Saigon, Chau Doc & Toliets/Showers

Ok... this one is going to be a long one since we've been traveling for a few days and I have a lot to write about. And... this may make your reading less enjoyable if you are a visual person because I don't have any pictures to upload. Colin has the camera and I'm in Dalat City on my own today. I woke up with a cold so I feel horrible and I'm a big snot-monster. The rest of the group went for a hike up to Pinhatt Mountain. I'm a bit sad that I will be missing the mountain hike but I need to rest up and keep myself healthy for the beach in Nha Trang tomorrow. The landscape here in Dalat reminds me of home (Vancouver). The air is cool, it's mountainous and there are dense pine tree forests here. You may want to grab a cup of joe and maybe a snack if you're in for a lengthy story. I'll do my best to keep it interesting with splashes of humour here and there.

Saigon

So after the gong-show of Trish & Brian's arrival to Saigon (Colin's parents), our city tour begins. The traffic in Saigon is crazy. I've never seen anything like it. There are 8.2 million people in Saigon and over 3 million motorcycles. Originally the city had been designed for 2.0 million people so you can image the congestion. Saigon is a very popular place, especially among the young folk. There is much opportunity to find jobs and the pace is very fast and exciting. The women in Saigon are very stylish (must be where I got my style from ;) ). You see the lady's dressed in very feminine clothes with beautiful and intricate beading riding in the motorcycles around town. It's very sexy!

I guess I didn't realize that the people (well at least the women) would be so well dressed here so I feel out of place. I didn't exactly pack anything nice. Not even remotely nice. Well I figured I needed to be comfortable and when you trvel it's not a fashion show. BUT needless to say, I have packed some really god aweful outfits for myself. Really, I look like a clown in mismatched tops, pants and shorts. I must have been on crack when I packed. It must have been packing all the Metamucil that threw me off my game. For example, today I am wearing an army green tank top with red board shorts. I look like a Christmas elf! Anyone want to sit on Santa's lap?!?!? Really though, I've been dressed in clown clothes this whole trip. Oh well, this will give me a good excuse to go shopping!

On the Road to Chau Doc

On Sunday we set off for a 3 hour drive, a couple of ferry rides and a boat ride into Chau Doc in the Mekong Delta. The main industry in this region is rice farming. Yes that's right folks... we're finally visiting the rice paddy! It is mostly women and some children who work in the rice fields. The Vietnamese people know that their women here are very hard working and take on all sorts of labour including being merchants and running their day to day house hold. Someone once told me a story of a pregnant women working in the rice paddy. She was having contractions and poof... out popped her baby! She wrapped up her new little bundle of joy, strapped her baby on to her and continued to work the rest of the day! Ok, ok so the story is somewhat extreme but that's the sense that you get when you meet these women. Let me be frank (... you can be Tom if you want - ok haa haa bad joke), most of the men I've seen in and around the city and in the country side don't seem to do much other than napping in their hammocks and playing a few hands of poker. The women seem to be running the show here!

Our boat trip down the Mekong Delta was a real eye opener. Although you can see that there is some wealth here because of the rice farming, there are also many people who seem to have nothing. Well, I shouldn't say nothing. They do have a lot in the sense of family. They live in stilt homes with palm leaf roofs along the delta and in the various canals and water ways of the delta. Even though it seems that the people here have so little in the sense of material possessions, the children are the happiest kids I have ever seen. You see them laughing a lot - chasing each other down up and down, swimming and splashing each other. So it makes you wonder if having more material things in our North American lives makes us less happy. Maybe we are filling our lives with "things" in an attempt to fulfill other needs we have yet to discover. Are we unable to reach this so called plain of discovery or enlightenment because of the materialistic culture we live in? Just some food for thought - is ignorance bliss or is knowledge power?

Toilets & Showers!!!

Ok, so I've covered some thoughts I've come across along the way so far. Here's my next thought... there aren't many toilets here. Of course the there are toilets in the more tourist areas but all in all I've seen more "ground squatting bowls" than toilets. This is what I call them, "squatters" - it's a ceramic toilet like bowl in the ground with little grooves along the sides where you place your feet. They do not flush but rather they drain like a sink. Well I was very proud of myself using these squatters. I've been able to refrain from gagging and just get to my business. I really felt like I was getting the hang of this squatting thing.... day in and day out I've been squatting without problems. I was coming close to say that I have mastered the "squat"! Well that was until yesterday when I started coughing and peed on my leg. Oh well, I guess that'll teach me for being cocky thinking I was the master of the squat.



Chau Doc boarders Cambodia so when we climbed up Sam Mountain we could see the vast landscape of rice paddys and the boarder into Cambodia. Being a boarder town, there is a definate transiant feel. The hotel we stayed at was far from the Ritz Carlton. Although I shouldn't complain, the bathroom had a sink and a toilet (no squatter) but not shower. Well, not exactly a shower. The whole bathroom was a shower! Right next to the toliet was a shower head. That's right people, you can shower and sit on the toliet at the same time if you really wanted to!