Vietnam Day 3 (6/10/09)

I woke up today to a knock at my door. Kendra and Molly were going to breakfast with their roommates My and Loan. We wnet back down what is currently my favorite little street in Vietnam, just a couple of doorways down from the pho shop we ate at yesterday. Here I had another breakfast fit for an American lunch, noodle soup with pork and crab. It was incredible and the broth was some of the best I've had yet, although I had a little trouble physically eating it. The noodles in this dish were much thicker than the usual flat noodles and very slippery. Evey time I got a good bunch of noodles I was overcome with a sense of triumph, only to watch my success slip through my chopsticks along with ninety percent of my noodles. As we walk out, I turn to the woman stirring a giant vat of unidentifiable but delicious smelling stew and say camon to thank her. She looks at me with a mixture of amusement and gratitude. It's a look I'm becoming all to familiar with and find quite amusing myself. The way I see it, as long as people respect my attempts to learn the language, they can laugh at my accent all they want along the way.

After breakfast, Kendra, Molly, and I went to the school across the street to try to read for our discussion with Rylan. I must say, I'm getting a little better at crossing the street. Well, at least I'm getting bolder, but hopefully smarter too. The school however was absolutely packed with students studying for exams. And by packed, I mean every inch of space outside and inside (by which I'm referring to the building with no doors that was basically outside anyway) was occupied by a student or laptop. So we went back across the street to read at the little outdoor cafe next to the guest house. (Incidentally, one of the papers Rylan gave me was by my TA and friend Catherine Workman and was one of the things that first interested me in Vietnam. I guess it really is a small world after all.) The funny thing about three new friends sitting down to read in a foreign country is that reading hardly enters into it. We started talking about everything around us, our experiences, our stomachs, the stray cat circling the cafe tables. Molly proceeded to simultaneously entertain and frighten us with facts from the class she took at Duke about bacteria. I'm not sure if any of us will be able to look at soup again without thinking about thermophiles (love ya Molly). Afterwards, Van Anh an I had our meeting with Rylan to discuss our project. The Institute wants us to go visit the province to make the survey, so Rylan suggested we go so we can make a more informed decision (sound advice in my opinion). So we went back down to the office and we're now scheduled to leave on a bus to the Ninh Thuan province at 10:30 pm (it's going to be an eight hour bus ride, fun fun...pray I'll be able to sleep).

The drive back must have been rush hour or something because there were a lot more bikes than I've ever ridden amongst before and going through traffic circles is something else. Even on normal roads people pull out from nowhere, turn against the lights, and drive on the wrong side fo the street in order to enter traffic. Traffic circles are even worse. Cars, buses, motorbikes all moving in at least eight different directions - I have no idea how Van Anh got out of there without incident, but I have to say I trust her even more now. Nevertheless, it's still a bit unnerving to be driving alongside a bus, so close I could touch my cheek to it. Oh, and I saw my first accident today. Across the way from us at an intersection, a man was on the ground, but the accident was very minor and he didn't appear to be hurt. For one solitary and utterly unique moment, traffic in Saigon stoppeed. But that didn't last longas motorbikes soon edged their way around the man before he had even stood up. Then it was back to business as usual...until it started to rain. It was just sprinkling but it was still my first time riding a motorbike in the rain. I didn't have a raincoat but I didn't mind getting a little wet. I'm in Vietnam, I expect to get wet...in fact, I might go so far as to say I'd be disappointed if I didn't. All this was on the way to Rylan's apartment to pick up a cell phone to use while we were in Ninh Thuan. The apartment building didn't look like much from the outside and the lift was broken so I wasn't expecting the apartment to be anything special. But when we reached the apartment (after climbing six flights of stairs) it blew me away. First thing in the door, I met Rylan's wife Hao, who's gorgeous and so sweet and welcoming. I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the apartment at that point because the next thing I saw was the view. The apartment had a long balcony seperated from the Saigon River but nothing more than a small street. That has to be one of the most magnificent views in District 1. On our side of the water was a small grassy patch along the dock where people were lounging on benches. On the water were old wooden barges moving down the river towards a landscape of cranes and a newly constructed steel bridge. There was a lot of new construction springing up in that area, but somehow it never took away from the calming effect of the steadily flowing river.

Today, Van Anh and I had lunch on a make-shift table in the middle of our floor. We had chicken and sticky rice cooked in coconut milk, topped with scallions, pork (cooked like bacon), cucumbers, carrots, papaya, and something I can only assume was fish sauce (which incidentally tastes amazing). We finished off our feast with huge sticks of sugar cane. It's traditional after a meal to take a hunk of sugar cane and bite off long strips and gnaw on them to get all of the sweet water out. Once one strip is done it's on to the next, and you continue this process until you've wittled the cane down as far as you can. I've also been trying a lot of different local fruits. I've had tiny green Vietnamese apples, a fuzzy red fruit called rambutin (you'll have to forgive the spelling on some of these), leechies, and mangosteen (possibly my new favorite fruit). I've yet to taste durian, although I've smelled it on the street and to my great surprise (based on what I've heard of other people's repulsion), I like the smell. It's very strong (and I've heard it described as something like overripened or rotting fruit, though I don't completely agree), but very sweet and totally unique. I've been dying to try it, but have been unsuccessful thus far. Perhaps tomorow will be the day.