we pass through every morning. Whenever we walk downtown, we cut through the park to grab a few extra steps away from the motor scooter noise and smog. There is a patio cafe where each of us goes at least once a day to sit with coffee and tea and a book for awhile. And we usually stroll around it in the evening after dinner.

When we do stroll around it, we are joining throngs. It's in heavy use every hour of the day. (See my previous post on jetlag.) By common consent, there's one roughly circular path around it that is reserved for walking and jogging, and the interior paths are taken up with every imaginable sport and amusement--baby karaoke and the high jump for instance, as you can see here. Badminton and necking are more common.

In the mornings and evenings one large open space is filled with a women's aerobics group and just out of range several other women lurk behind trees following along in the exercises, apparently unable to pay the class fee. On Sundays, the park is filled with boy scouts and girl scouts and during the day the rest of the week groups of high school-age children sit in study groups or doing the kind of ice-breaker, team-building games you might see a church youth group doing. There's a flower garden on one side where girls in ao dai pose for boyfriends practicing their photography. At another end is a children's playground which in the evening is certainly the most concentrated space filled with ecstatic children that I have ever seen. Ice cream vendors, who carry the merchandise in large coolers on bicycles, park in the street nearby. At dusk, the sky starts to fill with bats.

-Robert

Practicing English and eating jackfruit

If I stand still long enough someone will eventually approach me and try to strike up a conversation, presumably to practice their English. They ask where I'm from etc. and they've almost never heard of Connecticut. At the gym there is a college-age kid who told me he has been to Chinatown in New York City. At the supermarket today while I was trying to figure out which was the laundry detergent and not accidentally buy fabric softener, it was a guy who gave me his card and told me about the company he works for that is headquartered in Arizona.

Yesterday in the park I was reading a paperback and two kids passed by. The boy peeked at the cover and when they were a few steps past coaxed his girlfriend to come back and say hello. They had a jackfruit in a plastic bag with a kitchen knife. (It's common for couples to make a little picnic that way with fruit from a street vendor.) He asked if I would like to share some fruit with them, and when I accepted they sat down and cracked it open. The stem of the jackfruit runs through the middle of it kind of like a bell pepper, only strong like a vine. When you jerk the stem out, the fruits are attached. They're mushy in texture like bananas with a few seeds in each one.

We chatted about university for a few minutes before I had to run to meet Ilene. The girl seemed to understand what I was saying, but I could never get her to speak a word.

-Robert

Amazing coincidence

In the largest most economically bustling city in the country, there are very few stores selling any English-language books, and they are all government operated stores named Fahasa. In the downtown Fahasa there is one shelf selling books from academic presses. We were in there the other day and Ilene pulled off the shelf the book pictured--a recently published anthology that includes an article by her about her research in Vietnam.

Weather

Every day the weather report says the same thing--temps in the 90s, feels like the 100s, scattered thunderstorms, chance of precipitation 50%. But it rains 100% of those days.

The most common thing is some thunder in the distance and a shower that lasts about 30 minutes, usually around 4 in the afternoon. Sometimes you see enormous thunderburst clouds in the distance. A couple times we've been hit directly with thunderstorms that made us jump out of our skin--like the worst we ever saw in Iowa.

Life goes on. Some people duck inside and wait it out--like we did yesterday at a store downtown--and some people use a kind of large rubberized poncho especially for motorbikes. The vendors selling them seem to appear on the street in an instant.

One crazy thing we saw was when we had gone inside for dinner just in time. It was a kind of open air building very common here--long and narrow from the street to the alley, with no front and back walls and a high ceiling. The kitchen is just plastic laundry hampers of vegetables and meat and charcoal stoves, and the dining room is dozens of plastic tables and stools, and the waiters rush back and forth.

When the rain started, the place filled up with customers fast. And then suddently the ceiling sprung two fantastic leaks as heavy as the downspouts from a roof gutter. The furniture was scattered to make room for those waterfalls, and the waiters slipped through the puddles to keep serving the food while someone swept the water out the front door. Eventually a kid climbed up a ladder through a hatch to get between the ceiling and the roof while someone else handed him pieces of sheet metal to patch the leaks.

--Robert

Typical days in our room

Not much exciting to report the last couple days unless you want to know about Delhi Belly. We're settling into working routines. We wake up early and Ilene heads to the gym while I get coffee at the stall across the street and work in our room for a couple hours. After Ilene gets back and her tutor shows up, I head to the gym and get lunch at a bun bo hue stall and kill some more time reading in the park. We do our laundry in the sink and work the rest of the afternoon in our room trying to ignore the various construction noises in and around the building. We made ourselves a little pantry out of some cheap plastic shelves from the supermarket down the street and stock up fruit and American-brand cookies for snacks. When the stalls open up at Cho Ben Than at 6 p.m. we walk down there for dinner and stroll the streets for awhile.

Here are some exterior shots of our neighborhood--our building, the street, which is relatively quiet, and the view out our window in the back of the building. There are a few apartment buildings back there and in one of them a woman works on her painting each morning and then puts it on the balcony to dry while she lights some incense and prays.

--Robert

Chom Chom Farm

As exciting as it is to go to Vietnam for two months, it was a little hard for me to leave Connecticut knowing that I'd miss strawberry picking season; imagine my delight then, when Kim, who has been my Vietnamese teacher in Connecticut for most of the past year, set me up to visit our mutual friend Ti's fruit farm in Long Khanh, about 80 kilometers to the east of Ho Chi Minh City. Ti (his name is Thay Thien Ngo--Thay means monk, so Ti is a nickname he invites Americans and the kids at his temple in New Orleans to call him) arranged for a car for us and took us out with a few other family members. His brother grows chom chom at the farm--see pictures--as well as sau rieng (durian). Chom chom look prickly, but are surprisingly soft--they taste a little like lychees, and you can cut them open with a knife or a decent fingernail. I was a little bummed not to get the whole pick my own experience until I saw that this required ladders and long sleeves in the heat to protect against scratchy branches. We brought a trunkload back with us, as well as durian. Durians are as sharp as they look--a cross between an armadillo and that dinosaur with the spikey back, and about as easy to break into. The smell is a unique one and people are either repulsed or thrilled by it--there's no middle ground. I'm a fan. We took one back, which immediately went into the restaurant's refrigerator as a special favor so it doesn't stink up the room. We tied it up good in its plastic bag. My plan is to eat it tomorrow when Tuan arrives for my Vietnamese class. Since he's a monk, Ti eats vegetarian, so we had a nice lunch served to us. Best new discovery--hem chay, which is a soybean product but better than tempeh, I think. "Hem" sounds enough like "ham" in English that you can make the following joke--In American, ham is meat, but in Vietnam, hem is a vegetable. (OK, this sounds funnier in Vietnamese--trust me).

-Ilene

Country style

We had a long and interesting day with a lot to report, but the combination of traveler's tummy and smog fatigue is sending me to bed early. Ilene will tell you more about it another time.

-Robert

Banh mi

Fish banh mi. The fish is cooked in an iron plate over a flame in a red gravy. Crack open the loaf of bread and fill it with the fish, gravy and condiments to make a sandwich.

Working day

Today was our first attempt at a working day now that we're past the point of spending energy on getting ourselves set up. Early breakfast at a sidewalk stand across from the hotel, writing in the hotel room for a couple hours, a trip to the gym, a snack of yogurt and fruit in the room, work some more, lunch at noon, work some more, then a long walk to dinner and back.

Wedding

Last night we went to a wedding banquet for the brother of Ilene’s tutor. It was part Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer, only with more fireworks and screaming loud V-pop, and part like any other large family wedding you’ve been to. Armies of amped-up children in party clothes, greasy banquet hall food. The room had a runway running down the middle to the stage. An M.C. brought on a series of entertainments, including a group of ballerinas in red tutus who performed a routine to disco music and then danced around the bride and groom, who then poured champagne in a large decorative tower of champagne glasses while fireworks shot out of it. But no champagne was actually served. Same with the cake.

As always, Ilene and I were the subject of a lot of attention, and we’re finding that every social engagement breeds two more. Our table mate invited us to tour his ice factory and see the seaside in Vung Thu (which was a major embarkation point for Americans 40 years ago.) Ilene has two offers to have ao dai sewn for her to wear at the other weddings we’ll presumably be going to. I managed to find pants that fit at a local shop, but I miscommunicated about the length of the hem so I look like I’ve outgrown them. Since the only socks I brought are white gym socks, I resembled Thriller-era Michael Jackson.

Careful, it has bones in it

Fresh seafood is everywhere, but I never know what variety of fish it is. One problem I have is that my technique for removing the bones is no good. At this meal I ended up eating several bones, and my throat was sore for a couple days after.