Vietnam Day 19 (6/26/09)

I had coffee with Rylan before leaving this morning and it's a damn good thing I did. He gave me directions to get to the Wildlife at Risk center in Cu Chi, telling me to take bus 2 rather than bus 13 like I'd been planning (apparently the Cu Chi bus doesn't actually go to the center in Cu Chi...go figure). I was going alone, but Van Anh drove me to the Ben Thanh Bus Station and before leaving, she talked to the bus driver, telling him where I was going so I wouldn't miss my stop (I don't think any of the roommates had any faith that I'd make it there without incident). I paid the ticket attendant dressed in a fusia uniform the ridiculously cheap price of a thousand dong for my ticket then sat back to look out the window.

Riding next to our bus was an elderly Vietnamese man on a low-rider motorbike with a helmet resembling an American general's helmet. We also passed a number of other sights that caught my attention: an electric parkinglot gate adorned with a dragon statue, a sports equipment store that looked as if it had never sold a single treadmill, identical colorful sparkly motorbikes sold at two shops only one door down from each other, a bustling market down an alley leading to a church, "Superkids Preschool" decorated with large stills from Disney movies (located next to a BMW dealership, naturally), and a pagoda with plastic figures of Buddha on the roof and a dingy tailor shop on the floor below.

When we reached the stop where I needed to catch a connecting bus, the very nice man in fusia helped me off the bus and pointed out my next bus. I had to literally catch it since it was already rolling. It was nearly onto the road when I ran alongside and hopped on. Naturally, everyone on the bus stared at the crazy foreigner but I'd like to point out that the locals do exactly the same thing. Now back to the random observations from the bus window. A fisherman traversed the narrow murky canals by pushing his bamboo raft through the reeds with a long stick (like a gondola). In one town, huts with thatch roofs stood next to gated communities containing everything from tennis courts to private churches. We passed roadside stalls selling food and drinks that made me want to jump off the bus. At one point, we were stopped in traffic next to an outdoor billiard hall unter a thatch cover. This time, it was the guys playing pool that tried to get me to jump off, waving me over after spotting me in the window. I decided against it for whatever reason. Near the end of my journey, two little girls about seven years old boarded the bus by themselves. They were giggly girls dressed in pale pink and yellow, smiling shyly up at me whenever I looked up.

When I got off the bus, I still had to walk a short distance to get to the center. I didn't exactly know where it was, but I knew the general direction so I just started walking. I knew I was close when I heard the gibbon calls. I was greeted by Matt (the manager of the center) in true Aussie style, with a friendly "Gooday." We started with a tour of the small but beautifully designed center. We first went to the indoor holding facility for the bears. There are sun bears with sleek black fur accented with golden fur on their faces and chests and in the next cage over are moon bears, stalkier bushier black bears with white patches on their chests in the shape of crecent moons. In the same area was the most beautiful big cat I've ever seen. She's a gorgeous leopard with light blue eyes that are incredibly focused. She usually snarls and growls at all of the male keepers but she's really calm around me. She doesn't get to see many women so I think she's more comfortable with me. The gibbons are the complete opposite. The females get really agitated and start screaming when women are walking around. The leading theory is that one gibbon was abused by her former owner (presumably a woman) and the others learned the behavior from her.

All of the animals at the center were rescued from the illegal animal trade where they were being sold as either food or pets. One of the bears for instance was locked in a tiny cage and stoned by its former owner. A lot of these animals have been abused for a long time before coming here. Some however, were rescued as infants and hand raised. One such example is a juvenile gibbon (who I call Penelope for whatever reason, even though Matt calls her Thumbsucker for obvious reasons) who's the only remale gibbon not disturbed by my presence. She sticks her leg out when people walk by, trying to get them to scratch it (of course I was always happy to ablige). The other animals that love to play with people are the two little short-clawed river otters that were raised by humans. Every time I walk by, they stick their slippery little heads out of the cage as far as they can and reach out for my hand with their silky wet fingers. Sometimes they attempt to nibble on my hand but it's only in play and still so adorable. Th other animals at the center include an Asiatic brush-tailed porquipine, a seven kilo king cobra, a monitor lizard, hornbills, more otters in another enclosure, pingolas (a species of anteater that's native to Vietnam), lorises, and half a dozen species of river turtle.

In the afternoon, I got to help prepare and give out food and enrichment (work I'm plenty used to after the Lemur Center). Fortunately, one of the keepers speaks English so I still have more than one person to talk to - then again, who really needs to talk to people when you have animals around. For dinner, Matt took me to a local pho place, which turned out to be amazing. Matt told me about the long process of conservation in Vietnam and how challenging it can be to run a rescue center here. He doesn't even have room to take more animals at the center, so any animals that aren't endangered have to be euthanized as soon as they're brought there. We saw one such less endangered animal here in town, a baby macaque in a tiny bird cage outside someone's home - that poor monkey will probably never be saved.

That same day we went to the local market where I bought way too much fruit and spent a lot of my time fiercly clutching my bag, trying to avoid the little boys with slippery fingers who were following us around. There was also a sweet little girl whose mother kept pushing her towards me to practice English and a cranky old woman who screamed at Matt for not buying chicken from her. The guest house I'm staying in has a beautiful courtyard and is floored with dark green tiles, its walls decorated with frescos of Vietnamese life. There are however a few obstacles to living here. There are ridiculous numbers of bugs here and I'm the only person they seem to bite. There's a definite possibility I'll go back to Saigon nothing more than a giant welt. Fortunately, I found a Duke-blue mosquito net for the bed. I set it up with little difficulty and fixed the holes with hair clips. As soon as I got under the net, I realized what a good decision it was to put it up - three mosquitos sat sulking on the outside of the netting, foiled in their plans to prey on my flesh.

Now, because of these same bugs I had gotten some bus spray from Matt earlier in the day. After my skin started to experience a burning sensation, I asked what was in it and he informed me that this type of repellent isn't sold in the United States. As a result, I was in desperate need of a shower. It turned out to be the worst shower of my life. The bathroom seemed relatively normal by Vietnamese standards, containing only a toilet and a removable showerhead dispensing cold water with no pressure. All that's fine, but what I had trouble with were the holes in the walls. These openings sent every mosquito in town into the shower with me, an acutely unpleasant experience. After finishing my rushed, painful shower, I towled off entirely using nothing more than a washcloth since I couldn't find the towels (if there even were any). This was another slow process that exposed me to further bug bites. Mosquitos have no shame.

The other issue was that I was quite alone. There were other people staying in the house, but I didn't know who and I didn't feel like playing charades just to communicate basic ideas. Instead, I had to find ways to entertain myself, which ended up being pretty successful. I wrote, read and listened to music and, as pathetic as it may sound, played solitaire. It may not sound like much, but it was actually really nice to have some alone time.