A goodbye

The goodbye I have been least looking forward to making officially took place last night with a small party with the kids at 'P' Centre.

I will miss them very much. Bi and I have already swapped email addresses so there will be a good chance for us to stay in contact, share photos and for me to practice writing in Vietnamese.

Thank you for the beautiful embroidery picture and the wonderful memories. Until we meet again.

 

Quy Nhơn

September 2 National Day rolled around once again to bring a few days off for Bảo, so we decided on a trip to Quy Nhơn city in the central province of Bình Định. It is a long trip from Vũng Tàu, about 14 hours by coach but because there are so many fisherman from the province living in Vũng Tàu there is a daily service of two coaches. One of them is a standard reclining seat coach, but the other is a sleeper. Bad luck, though, that it was already booked out for the trip north, although the standard coach was fairly comfortable for the overnight trip which got us to Quy Nhơn at about 530 in the morning.

Why go to Quy Nhơn? This was the question that all my students kept asking me. The short answers are: because we have a friend there (Dũng, a talented singer); because I want to go. Truth be told, there is not a lot to do there but the scenery is very interesting. There are also a few important cultural sites.

The landscape of Quy Nhơn is very different to Vũng Tàu because the mountains, which are part of the Trường Sơn range come all the way to the sea. Rather surprisingly many of them are covered by either conifers or eucalyptus trees, which makes me think that the area around the city may have come under heavy or repeated attack during the war.

Because of the mountains, the coast has many small sandy or rocky coves, and most of these have been developed into day resorts. We spent half a day + lunch at one of these where the water was the clearest and cleanest I have ever seen in Vietnam or in many other places! Such a difference to swim in compared to beaches at Vũng Tàu. During the visit it poured rain but most people just kept on swimming and playing :).

Another geographical feature is the Thị Nại lagoon which separates Quy Nhơn city from the Phương Mai peninsula, and is fed by the Tây Sơn river. The peninsula can now be reached by a newly constructed 2.5 km sea-bridge.

Another famous resort lies much closer to Quy Nhơn city. Ghênh Rang resort started life as a royal holiday spot and is best known for Bãi Dá Trứng - stone egg beach - and the second grave of a famous Vietnamese poet known as Han Mac Tu. He lived at the beginning of the 20th century, suffered from leprosy and died when he was just 28. He is said to have written 175 poems during his life and many of them still form the basis of modern song lyrics. Despite his disease, during his life and since he is seen as an incredibly romantic figure.






The reason for two graves? I only know that he was reinterred within the grounds of the resort a few decades ago. The original grave site (in the picture) is inside the grounds of the skin diseases research institute. The institute appears to continue to be a residential compound for people with skin diseases (leprosy?) and certainly has a history of that. The rooms where Han Mac Tu lived have been kept as a small museum of his life.

Within Quy Nhơn city as well as on the flood plain of the Tây Sơn river and the lowest foothills there are a number of Cham or Champa ruins. The wikipedia article says that Bình Định was probably the first area where the Cham culture entered Vietnam. We saw a great range in the degree of preservation of the towers, from the tower within the city which is in good/renovated condition and located within a park that is a popular backdrop for wedding photos, to an overgrown tower in a farmer's field!

The town of Tây Sơn lies inland, following the river of the same name towards the Trường Sơn mountains and Gia Lai province, from where travellers can also cross over to Laos. This is the area that gave birth to the group of brothers who eventually progressed from being rebels against the tyranny of one of the ruling families of Vietnam, to heads of their own dynasty. Although essentially they acted against a mandate of heaven, and ultimately lost power to the Nguyễn family that they had shaken from power, the first Tây Sơn ruler, Quang Trung, was popular and continues to be remembered in modern Vietnam. Across the river from Tây Sơn town is a large museum/temple compound commemorating the acts of the dynasty: for resisting the tyranny of the southern Nguyễn lords, for defeating the northern Trinh lords, for repelling a Ching invasion (which occurred at the request of the official Vietnamese ruler Lê Chiêu Thống), and for undertaking a program of economic and social reform to benefit peasants and international trade.

We took at pleasant motorbike trip on a brilliantly sunny day to the museum, passing by numerous rice fields, mountainous haystacks and brick factories/kilns on our last morning. Then it was time to take the long coach trip south. A postscript of sorts to the holiday was that we arrived in Vũng Tàu at about 430am. There were no taxis around but an old woman running a coffee stall across the road from the bus depot offered to take us both! on the back of her motorbike. She drove so slowly that I thought we could probably walk faster and she talked the whole way! Maybe it was a novelty for her!

I enjoyed the change of scenery in Quy Nhơn very much, and I think that the city would be a pleasant place to live, but it is much quieter than Vũng Tàu and there is not a lot to do for relaxation unless you can make a good circle of friends. It gets a small number of foreign visitors and I think there are a few foreigners working there or running businesses but it is really off-the-radar for most international travellers. Personally I hope that it stays that way!

Long Sơn island

Writing the entries about Đà lạt suddenly reminded me of a day trip at the beginning of April on the Hùng Kings (plural intended!) holiday. The weekend is also memorable because Vũng Tàu and much of the area inland was lashed by a typhoon on Sunday, and our trip on Saturday was almost cancelled because we had had such heavy rain early in the morning.

Long Sơn island is a large island in the waterways between Vũng Tàu and Bà Rịa, located in one corner of Vĩnh Gành Hào, the bay that you cross if you take the ferry between Saigon and Vũng Tàu. The island, or at least the floating seafood restaurants near it, were the chosen destination for the ILA outing on liberation day national holiday in September 2009. At the time Stuart from ILA told us teachers that Long Sơn is famous for monks with long beards but as we didn't go anywhere near them, I totally forgot about it.

This time on Hùng Kings holiday, Bảo's colleagues decided on a trip to the island (I think partly because I had suggested it as a day trip destination to him some time before). To get there we hired a taxi. This sounds expensive but because it dropped us off for lunch, returned to Vũng Tàu and then agreed to return when called, it was probably the most cost-effective means of transport we could use.

As a result of this visit I discovered Nhà Lớn - Long Sơn's Big House. Briefly, because I haven't found much information about it,  Long Son big house was established in the early of 20th century by Le Van Muu, a follower of Tu An Hieu Nghia religion. The religion actually comes from An Giang province in the Mekong delta. Following a Google translation of a Wikipedia entry in Vietnamese, it seems that the religion is an off-shoot of Buddhism and had the aim of using simple ideas and words to bring Buddhism to ordinary people such as farmers and fishermen. It also seems to combine ideas from Taoism and Confucianism and, in Long Sơn to revere or at least memorialise the founder of the house and his family.

Remarkably I have discovered an academic paper on Nhà Lớn Long Sơn, so I am posting a link to it here (and hoping to get time to read it thoroughly!).

The followers of Ông Tran in Long Son still follow a basic habit of wearing black áo bà ba costume (the shirt and trousers traditionally worn by South Vietnamese people), walking on bare feet and keeping their hair in buns. This habit with hair applies to both men and women, which explains Stuart's reference to long-haired monks. They also follow a strict daily routine to cook and offer food to worship and clean in the temple. They consider Nhà Lớn to be their sacred common house and live in rooms spread out in the few hectares of land that the Nhà Lớn is located on.

One of the websites I have based this information on records that
 "The locals still preserve the traditional positive characters of honesty and hospitality of the Southern people, for they always invite visitors to Nha Lon for free meals. Those meals are used first to worship and are simple, but still delicious. Visitors also have a chance to taste other specialties at Long Son."
To be honest, I felt that it was a bit of a pain for the residents to have to meet with so many visitors (due to the holiday) and we found that the guides who took us around either didn't have anything to say (I am relaying the report by the Vietnamese speakers of our party when I say this) or didn't want to talk about the house. We were not allowed to take any photos of the interior, but it was a veritable museum in parts and interesting to explore. The pictures  give an idea of the architecture.

Long Sơn is also well-known for gà ta, which in Australian English would be known as free-range chicken. Just why the meat of this chicken is so desirable is a mystery to me. It is some of the toughest meat on earth! However, in terms of animal welfare the lifestyle of the gà ta is much preferable to its cousin gà đông nghiệp (literally industrial chicken), and many people do not want to eat the meat of the latter. For example, Bảo's mother only buys gà ta.

So, although we were headed to a seafood restaurant and in Australia it is just "not on" to bring in food from outside, we purchased a number of grilled chickens then headed off to meet the boat that would transport across the channel to one of the floating restaurants off-shore from Long Sơn island. Actually, as it turns out we did have to pay for bringing in our own food, but we also indulged in prawns and oysters, too.

Đà Lạt Trip: Part 4 (last part!)

(by the way, if you think I have a good memory for the itinerary of this trip it's not true. I would be totally lost without the photographic record - and Bảo who took on the responsibility of pooling and sharing out the photos that each person on the trip took!)

Our last evening concluded with some over-zealous members of the group taking xe vịt (pedal duck/swan boats) out on Xuân Hương lake. Just like swans these vessels look like easy-sailing but to actually pedal them through the water is a rigorous and exhausting activity, and most definitely takes two people to achieve it. My pedalling partner, Dũng, is a competitive person as well so we kept having to race the other swans to imaginary finish lines.

In the morning most people wanted to go to the market and buy fruit, jam, sweaters, etc. Bảo, Bi, Thuận and I opted for coffee and ice cream instead.

Our actual departure from Đà Lạt was in stages, as we visited the Crazy House before leaving the city, and then stopped off at Datanla falls for several hours, including lunch. As a result our final departure time and commencement of the descent from the highlands only came around at about 3pm.

Crazy House - Hằng Nga

(It is a bit lazy of me, but you can take a look at my teaching website for information about this one!)

The Crazy House is a bit of a miniature Disney-land, so it is especially suited to kids who get to do all manner of dangerous things such as walk along narrow, low-sided elevated walkways joining buildings in the complex 10 metres above the ground. I do think the free-form architecture is appealing, but I still feel that actually staying in the rooms of this guesthouse is too much like living in a cement shell. The intention in the design of all the rooms is that they be cosy and inviting, but I really have no desire to stay here.

But it is always fun to visit, to see what has changed and what is still the same from last time, and what is still unfinished!

Datanla Falls

My last visit here was with Michelle, Chaska and Killki, and like that visit we took the toboggan down the steep slope to the waterfall. Bi and Thuận went on a sled of their own but managed fine, which is a bit of a relief now because there were a lot of people, and most disregarded the warning signs to keep 25 metres distance between each sled. The immediate result of this behaviour was that Dũng and Tiệp got smashed into from behind by some other group, and Dũng broke a tooth.

We had a picnic lunch at the falls, and then took a cable car that travels further down a gorge to a second set of waterfalls - quite a new attraction and it seems not yet well-known. The cable car brings you to the head of the next waterfall. From there there is an elevator(!) to take you to the base where you can wander along the stream before it reaches another cascade. We had an enjoyable time down here relaxing in the pleasant air and cool water, but ... Vũng Tàu was still a long way away.

in the background you can see the elevator

Homeward bound

We finally made it home to Phan Chu Trinh Street just before midnight, and put two very tired boys to bed. Along the way Đạt and Dương decided that they needed to buy two cumquat trees, which of course had to join the passengers in the van. We also stopped for dinner at the big Tâm Châu tea and coffee showroom and restaurant near Bảo Lộc, where Đạt and I both invested in a kilogram of delicious coffee each.

one final photo: I took this when Đạt bought the trees but I still don't know what it is!

Đà Lạt Trip: Part 3

Education, flowers, waterfalls, trains and temples

Our first destination of the following day was the railway station in Đà Lạt. I have been a little bit surprised to find out many Vietnamese people don't know about the railway station or the 7km section of track that has been returned to use - along with some lovely old carriages and less lovely diesel locomotive - as a tourist attraction. While writing this entry I also discovered that the French name for the whole works (railway station, track et al) refers to a specific type of track used in three sections of the original route from Đà Lạt to Tháp Chàm on the coast.

Future railway men?

We spent a little time exploring the railway station - and returned in the afternoon to take the train out to the village of Trại Mát. In an area like Đà Lạt which is so hilly my sense of direction gets totally screwed, so that while I felt like we were travelling west, we actually went south-east because ... well, that's where the coast is! The route took us past people's homes built almost up to the track as is quite common in Vietnam, as well as down cuttings bordered by greenhouses and fields growing strawberries, cauliflowers and flowers.

At our destination of Trại Mát we were told we had approximately 70 minutes to explore before we were scheduled to take the return journey. In the end, however, we decided to risk it and wait for the subsequent train back. This allowed us enough time to hoof it up the road to Linh Phước pagoda which is famous for its "living" statue of Quan Âm made of everlasting daisies, as well as having some other stupendous installations such as the largest bell in Vietnam, and a very large mosaic dragon, colloquially known as the beer bottle dragon.

 One of the other interesting cultural practices I noticed during our visit was a small high table in a room adjoining one of the main prayer halls. A group of people were standing around it with their finger-tips resting on the table and their eyes closed. At the time I thought this was some special prayer ritual and didn't want to take photos. But Bảo since told me that actually people believe that the table is magic in some way and that it can move under your command (not touch!). Whether each person notices it happen or not seems to depend on their individual situation. Bảo says that people with a "light" soul will feel the table move; people with a "heavy" soul will not notice anything.

This was the afternoon on which the weather really turned against us, delivering grey skies and rain. The night before, similarly, we had "got trapped" by rain in a coffee shop. When eventually it stopped we also had to compete for the taxis to get the boys back to the hotel and bed.

In between our visits to the railway station, we made our way firstly to the teachers college which has the architectural distinction of a grand, curved building. Being a holiday no-one was in class but in fact this is a working institution notwithstanding it felt a little run-down.

From here we headed out of town again, stopping firstly at a flower farm, before descending far far down into a valley to visit the Elephant Falls - Thác Voi. I have seen pictures of these falls showing the water as pristine, but during our visit - maybe due to heavy rainfall - they were brown and the route down to the base, while worth doing, was muddy and slippery.

I have belatedly found the Lâm Đồng province government website with a lot of tourist information in Vietnamese and English versions. Interestingly, the two language versions are not the same. The Vietnamese one has many more entries, including one about Elephant Falls that is absent in the English language version. However, I included that link above because it gives the origin of the waterfall's name as well as a legend attached to it. You can always use Google Translate!

Also here is a short newspaper item on the restoration of the railway station and the teacher training college.