, lychees (cay vai)
, mangosteen (mang coc)
, watermelon (qua dua hau), sour sop (mang cau xiem)
, rambutan (chom chom)
, jack fruit (mit)
,and some weird plums that look like pears and taste like asian pear, kind of
.
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Take care,
Marquita
The last two days were pretty much uneventful. Until…the monsoon rain.
I finally washed some clothes and had them hanging up to dry outside in the sun. All of a sudden the monsoon rains started and they were pouring hard and fast. The kids and I were upstairs playing cards when we all looked at each other and scattered to our clothes that were hanging to dry. Mine downstairs, their’s upstairs over the balcony. We tried as quickly as we could to get our clothes out the rain. On way, running through the living room, I dropped a pair of underwear on the floor.
I think it is a big taboo to have anyone see you underwear because when you hang it up to dry you have to shield it with a shirt or pants or if possible hang a pillowcase over them. But no one seemed to notice anyway.
Late in the night, at about 8:00 (pitch dark outside) the kids asked if I wanted to go with them to the cafe. Of course I said yes. On our way they taught me new words like “sơ thích” which means hobby. However, the cafe was closed so that asked if I wanted to go far away to a different cafe. They said it was 1 kilometer away. Me, not knowing how to convert between our stupid imperial system and the metric system said, “Sure, why not?”
I was about 10 or 15 minutes away and mostly in the dark. At one point we had to cross a huge pool of muddy water caused by the earlier monsoon. And of course, i stuck my foot in mud up to my ankle.
When we finally got there, I drinked tea, ate ice cream with fresh fruit, and had hot chocolate. The kids also had similar deserts but ate yoghurt instead of hot chocolate. A desert for 4 which would be at least $20 in the U.S. cost a mere $3 here. I have barely spent $10 so far. My breakfast at the market has costed about $1 at the most.
Getting here may be expensive ($1400) but once I’m here, it very inexpensive, and delicious.
I had 1 main goal and a few minor goals for this trip: 1) learn Vietnamese, 2) learn how to cook, 3) learn how to shop for food, and 4) learn how to drive a motorbike (i.e. small motorcycle). Well, I’m happy to say that after my first few days of questioning whether or not I have passed that threshold of learning a new language that I am, in fact, improving. I’m learning many new words such as:
- fly kite
- mushroom
- lychee
- sweet
- skinny
- fat
- angry
- cry
- worried
Kind of in that order. I’ve also learned how to cook many foods. We go to the market every day to buy fresh produce and then cook at least 2 meals a day. Very delicious vegetarian foods, including vegetarian pork head meat cooked in tomatoes, mmmm!
I also had my first motorbike lesson. OMG! First, as two men held the back of the motorbike and I drove 5 miles per hour, I tried and failed to keep the bike straight. Easier than riding a bicycle, my butt. Then, some young guy, maybe my age, came over and started instructing me on how to ride a motorbike and what I was doing wrong, of course all in fluent Vietnamese. He then got on the motorbike and instructed me to sit behind him. He was going to help steer and I was going to control the gas and brake. Hmmm… It actually worked. By the end of it, I still couldn’t drive it on my own but I had made progress. We ended the lesson after I repeatedly got scared of a hole in the ground and almost ran into a tree, multiple times. He was very nice.
A few other random things I learned this week:
- after peeling and separating the fruit from a jackfruit bigger than your torso, wash your hands with rice to remove the sap.
- eat sour fruit all day, every day, for 3 months and lose 15 pounds
- little kids everywhere know more about technology than you do (My 7 year old cuz Khang knows how to successfully find and play all the games on my MyTouch (better than me), take and review pictures on the Canon camera, and take me to the internet cafe by himself).
I don’t have much access to the internet so I apologize for the lump of information. I’ll try to keep it to the more interesting things.
Within the last few days, I’ve eaten countless types of fruit, dragon fruit (thanh long), lychees (cay vai), mangosteen (mang coc), watermelon (qua dua hau), sour sop (mang cau xiem), rambutan (chom chom), jack fruit (mit),and some weird plums that look like pears and taste like asian pear, kind of.
My favorite food is banh beo and my favorite drink is chanh day or fresh squeezed passion fruit juice. I’ve had banh beo one time but since the market has changed location since the last time I was here, I can’t find the juice lady and her cart in order to get fresh juice. So I’ve had to settle for passion fruit pulp in a plastic bottle. Its no where near as good.
Although the aunts have supplied food readily, they (3 out of the 4 so far) have encouraged me to not eat all my meals and especially not the fatty ones like fried tofu. Its kind of confusing because they will place the communal bowl of food right in front of me but then also make a separate bowl of boiled veggies and a bowl of sauce from the fried dishes but without the actually fried stuff right next to it. A blunt suggestion but without actually telling me to do it. However, one aunt has told me to eat breakfast, a little lunch and no dinner so that I can surprise Vu with my slimness. They always do it with a good heart and sometimes a sweet laugh at my expense. No hard feelings.
I haven’t had too many adventures except for flying kites with the cousins. They walk up the street past small family farms, past temples and dung dropped by water buffaloes and cows, walk across a very rickety bridge that is driven and walked across every day, and finally through a closed fence that they are worried I won’t be able to squeeze through, because of my size, and we get there. A road, fenced off from the village but with a perfect incline that allows one with little effort to catch enough wind and speed for their kite to fly. It was fun.
One last thing I would like to share. I rode to a neighboring town called Kado where two of my aunts lived and Vu’s dad was, on the back of a motorbike (aka small motorcycle). I love riding on a motorbike and can’t wait for the opportunity to learn how to drive one.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment. Take care until next time,
Marquita
Today, I arrived in Don Duong, Vu’s village near Dalat after an 8 hour bus ride. There barely any one on the bus but one of the bus drivers and another older man started up a conversation with me. This was my first real experience speaking Vietnamese. We understood each other a little. They asked about where I lived, why I came to Vietnam, and what I did. I told them about my husband and his family and discovered that the older man knew the family. The bus driver also said I was pretty:)
When I arrived at home, I slept, tried to learn how to cook vegetarian beef stew (I think I got it), slept some more, and then met the cousins again. Little Khang was very outgoing and started to talk to me and check out my NOOK then asked if I wanted to go pick cherries. I didn’t understand what he was talking about so he dragged me outside with him, showed me how he picked cherries and washed them and then we ate them with spicy salt.
After that, I hung out a little with the cousins while we try to understand each other. They are learning to speak English and they say that its really hard. Of course I think Vietnamese is harder. We ate some more, I was directed towards the slimming greens rather than the fried tofu, and then went in search of an internet cafe, where I am now typing this post.
I’m now in taipei waiting for 3 hours for my last flight to vietnam. The flight went by really fast because I was tired and slept a lot. The two vegetarian meals were edible but one was served at 3 in the morning and the other had strange greenish brown button mushrooms unlike I have ever seem before. I can’t wait to have vietnamese food.
Charging station at airport.
At the airport. I guess its officially day 1 because its 12:42 am. Long check in line. Long screening line. My bag got checked because I didn’t remove the liquids. Now I’m just charging my phone and waiting for boarding.