Journey

We amazingly were able to book a last-minute taxi driver; Co Xuan secured one for us through her connections. At 9:00AM, we headed to Da Lat, "the city of fog" in south-central Viet Nam. The distance from Saigon isn't very far, but the entire trip took the whole day because the traffic and roads were so bad. The highway was two lanes going in different directions with a barrier in between (which ended once we got out of Saigon). Potholes riddled the road, and our Viet-Nam-manufactured Toyota van wasn't built with full shock absorbers, which became immediately apparent if you sat in the back. We dropped by a few churches and Virgin Mary statues reputed for miracles performed or witnessed around the area.

The homeless in Viet Nam are so often more pitiful than many in the US. There aren't any soup kitchens are shelters, no relief funds or aid programs. They rely solely on panhandling and the occasional help of others. Our driver (Anh Hoang), Tung's cousin (Anh Tinh), and Co Xuan are natives here and are used to it, but the sight still breaks our hearts. Crippled and handicapped people crawl along the streets among crumpled napkins and carelessly tossed-away chicken bones in the restaurants that line the street; they reach up and stretch out a palm to beg for money from people who barely give them a second glance. Young children double over themselves, struggling to find sleep from the cold that seeps into the late night; then they strive to find their way out of the momentary comfort of sleep to continue living another day. Compared to these street beggars, the lottery-ticket sellers around Ben Thanh market seemed to have established a comfortable living.

At a famous church where the Virgin Mary was supposed to have been seen clapping her hands during a prayer session, there was a crippled man panhandling at the base of the steps leading up to the pews in front of the statue. The man's left arm was shrunken and shriveled in a twisted deformity. I gave him all the change I happened to have on me--only $1,500 dong (not even 10 US cents)--but he bowed low out of gratitude and said a short prayer for my generosity. Co Xuan said that sometimes, parents cripple their children on purpose, just to have them look pitiful enough to go out and beg for money. Sitting at one of the pews and waiting for Tung's family to finish their prayers, I felt humbled to tears, thinking about how much I have back home--and how much they lack here.

And yet that same ambience of poverty, lots of physical labor, and lack of stress from living a simple life and from a simple diet, makes most Vietnamese who live in the rural areas quite healthy. In some places, our taxi driver said, men live up to 180 years old and can still walk. The rich-red earth of Viet Nam is the remnant of volcanic soil, extremely fertile and conducive to the growth of vegetables and exotic flora. With just a square patch of land, a family can grow its own food and live off this for many generations. Despite the lack of smog-check regulations and an immense amount of vans, sedans, and motorbikes on the road, the humid air seems quite healthy. My dreadful, endless winter cough went away after just several days' stay in Saigon, and that's one of the more heavily populated (and heavily polluted) cities.

We dropped by Thach Prem, a waterfall housed in a little park, just as the sun was setting. Regrettably, we didn't get to tour the park, but we did snap a few pictures before it got impossibly dark. Co Xuan said our brief walk inside was the "appetizer" to entice our next trip to Viet Nam.

Towards the evening, we dropped by Da Lat Su Quan (Da Lat Historical Village), a newly-built tourist attraction.

The place was famous for its beautiful silk-screen embroidery. The threads were so fine and tightly woven together that from afar, the whole picture looked like a painting, irridescent threads shimmering like silky gold underneath the light.

The front windows also showcased enbroidered robes worn by the past emperors and empresses of Viet Nam.

The lighting and ambience and ornately-carved wooden door frames gave us the sense that we had gone back in time and were pacing the grounds of a palace. A wood-burning hearth gave off the smoky smell pervading the entire area. The young ladies who worked there were all so beautiful, soft-spoken, and helpful. Except for one incident at Do Huu restaurant when I was trying to purchase a SIM card for my cell phone (we ate there, they happened to sell calling cards, and apparently they didn't know enough about what they sold to patiently explain it), I'm surprised to find how serviceable the Vietnamese are. It seems like the owners of every Vietnamese-run shop I walk into in California try to rip me off or are really rude to me.

We did some souvenir shopping for hair clips and were about to eat Hue regional food, but it was already late, so the kitchen had run out of the "mi quang" noodles we wanted to try, along with a lot of other foods. It would have been fun to try our hands at the cook-it-yourself dishes in the kitchen, but we only stayed long enough to experience a little of the cultural singing by the soft-voiced Hue ladies.

At around 9:00PM, most of the eateries had closed or were getting ready to close up shop. After a dinner of "mi thap cam" (combination egg noodles) at a restaurant in town, we headed to Co Xuan's good friend's house to sleep for the night. It was a big, multi-story house with modern plumbing and many rooms on each floor, big enough to hold two full-sized beds. We spoiled Americans took turns showering while Anh Tinh and Anh Hoang called it a night in their own room, in the clothes that they traveled in.

Here's a view of Dalat, a picture I took the next morning, standing on the second-floor balcony of the house in which we stayed: