April 10, 2005
Internet use in Vietnam
Dave Weinberger writes in his blog about a talk at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society by Tuan Nguyen, who founded the Vietnamese Internet service provider Vietnam Net (English version here).
The site now has 1.5M viewers/day. (Vietnam's population is 85M. About 5M people in Vietnam are on the Internet. About 6M have mobile phones.) The site has a newspaper license which enables its reporters to go anywhere and talk with anyone. The leaders of the party provide "guidelines" rather than ruling particular stories in or out. Mr. Nguyen also talks about some ways in which these talks and his site's actions have affected government policy.
Posted by oren at 09:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2005
The prosthetic hand on our trip to Vietnam
Ed wrote briefly before about the fact that Michael Mendonca, one of the people on our Vietnam trip, was testing prototypes of a new prosthetic hand.
This effort is a great example of using modern materials to create appropriate technology to solve real human problems. The hand itself is held with simple straps and attaches to the stump of an arm. The hand has two interlocking and opposing sets of fingers that can be moved closer together just by pushing against an object - the fingers ratchet into the tighter position, enabling the user to grip items in the hand. The fingers can be easily released by pushing the release against an object. The material used to coat the gripping surfaces is the same soft plastic commonly used on toothbrushes, giving a good grip.
Michael is one of the owners of Stack Plastics in the Bay area, and he got involved because the designer of the hand was looking for the proper material for the gripping surfaces, and a toothbrush company referred him to Michael. Michael got the Rotary Clubs involved in funding the prototype development, and he brought along several of the prototypes to Vietnam, where lost limbs are all too common, due to land mines and birth defects caused, in part, by the residue of chemical defoliants.
Michael was able to try the prototype hands on several people while in Vietnam - here is his moving description of one event, and some photos of some of the people who received the prototypes:
A four year-old Vietnamese boy was carried into the room by a care taker! The boy had only only 1 limb…I repeat, only 1 limb…a right leg! His right arm was gone just below the elbow and his left arm just above the wrist. His left leg also missing but fitted with a prosthetic. The boy screamed and yelled upon entering the room at the sight of all the prosthetic hands lined up on the table. His care taker took him outside to calm him down. 10 or 15 minutes later the care taker brought him back into the room and again he started right up with the crying and screaming. In a moment of desperation, I decided to give him one of the prosthetic hands and in the same moment I questioned my decision as I wondered whether or not that was such a great idea – I mean, how could a child “play” with such a device by having available to him, only the stubby ends of two arms that aren’t even the same lengths.
I was told once that if the only tools in your tool box are a hammer and a screw driver, then you tend to think of your solutions in terms of how they can be fixed using that hammer and that screwdriver. Well, he did just that. He instantly calmed down and was able to hold the prosthetic hands between the ends of his two arms. He began experimenting with it and in a few short moments, was able to realize how the device worked. With a little help from his care taker, he was also able to fully see how to tighten the digits (fingers) and release them.
He stayed in the room clutching the prosthetic hand and watched while we put hands on several other people. Nearly an hour passed until it was his turn and by that time, he was so ready to have his hand put on that when he and his care taker sat down, he literally reached out his left arm as if to say, “quit fooling around and put this thing on ME!” We did just that and literally within one minute, he had managed to put a marking pen in the hand and for the first time in his life, draw on a piece of paper.
The room was flooded with emotion. How many opportunities do we have in life to be able to impact another person to this extent.
A couple of weeks later I received an e-mail from Vietnam indicating that the boy not only loves and uses his hand, but he doesn’t want to take it off at night when he goes to bed.
Rest well little child, hopefully you can have the same opportunity that we have had and to experience the gift that you have given us.
Posted by oren at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2005
More great pictures - from Tara
Tara's back after her post-Vietnam Cambodia jaunt (welcome home, Tara!), and has her pictures up here on Shutterfly. She's got some great shots!
Posted by oren at 06:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2005
Stephanie's pictures are up on the web
Stephanie (that's her on the left in the top photo of the Boston women) now has her photos up on the web, here, hosted on Shutterfly. Nice pics, Steph!
Posted by oren at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 13, 2005
2:30 AM reflections
It's 2:30 in the morning in Seattle and I just woke up; wide awake from jet lag I guess. I went to bed at 11:00PM so it's not like I've slept a long time or anything- just wide awake.
I don't think I've slept more than six hours in a single night since I left for Vietnam. There, I tended to wake up at around 5 or 5:30 (even on the nights we closed down the karaoke bars).
Weird. Might as well make use of all this middle of the night silence and clarity. So I'll write:
The trip was the most amazing traveling I've ever done: every day was intense, active, interactive, and non-stop- an onslaught of sights, sounds, and smells (and smiles too!). Evenings, and on occasion early mornings, were spent laughing and singing off key with our new comrades.
I came away with my eyes wide open about a number of things: first, the work that Kids First is doing in central Vietnam is crucial, dynamic, and their story there is badly in need of telling. Oren and I and our friend TJ, whom we met on this trip, are going to be doing some writing, speaking, and web-design updating for them in order to get the word out. (Oren will do the web stuff; I can barely turn on my computer).
One in four children in Quang Tri province is born with a birth defect. I don't have any idea how that stacks up with the numbers here in the states but I'd be surprised if we were one in a hundred.
The reason for this is simple. During the war we dumped and sprayed tons of dioxins (agent orange) on this narrowest section of VN to defoliate the region in order to eradicate the cover for supply lines and NVA and VC troops. It failed as a strategy but it did leave a lasting legacy of pollution and misery for decades to come. The dioxins are in the ground. Vietnam is an agricultural country and people depend on the food they can grow for survival. The dioxins enter the food supply at the most basic level.
Another problem is land mines. A buddhist nun told us that her friend had been killed by an old land mine the day before we arrived. The mines which probably number in the thousands were left behind by the US, the French, the Japanese, and the Vietnamese. During the monsoons the mines "travel" as the wet ground shifts and a safe place to step yesterday may become lethal today.
Kids first is working hard to heal the damage. Roger Ferrell, the Executive Director for Kids First, lives in Saigon and met us at the KF Village in Dong Ha for a tour. They are nearing completion on the construction of a free medical and dental clinic, a bakery, and a wheelchair manufacturing factory. Roger's goal is to "get them in and get them healthy. Then we train them in a way that will make them able to go back to their communities and make a living".
He said that self sufficiency and sustainability are key to Kids First's survival and growth. He believes that the program must have ways to generate income so that every year isn't spent seeking grants and soliciting donations. With that in mind Roger intends to develop the capacity for manufacturing pig food for the KF pig farm and even plans to build a hotel in the Village where visting medical professionals, travellers, and I suspect, tired bike riders can stay for a reasonable fee. The staff, of course, would be the Kids First young people who would receive great training for Vietnam's burgeoning tourist industry.
Roger also spoke about his vision of partnering with anybody who wants to help. He said that as long as someone is willing to take ona needed project (and will commit to follow through with it) he is absolutely willing to partner wit anyone. His only other proviso, and one that I was quite moved to hear, is that it all be the highest quality. "We want to give the Vietnamese the best that America has to offer", he said. "We don't want anybody's junk".
The other revelation was about myself. Karalee started each of our cycling days with a "Question of the Day"; something to contemplate as we cycled through this beautiful, impoverished, and damaged land.
I don't recall all six questions. They were good ones though and I will put them up here when I get them from Karalee. The theme though had to do with what we take for granted and what our priorities and responsibilities are.
There is no easy way to say this but I suspect most of you will understand. I felt really, really alive on this trip and it made me realize how closed off and guarded I've let myself become in many aspects of my life.
Seeing the bare bones existence of rural Vietnam does not leave one much space for the conceit of self-absorption. I found that I could only respond to it and the people I met there with spontaneity and honesty. I mentioned in an earlier post from VN that I felt "peeled". I guess that's what I was meaning.
Anyway, I have no doubt that these feelings will continue to settle and sort themselves out. I'll keep writing here as long as it seems somebody wants to read what I have to say. It's now almost 3:30AM and I'm starting to get tired again. I know I'm starting to ramble. Good night.
Posted by ed at 02:13 AM
March 10, 2005
One Full Day in Ho Chi Minh City
Today, our last full day in Vietnam, we were in Ho Chi Minh City (written HCMC in local English parlance). This is the largest city in the country (officially at 5.5 million people, but unoficially estimated at 7 - 8 million). It's very alive and full of bustle, feeling much more cosmopolitan and modern than Hanoi did. There are all the usual assortment of big shops such as Prada, Shiseido, etc, and very fashionable people crowding the streets. In some ways it feels like it could be any big Asian city like Hong Kong or what I imagine Singapore to be like.
We started off the morning with a trip to the War Remnants Museum, formerly called the Museum of American War Crimes. It was a sobering place, as you might imagine. It features lots of the photos of the war that those of us who are old enough to have lived through that time will remember - pictures that were originally published in Life and Look magazines. It's intersting to contemplate how the widespread readership of those mass-market publications aroused the realization among the US public of the reality of the war in Vietnam and spurred the expressions of antiwar opinion.
There is a whole section of the museum dealing with the continuing effects in Vietnam of the defoliants used by the US during the war. The birth defect rate in Vietnam is one in four children, which is due at least in part to the long lasting effects of Agent Orange in the soil in this primarily agricultural country.
Visiting the museum was the first time since we've been here that I felt strange about being an American in Vietnam. There were groups of Vietnamese schoolkids touring the museum, and I kept wondering what they feel to see wealthy Americans in the same place that they're learning about the horrors of the war that we brought to this country.
We spent the rest of the day browsing the central market and wandering the streets of the city, shopping for gifts. Victoria, one of the people on our trip, was born in Vietnam and came to the US when she was eleven. She acted as a translator for the group who weren't bike riding and has been a great help to all of us. A friend of hers from when she was a young schoolgirl owns a shop here that sells very beautiful hand embroidered fabric, so we stopped by there and spent a small fortune between the five of us who were together today.
Tonight we have one more big group dinner and then tomorrow morning we're off for the airport and the incredibly long and cramped flight home. We'll be back in Seattle on Friday afternoon.
Posted by oren at 02:54 AM
Coming Home
It's 6:00 PM here in Saigon. In an hour we leave for our final dinner with the Kids First group (riders & non-riders) at the Sheraton Hotel in the center of Saigon and right down the street from our more modestly-priced Asia Hotel.
We leave at 9:30 tomorrow morning for the airport and the grueling 24 hour transfer from Saigon to Hong Kong to Vancouver BC to Seattle.
Our reentry into life from the cycling trip has been interesting: We cycled into Dong Ha a couple of days ago and then bused to Hue, an incredible city, the next day. It was in Hue that I saw the first Westerners I'd seen in a week. Some seemed to be Vietnam vets, here with their wives and touring the Citadel; the site of one of the hardest fought battles of the war. There were lots of French people and lots of Lonely Planet backpack travelers in the bars. I wanted to pretend they weren't there and avoided any contact with them. Still to raw from the bike trip and wanting to extend my fantasy that I and my friends were the only non-Vietnamese in the country.
Then we flew to Saigon, which sees more like lower Manhattan than rural Vietnam. Lots of big banks, multinationals, and designer boutiques. Last night we sat on the roof of the Majestic Hotel in the tropical night nursing our expensive drinks and listening to incredibly bad Vietnamese pop music (they'd advertised a jazz band).
I feel peeled. The past two weeks have been such a revelation; our schedule has been full, our contacts with the Vietnamese non-stop, we have had the support of incredible guides and interpreters. What all this means to me is going to take some time to figure out. As I said earlier my hope is to spend time over the weekend writing about things in a more or less chronological fashion. I know this trip has worked some big change in me. I have made some new friends, whom I have come to care as much for as people I have known for a long time. I have seen parts of this country that no Lonely Planet guide will ever help people access.
More to come...
Posted by ed at 02:51 AM
March 08, 2005
Internet cafes and posting pictures from Vietnam
We're sitting in an Internet place in Hue on Wednesday morning.
Ed is finishing a post I started about our latest set of activities, but I thought I'd talk a little about our experience using the Internet from a third world country.
Internet places are everywhere in Vietnam. Even the smallest villages we've cycled through have them. Usually they're just a store front jammed with a couple of rows of computers, hooked up through a DSL connection. The places (they don't typically serve food, so I hesitate to call them "cafes") are always jammed with people, usually teenagers of both genders. The main activities seem to be instant messaging (mostly Yahoo) and gaming. The kids can all type unbelievably fast.
All the computers we've seen are old, running Windows 98. I don't think I've seen a single machine running Windows XP, though someone in our group claims to have seen a few. Though the hardware is old and well-used, the machines mostly seem to be well functioning and well maintained.
Some of the hotels have had connections in the hotel, with publci stations in the lobby, but not all of them do.
My favorite Internet experience was in Cua Lo, where we asked the hotel clerk if they had Internet and he led us through the lobby, out the side door of the hotel to his motorbike. He had us both climb on the back of the bike (motorbikes are commonly conveyances for three or four in Vietnam) and motored us down the street a half-mile to the local Internet place, where we were completely surrounded by giggling teenage girls who were reading over our shoulders as we typed.
It will be very interesting to see what social changes come about as a result of this explosion of technology use in Vietnam - it's another part of the worldwide communications genie that can't be stuffed back into the bottle.
We've been a little frustrated about our inability to post pictures as we travel. It's certainly not because we haven't been taking any - as a matter of fact I had to go out and buy more memory cards yesterday (remind me to not buy a Sony camera next time - the proprietary Memory Stick technology is way more expensive than other memory). But most of the machines don't have ports open for hooking up cameras, and the connection speeds are spotty enough that trying to upload photos doesn't seem like a good way to spend the little free time we have around the edges of our days.
You can count on LOTS of pictures of our trip, and more commentary, being posted once we return. We've talked with the other bike riders about creating an index to all the places where everybody's pictures are posted, so you'll be able to view the whole group's experiences.
Keep those comments coming folks!
Posted by oren at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)
Kids First Village and on to Hue
Yesterday we bussed down from Dong Ha to Hue, which was the imperial capital of Vietnam in the 19th century.
It was wierd to be moving through the countryside in a big motorbus after being used to cycling. The level of detail and interaction with the landscape and its inhabitants is much lower from the bus.
It's also an adjustment to be with the larger group of travellers - the group of non-bike-riders on the trip, which is about the same as the number of riders, have been off seeing other sites around the country as we've been riding. Those of who rode together developed a very strong sense of camaraderie and are very used to each others' company - I think we're a bit rowdier and louder than the non-riding gang, so we're having to temper that a bit as we re-integrate.
We started off yesterday morning by getting a tour of the Kids First Rehabilitation village, which is under construction in Dong Ha. The facilities are extensive, and I don't think either of us really had any appreciation for the breadth of activities that are going to take place there.
When the village is opened it will have a hotel, a computer learning resource center, medical facilities, a facility for manufacturing artificial limbs, and there are plans to build a wheelchair factory. The idea is to employ young people with disabilities in the self-sustaining activities that will both enable the independent survival of the enterprises and give the people trades. It's a very compelling story when you see it up close and hear Roger explain it.
Both Ed and I feel that the Kids' First story has not been adequately told through their web site, so we spoke with Karalee and Roger about pitching in and helping with that when we return to the States.
Yesterday morning we bid goodbye to the Cuoung, our guide, and the crew of Vietnamese from Buffalo Tours who had accompanied us on the ride. They were a fabulous group of folks, and ever since yesterday morning we've been feeling Cuoung's absence. We've all been trying to imitate his mannerisms, but falling way short.
After having some free time yesterday where we toured the Citadel in the old Imperial City, we visited a Buddhist orphanage here in Hue.
Ed here: Picking up where Oren left off.
Last evening we went to the Duc Son Pagoda Buddhist Orphanage in Hue where Buddhist nuns are raising 195 children. The woman who runs the orphanage is a lovely, dedicated person and met with us briefly to welcome us. She apologized for her sad demeanor saying that a friend had been killed yesterday in a land mine explosion and that the whole orpanage was grieving the loss.
Then we were off to see the children. It was fantastic; they sang songs for us and we sang a song in Vietnamese that we'd been trying to memorize all week. At karalee's suggestion I brought a rubber stamp and ink pad to Vietnam with me and I was completely swamped with kids wanting stamps on their foreheads arms and cheeks. Every kid there was smiling and despite the aura of a feeding frenzy they were all completely polite and well-mannered. It's hard to imagine kids in the States being so excited about something as simple as a rubber stamp.
Last night we said goodbye to our friend and guide Sparky from Across the Divide. He's off to Africa today to lead a group of Irish women on a trek up Mt. Kenya. As is traditional the farewell warrented another visit to a local karaoke bar and and a suitable amount of Tiger beer. I know that Sparky's reading this so I'll just say on behalf of my fellow cyclists, "well done mate! Carry on!"
We fly to Saigon (HCMC) in a couple of hours. We're planning to visit the War Remnents Museum there which tells the history of the Vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspective. They refer to it, not surprisingly, as the American war.
Still not able to post pictures sorry to say but I expect we'll be able to post a few more blogs in Saigon before we leave Friday morning for home.
I just received an email from Marcia that our old Golden Retriever, Beau, died. He was with us for fourteen years. That news, combined with all we've experienced here, is leaving my heart feeling pretty full right now. Oren and I have a few hours to walk around Hue before our flight and this is a beautiful city to let things settle a bit.
More later.
Posted by oren at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2005
Riding down the highway
We've had an action packed couple of days. We didn't manage to post last night because we were busy closing down the karaoke bar at the hotel with Karalee; Cuong and Tien, our Vietnamese guides from Buffalo Tours; Sparky, our expedition leader who's from the UK and works leading adventure expeditions all over the world for Across the Divide; Rich, a young fellow from the Boston crew; Janet, an mutual funds salesperson from San Francisco; Lenah, a transplanted Brazillian who lives in San Diego; and TJ, a Rotarian from Bellevue.
Karalee now has on tape far too much of the proceedings, which culminated (after I went to bed) with Ed, Sparky, and TJ singing a rousing chorus of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot acapella after the karaoke machine broke. Interestingly enough, for some reason the Vietnamese prefer really maudlin ballads and take karaoke pretty seriously.
Yesterday we cycled from Thanh Hoa to visit some the ancient capital of Vietnam in the Tenth Century, which was interesting. Then we cycled through amazing country side for a while. We stopped and visited a one room preschool where the kids performed some songs and dances for us and we did the Hokey Pokey for them - they looked at us like we were totally out of our minds, which of course we were.
Then we got onto Highway One, the major North-South highway in Vietnam. It's a complete and utter madhouse, with motorbikes, cars, trucks, busses, bicycles, oxen, and everything else you can think of (and much you can't). We rode on the highway to Thanh Hoa, where we spent the night in a hotel that looked like it was built in the Soviet era and hadn't been touched since. Ed and I were the only ones with hot water in our rooms, much to the envy of the entire crew. The whole town felt like something out of the movie Brazil - dirty, noisy, topped with loudspeakers blaring the national radio station starting at six in the morning.
Today we got up, cycled more on Highway One for the morning and then turned off onto backroads where we went through amazing farmland and small towns until we hit the coast. We cycled into a very strong headwind up the coast. We visited an amazing elementary school, where hundreds of kids swarmed anyone who took out a camera. We're now sitting in an internet place where lots of young folks are looking over our shoulders as we type.
We're off to dinner at the hotel, and then to a hopefully early bedtime!
Posted by oren at 03:42 AM | Comments (3)
March 02, 2005
A day near Ninh Binh
After breakfasting at the Soviet-era hotel in Haiphong, where the recorded music played the same balalaika tune over and over again, we rode in the bus a couple of hours to get to our hotel in Ninh Binh, where we connected with the bicycles for the first day of riding!
The hotel is like something from a Graham Greene novel - a French era villa that has gone to seed. It's musty and things barely work, but hey - it's home for the night.
We got our bikes fitted and headed out on the back roads through magnificent countryside - rice fields with huge limestone formations jutting out of them, cliffs with pagodas on top, and lots of kids by the side of the road waving and yelling "HELLO!" and giving us high-fives as we ride by.
We got to Tam Coc where we got to take a rowboat ride up the river through three caves. There were mountain goats on the cliffs, and rice paddies along the side of the river. On the way back we got the hard sell from the rowers who wanted to sell us embroidered tablecloths and napkins - it was a sort of weird scene, which left us all feeling rather uneasy.
Now we're in the local Internet emporium which is full of kids playing games (I think mostly Age of Empires) and doing instant messaging. The other thing it's full of is mosquitoes. Time for more deet!
Tomorrow we have a more ambitious ride, about 70 km, including section on Highway 1, which is the main highway in the country. Unlike the US, on Vietnam's major highway there are separate lanes for cars, motorbikes, and bicycles (we don't know what the water buffalo will use).
More tomorrow as the incredible venture continues! Keep those comments coming, friends!
Posted by oren at 06:12 AM | Comments (4)
March 01, 2005
Day Three
It's 6:30 AM in Haiphong. We're leaving in a half hour for a three hour bus ride and then we'll begin cycling later this afternoon.
Yesterday was an incredible and very full day. We left Hanoi and took a long bus ride to Ha Long Bay. We boarded a boat and spent the afternoon crusing the limestone cliff islands, exploring an enormous cave and kayaking through little arches into lagoons inside the islands.
On the way to Ha Long we stopped at an arts and crafts center and one of our group who is here testing a prototype prosthetic hand found a forty year old man who had lost both hands and an eye in an explosion when he was nine years old. He had the man try out the hand and it worked really well. It was quite a moment with everyone in tears. I got a great picture of the two of them but so far we haven't had the time or the correct connection to post pictures. Stay tuned.
We had dinner last night at an orphanage that Kids First sponsors in Haiphong. It was another really wonderful and heartfelt event. The kids range in age from new babies to eigthteen years old and were all really sweet. It was great to see the older kids really looking after the younger ones and it, to me at least, felt like they were cared for in a real family situation.
We are finding that it is very hard to convey in words what we are experiencing here in the few minutes that we have to blog. Suffice it to say that it is unlike anything either one of us has ever experienced. We will continue to update you and I expect that after we get back home we will have a lot to say as this all settles.
Oren here - I second everything Ed said - but he didn't tell you about the close encounter we had in our minibus between two water buffalo taking up the right lane as a dump truck backed into the left lane, or the frequent restaurants along the road advertising dog meat (and cat too), or the warmth and humor of our guides, one of whom had everybody singing Beatles songs as we tromped through the cave. It's a great trip so far...more later!
Posted by ed at 03:34 PM | Comments (1)
February 28, 2005
A night and day in Hanoi
It's now Monday evening in Hanoi.
Last night we walked through the old quarter to the famous Cha Ca La Vong, where we had glorious fish stew prepared at our table over a hot charcoal stove.
Then we went to Minh's Jazz Club, and heard Minh, who teaches saxophone at the Hanoi Conservatory and a credible combo for a set. They sounded to me much like a Cornish combo - young, talented, enthusiastic, but not totally seasoned.
We then fell into bed, totally exhausted after 48 hours of minimal sleep - it felt amazingly good to be horizontal.
Ed and I woke up at 5:30 this morning and as soon as it got light we walked around the lake, watching people do their morning exercises, which ranged from stretching and tai chi to badminton and aerobics. The guidebook said that there are huge tortoises in the lake - in 1968 they pulled out one that weighed over 250 kilos and was more than two meters long!
We grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel (Ed had baguette and jam, I had beef pho) and we met up with the gang to go find an ao dai for Marcia. We met with success, but that's a story to tell later.
We spent the rest of the day walking over the entire city, marvelling over the heavy motorscooter traffic, the shops, the people everywhere.
We had a great lunch at the Brother Restaurant with the whole crew, and then strolled over to see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and grounds. Ho wasn't open for viewing today (closed Mondays) but the monument was impressive in a Soviet brutalist kind of way.
Now we're off to dinner at the culinary school where they train homeless youth to be chefs... more later when we can!
Posted by oren at 03:30 AM | Comments (9)
February 24, 2005
What will the weather be like in Vietnam?
I've put a link for current Vietnam weather over in the Links section of the sidebar on the right.
Karalee sent a note predicting the following for our trip - doesn't look as hot as I thought it would be (that's a good thing):
Weather forecast
Sun Feb. 27 Hanoi – Partly cloudy, 74/61
Mon Feb. 28 Hanoi – Cloudy, 63/55
Tue Mar. 1 Hai Phong – Showers, 66/59
Wed Mar. 2 Hoa Lu to Ninh Binh – Scattered showers, 74/63
Thu Mar. 3 Thanh Hoa – Showers, 72/61
Fri Mar. 4 Vinh to Cuc Lu – Showers, 68/58
Sat Mar. 5 Dong Ho'I – Scattered showers, 70/61
Sun Mar. 6 Phong Nha National Park to Dong Hoi
Mon Mar. 7 Dong Ha Town – excpect partly cloudy, low 80s
Tue Mar. 8 Hue – excpect partly cloudy, low 80s
Wed Mar. 9 Hue to Ho Chi Minh City – expect sun and low 90s
Thu Mar. 10 Ho Chi Minh City – expect sun and low 90s
Posted by oren at 06:19 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2005
John Perry Barlow talks to someone in Vietnam
John Perry Barlow relates a random call he got over his Internet phone from a 22-year-old woman near Hanoi who wanted to practice her English.
any event, I was sitting at my desk in New York on Wednesday night, writing a BarlowSpam, when Skype started to emit the old-fashioned bell tone that signals a request for a voice chat. I looked at the window associated with the request and saw a bunch of Chinese pictograms where the name should be. Some kind of Asian chatspam, I figured, and I ignored it. A few minutes later, it rang again. The name of the caller was "Kitty11_3". There was also a text chat box on the screen, also from kitty11_3 which read, "I need a friend." I was skeptical. I figured that "Kitty," or whomever, was probably looking for "friends" to come see her "relax" in her web-cam equipped "bedroom." But I took the call. A delicate Asian-sounding voice came from someplace in Cyberspace. "Will you talk to me?" she said.
"Why?"
"I want to practice my English."
"Why me?"
"Because your name is John. I think that anybody named John speaks English."
I remained skeptical, but further conversation convinced me that she was telling the truth. She really had no idea who or where I was and had plucked me at random from all the Skype users named John. Kitty11_3 turned out to be a 22 year old girl from Hanoi, who, like her father, works for the state-owned oil company. She had managed to get five of her neighbors in the Hanoi suburb where she lives to go in on a DSL line and WiFi which she had set up herself. Her boyfriend is off in Korea getting a master's degree in telecommunications. She has three sisters, and her real name is Vu My Dung.
Posted by oren at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2005
Our Vietnam trip itinerary
For all those who've been wondering what exactly we're going to be doing while we're in Vietnam, here's our tentative itinerary - looks great!
Kids First Tentative Itinerary February 25 – March 11, 2005
Feb. 25 - Friday
Evening flight – Seattle to Vancouver
Feb. 26 - Saturday
Mid-night flight - lose a day – Vancouver to Hong Kong
Feb. 27 - Sunday
Morning flight – Hong Kong to Hanoi
We will check into our hotel in the morning and the remainder of the day is yours to explore the wonders of Hanoi. We will enjoy a leisurely dinner at the famous restaurant school for homeless youth.
LUCKY HOTEL
12 Hang Trong Street
Hoan Kiem District
Hanoi, Vietnam
Phone:+84-4 8 251029
Fax: +84-4 8 251731
Feb 28 - Monday
Today is another free day in Hanoi for sightseeing and shopping. For those interested, we will schedule a tour of the Prosthetics Outreach Center where you will see how the Vietnamese create prosthetics limbs for amputees. In the evening we will have dinner with representatives from the Vietnam Women’s Union.
HOTEL –LUCKY
Hanoi
Mar 1 - Tuesday
In the morning, you will check out of hotel and drive to Hai Phong where you will spend the day enjoying the sunshine and kayaking through the limestone rocks in Ha Long Bay.
Mar 2 - Wednesday
Today we begin our cycling proper. We transfer south to explore the famed area of Hoa Lu by bicycle, home to Vietnam’s first capital and also the splendid limestone cliffs of Tam Coc. Here we board rowing boats to further explore this area of natural beauty. In the late afternoon we retire to the nearby town of Ninh Binh. (74 miles, 120 km)*
QUY NHON HOTEL
08 Nguyen Hue Str ,
Qui Nhon City , Binh Dinh ,Viet Nam
Tel : 0568.892401 or 02
Fax : 0568.891162
hotelquynhon@dng.vnn.vn
Mar 3 - Thursday
Continuing south we visit the remains of the former citadel of Thanh Hoa dating from the Ho Dynasty. (37 miles, 60 km)
Mar 4 - Friday
We follow Highway 1 to reach the town of Vinh. This province has special significance to the Vietnamese people, as it was the ancestral home of the nation’s founder, Ho Chi Minh. Staying overnight at the coastal resort of Cuc Lu (93 miles, 150 km) *
Mar 5 - Saturday
We will begin the day with a morning bus transfer 100kms. Today’s ride includes a cycle over Deo Con Pass and a pleasant ride into Dong Ho’i. (68 miles, 110 km)*
HOA HONG HOTEL
01 Pham Ngu Lao St
Hue, Vietnam
hoahonghotel@dng.vnn.vn
tel: + 84 054 24377
fax: +84 054 826949
Mar 6 - Sunday
Today we have an excursion to Vietnam’s fifth and most recent UNESCO World Heritage site – Phong Nha National Park. The park’s most impressive feature is its caves. Part of the route will take us along the newly built Ho Chi Minh Highway, and we’ll pass sections of the original Ho Chi Minh Trail as it weaves through the forests and cliffs. There is also the chance to relax in some hot mineral water streams and the sandy beach of Nhat Le. Later we return to Dong Ha for the evening. (68 miles, 110 km)*
PHUNG HOANG HOTEL
No. 146, Le Duan St
Dong Ha, Quang Tri Prov.
Tel: + 84-53-854567
Fax: + 84-53-855441
phunghoanghotel2001@yahoo.com
Mar 7 - Monday
We visit the DMZ and some of the remaining Viet Cong tunnels. We bike the final portion of our journey, rejoining our fellow travelers at the Kids First Rehabilitation Village in Dong Ha Town, Quang Tri Province. (63 miles, 102 km)
In the evening we will have a gala dinner celebration with members of the Quang Tri People’s Committee.
HOTEL – DONG HA
Mar 8 - Tuesday
We will have the dedication of the Statue at Village (Woosley Family), and will tour the Kids First Rehabilitation, Career and Technical Training Village, Pig Farm and School.
We will drive to the ancient capital city of Hue, visit the Duc Son Pagoda Buddhist Orphanage for fun and dinner.
HOA HONG HOTEL
01 Pham Ngu Lao St
Hue, Vietnam
hoahonghotel@dng.vnn.vn
tel: + 84 054 24377
fax: +84 054 826949
Mar 9 - Wednesday
Your morning will be free with a mid-afternoon flight to Saigon (HCMC).
Dinner in Saigon
ASIAN HOTEL-HCMC
150 Dong Khoe St,
Tel: +84 8.8296979
Fax: +84 8 8296421
asianhotel@hcm.fpt.vn
Mar 10 - Thursday
Today you will have a free day in HCMC to explore this wondrous city.
HOTEL – ASIAN
HCMC
Mar 11 - Friday
9:00 AM Depart hotel for airport for return flights to USA.
Posted by oren at 04:29 PM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2004
Good article in the Guardian on Vietnamese food
Karalee sends along this article in The Guardian about Vietnamese food, by Natacha Du Pont De Bie.
There are over 500 traditional dishes in Vietnam and the vast menu seemed to reflect this. Generally, a large menu is something to be suspicious of, but with so many cooks, each responsible for their own specialities, there is no chance of spoiled broth. The perfumes arising from the cooking pots enticed us to order more and more. I realised it wasn't a restaurant pandering to western tastes when I noticed four pages of sweet dishes alone. Asians may not eat dessert at the end of a meal but they snack on them all day, and the Wine Drunken Sticky Rice Balls was my favourite dish, neck and neck with the char-grilled squid and the lotus rhizome salad.
Yummm - can't wait.
Posted by oren at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2004
Dang Nhat Minh, and Season of Guavas
I'm sitting in on a terrific course here at the UW in the modern history of Vietnam, taught by Christoph Giebel.
Today in class we were fortunate enough to have Dang Nhat Minh, a very prominent Vietnamese film director, as a guest in class. He is showing his new film, Season of Guavas, tonight at 6 pm in the Allen Auditorium here on the UW campus.
Unfortunately I won't be able to attend, but I am excited to see that the UW Libraries have the film available on videotape. I look forward to seeing it soon!
Posted by oren at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2004
A Saigon food blog
While doing a Google search to see if the blog is being indexed yet (apparently not), I came across a weblog called Noodlepie, where freelance journalist Graham Holliday writes (mostly) about food in Saigon (he calls the city that, not Ho Chi Minh City). The pictures of the food are gorgeous, like this one of Bun Rieu:
Posted by oren at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2004
Bird Flu - Maybe not so safe after all
Just when the article on BoingBoing got me feeling pretty good about the bird flu, here comes Tim Bishop's rebuttal:
Is a perfect storm brewing now? I don't know, but it is possible. We have no vaccine that works against the bird flu at the moment. If the bird flu did get established in humans, we would have to use the oldest public health tactics we have, isolation and quarantine. Given what a relatively hard to communicate illness (SARS) did to the people and economies of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Canada, it is easy to imagine the bird flu doing much, much worse. Millions of people died in 1918 from the Spanish Influenza, and nobody was travelling by airplane then.
While I don't think there is any reason to panic, nor to avoid travel to Asia, the fact remains that if the bird flu gets established in humans, there is a significant chance of a major pandemic, at least that's what Dr. Shigeru Omi, the World Health Organization's regional director for the western Pacific, has said:
"So far there are no cases of human-to-human transmission, but if the situation continues a long time, there is a high possibility that we will have [them]," Omi said at a news conference ahead of next week's western Pacific regional annual meeting in Shanghai.
"Unless intensified efforts are made to halt the spread of the virus, a pandemic is very likely to occur," Omi added.
What can be done now? Pressure our government to provide the economic incentives for private companies to look for a vaccine. According to WHO:
At the beginning of April 2004, WHO made the prototype seed strain for an H5N1 vaccine available to manufacturers. To date, only two of the world's roughly 12 major companies producing influenza vaccines have taken work on a pandemic vaccine significantly forward.
hoo boy.
Posted by oren at 08:07 AM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2004
Books and Movies
Whenever I'm planning to travel somewhere new part of my preparation is to immerse myself in the history of that place. Even though I grew up during the Vietnam war I'm aware of how many gaps exist in my understanding of that conflict and how little I understand of VN's pre- and post-war history.
Oren is taking a class on the Vietnam War at the UW this quarter. I have picked up a number of books and am busy reading them. I thought I'd list a few here and see if anyone has any suggestions for further reading:
"Shadows and Wind" by Robert Templer- A critical look at Vietnam's post war government.
"Fire in the Lake" by Frances Fitzgerald- The Pulitzer Prize winning history of the VN War. I read it many years ago but it seemed like a good time to pick it up again.
"After Tet" by Ronald Spector- Spector is a military historian and a good one. Ordinarily I avoid "war histories" but I read Spector's history of the war in the Pacific during WWII several years ago and think he's one of the best.
"Vietnam, Now" by David Lamb- A look at modern VN culture by a reporter who covered the war for the LA Times.
"Understanding Vietnam" by Neil L. Jamieson.- Haven't cracked this one yet. It looks good but very text-bookish. I'll write about it later.
Movies-
I have a copy of the incredible PBS production "Vietnam: A Television History". Oren and I are making our way through the eleven hour documentary very slowly. It is pretty intense viewing.
And speaking of intense I recently watched "Hearts and Minds"; Peter Davis'1974 Oscar-winning documentary on the VN war. Thirty years ago my friend Jim Goldberg and I hitch-hiked to Seattle from Bellingham to see this film in a downtown theater. It was the day that Saigon fell.
If you have any suggestions for books, films, etc; please let us know.
Posted by ed at 10:46 PM | Comments (1)
October 06, 2004
Bird Flu risk extremely low
Mark Fraunfelder points out over at Boing Boing that the risk of catching bird flu in Asia is actually very low.
he truth is, from the last news clippings I have, that there have been 22 human fatalities in Vietnam and Thailand. The incidence of this cause of death is twice as high as the probability of dying in an airline accident -- but to keep this in perspective, you are 20 times more likely to be killed by lightning in Colorado than a Vietnam citizen is likely to die of bird flu!!
That's at least one thing to worry less about!
Posted by oren at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)