When we got up, the whole group headed for breakfast near the same market we walked through last night. It looked completely different in the daylight. The street, which was blocked off at night, was now full of motorbikes and trucks carrying food shipments. Some of the same souvenir and fruit vendors were there, but the huge flight of stone steps that had been covered with meat sizzling on small portable grills just last night was now barren. Fortunately, the bakery was still open so I got my own banh mi (the Vietnamese sandwich), which was just as glorious as it had been last night. We also finally succeeded in getting a durian, but we decided to save it for later (though I'm not sure how keen the hotel staff would be on us cracking it open there). I'm becoming increasingly familiar with the patience and persistence of street vendors. Literally the entire time we sat eating breakfast, two vendors stood hovering over us displaying their wears. One woman told Ming that she had two children to support, then repeated the same thing to Khang in Vietnamese.
After breakfast we went to a semi-indoor market where every vendor was selling the exact same goods. I have now idea how Van Anh and Hanh picked a stand but they made a bee-line for one in the center (maybe they'd been there before). The vendor let us sample all of the different dried candied fruits, as well as the dried streaded deer jerky which was really good (it was seasoned in something that tasted like curry and was actually quite spicy, which made me very happy). We ended up buying random fruits and wine made by ethnic peoples that comes in a clay urn and you drink out with straws, which must be quite a sight.
While we were just walking down the street, someone tapped me on the shoulder adn I turned around to find Nhu Ngoc Tran, the high school girl I met in Ninh Thuan! Being a tourist, I never once imagined I would randomly bump into someone I knew on the streets of Vietnam. It was really exciting, especially since I didn't expect to see her again for a long time.
The rest of the day was spent at Van Anh's uncle's house. We drove up a relatively steep dirt road to a gated community, complete with security guard. The house was a beautiful three-story white structure with Meditterranean features. The lawn and plants were perfectly manicured and in the front yard was miniature lake with sculptures in the shapes of mountains with porcelain houses and dancing cranes perched on top. At the door we took off our shoes and entered to the unexpected sight of decadent, baroque-styled decore. Everything from the walls to the chairs was a pale key-lime shade of green. After some tea, we took a little field trip down a very steep hill to a strawberry patch. The hike was a bit more difficult in my skirt and flipflops, but I managed pretty well. There weren't many strawberries because they weren't in season, but it was interesting to see all the different fields around us. Van Anh's cousins collected wildflowers and gave each of us a little boquet as a welcome gift.
We got additional cardio hiking back up the hill and continued up past the house to an even bigger one belonging to the owner of the complex. He was very nice and let us sit in his yard while we went camera crazy and, at long last, ate durian. Van Anh pulled apart the durian (mindful of the spikes on the outer shell) and handed out the sections, eachone containing three golf-ball sized seeds covered in the pale yellow fruit. It really is impossible to fully describe. The consistency was a little soft, a little gooey, and a little stringy, but still more unusual than any other fruit with those characteristics. I didn't love the taste but I definitely liked it. The first moment you bit into it, it's very sweet but then the taste slowly evolves into something uniquely durian. It was the after-taste that most people didn't like, so Kendra and I ended up being the only Americans to eat it (though I couldn't each too much becuase it was so thick, almost like custard). So, the final verdict on durian - it's not my favorite fruit but I enjoyed it and would certainly eat it again.
We got back to the uncle's house and had a lunch of chicken with barbeque sauce, pork, and salad. A home-cooked meal is always comforting and one in Vietnam is a pleasant mix of the exotic and the familiar. After lunch, we went out into the street in front of the house with the whole family to fly kites. The men very quickly raised a large, vibrantly-colored rooster kite, sending it so high above the air currents that it stayed there all afternoon with only minimal efforts from those on the ground. The rest of us flew smaller butterfly kites. All of the Vietnamese roommates were pretty good at it while the rest of us started out rocky but got increasingly better at keeping the kites in the air (at least, I did better than I expected). It was wonderful to watch the family interactions, with the adults gathering on the curb talking while parents helped small children fly the kites. In a way, it reminded me of my own family's get-togethers where everyone is happy and content to simply be with each other.
After flying kites, some of us walked down the hill and followed the dirt road as far as we could before reaching a drop-off. I looked around me in every direction, marveling at the terraced fields and brilliant sun setting behind emerald mountains. Aside from the gorgeous setting however, we noticed a slightly disturbing juxtaposition. On our left, bellow in the valley were small shacks with tin roofs and on our right were gigantic homes (including the one belonging to Van Anh's uncle) up on a hill, always looking down upon the poor farming communities. Kendra's right, Vietnam is a country of stark contrasts.
That night was Van Anh's uncle's birthday so the whole family plus us walked just down the street to a rather fancy restaurant. Our group had ordered a large flower arrangement as a present, so we all got up rather awkwardly and went to the other end of the table to present it to him, singing happy birthday as we walked. Then a cake was brought out and everyone sang happy birthday, also in English which surprised me. I had been to a Vietnamese celebration before so I knew what was coming - lots of food and drinking. The first dish brought out was a relatively spicy fermented pork. Then, the waiters set out miniature grills along with a plate of deer and white boar meat and we cooked our own food. It was all so delicious but I knew there was more coming so I paced myself. All of the students were clustered at the end fo the table but we still see plenty of people because so many of them came down to meet us.
One who was particularly interesting to talk to was Mr. Minh Trung who owns the restaurant and surrounding land. We found a connection when he told us about his daughter, who'd just recently graduated from Duke. It was really sweet to see how proud he was of her. He told us many times how she'd been student body vice president and was now in law school. He extended the offer to us to stay for free on one of his many properties if we ever decided to come back to Vietnam. He earnestly haded out his business cards and made us promise to contact him if we returned.
The other visitors to our end of the table were no less sincere, but slightly less sober. The uncle and his sons came around many times toasting with each of us, sometimes with wine, other times with shots that contained a mixture of vodka and rhinoceros horn (which I can still hardly believe they were using). The girls got away without drinking much of anything, but the guys were pressured to drink and drink again, and then once more for good measure. The last dishes included a big bowl of rice and a sort of rice noodle pattie stuffed with shirmp and fish (the shrimp interestingly enough was still shelled, so we just ate it shell and all) and wrapped in banana leaves.
Afterwards we walked back up the hill towards the house, the stars overhead shining much brighter than they ever could in the smog of Saigon. Back at the house, the men of the family engaged in a time-honored ritual of sitting on a mat in the front yard downing cognac mixed with snake wine. A side-effect of this practice was that some of the girls recieved mild romantic advances from the uncle's unmarried sons. With Alex however, they went to a whole other extreme. When we were leaving, she was persuaded to sit down on the mat next to the uncle, who proceeded to join her hands with his son's while people cheered. We backed her out of there as gracefully and politely as possible.
This whole weekend has been a fun, interesting experience, but two days is enough time spent in Dalat. I'm ready to go back to Saigon. We boarded another bus and I took off my glasses and looked out the window. I fell asleep watching a surreal haze of purplish-grey trees fly by.
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