Chúc Mừng Năm Mới - Happy New Year

Happy Tet or lunar new year! Instead of saying they are "celebrating" Tet the Vietnamese say, ăn Tết which literally means to "eat" Tet. Tet is the biggest holiday on the Vietnamese calendar - kind of like Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve rolled into one. Which I guess makes sense since it is celebrated over a long period of time and people usually get a whole week off of work. It is a time to spend with family, give gifts and reflect on the coming year.

We've enjoyed observing the customs of Tet and contrasting them to what happened during Chinese New Year when we lived in Beijing. Leading up to Tet, the preparations are fast and furious and traffic in Hanoi reaches insane proportions. People are driving on all the sidewalks and traffic is simply unbearable. When I asked someone why the traffic was so bad the response I received, only half jokingly, was that all the low and mid-level provincial officials have to come to Hanoi to pay their respects (and bribes) to higher officials in the capital.

Leading up to Tet, families give lots of gifts to friends and prepare a big meal for the Kitchen Gods. Families are supposed to give a report to the Kitchen Gods of the previous year's happenings and recite prayers and make offerings of boiled chicken, eggs and junk food like potato chips (not sure when the junk food was added or why). At the end of the ceremony the family sets a fish free (usually a catfish) to let the Kitchen Gods ride it up to heaven - I offered to flush one down the toilet but Jennie didn't find that quite so funny. We were able to view the Kitchen God ceremony up close when the owners of our apartment building had their ceremony in our lobby. Jennie was able to take some movies of them chanting and praying. Here is a picture of the alter and the offerings.

Everyone decorates their homes with peach blossoms (the first tree to blossom in these parts - not too difficult when the weather is in the 60's and 70's as it is now). Also very prevalent are mandarin orange trees full of oranges, which are supposed to look like gold coins and represent wealth in the coming year. I found it hilarious to see all these trees ripe with fruit zooming around town on the back of scooters. Amazingly enough, the fruit doesn't fall off.

We spent New Year's Eve downtown next to St. Joseph's Cathedral to watch the fireworks. We woke the kids up at 11:30 pm and drove downtown. Although the fireworks were not as impressive as those in China it was still fun to see all the people out and to watch the sky fill up with lantern balloons. It is pretty cool to watch them lite and then float into the sky. Afterwords, people then burn offerings of paper goods (motorbikes, clothes, fake money) for their ancestors. Xander was excited to see all the fires throughout the city as we drove home. We enjoyed some hot chocolate to mark the new year and then went home and crashed.

The first day of the new year is spent with family and parents and grandparents give their kids red envelopes full of cash. Although it was actually the last day of the lunar year, there were lots of people handing out red envelopes at church, which our kids of course loved.

For more info on Tet customs, wikipedia has some great info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet

For me, the sad part about Tet was that it meant that Jennie and the kids were heading back to the snowy confines of Utah for Jennie to get ready to have kiddo #3. I bid adieu to the them this week but will meet up with them on March 1st when I head back to the States for the birth.

The Bus Ride That Wouldn't End

One last crazy story. We took the "VIP" bus from Luang Prabang back to Vientiane before flying out. Rule of thumb: always add 2-3 hours onto the length of time they “tell” you it will take. Our 8-hour bus ride was 11 hours!!! It was actually a comfortable bus, but of course we had some drama. We showed up 30 minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart and were informed that our reserved seats on the 8:00 bus had been sold and the bus was now full. WHAT!?!?! Not fair! A young kid who is the bus driver’s assistant sold our tickets to a big group tour that needed a few extra seats – ugh!

We had arranged our tickets 4 days prior and believed that we should ride on this bus. Finally after being blown off for 25 minutes, the manager got on board and agreed that this was a problem and at least acknowledged that we had valid reserved seats on this bus. We camped out on the bus: me and the kids in 2 seats, while Christian tried to work things out. It was a mess and so uncomfortable. Since we had paid for 4 seats, we could have opted for taking a later bus, but there was no guarantee that those seats hadn’t been sold either. In hindsight I think we would have handled it differently.

The bus took off as Christian stood in the aisle. They were trying to tell Christian that they would give him a plastic stool to sit on in the aisle – that wasn’t his idea of fun for 7 hours. Then they told him they’d give him a cushion and he could sit on the stairs – he wasn’t going for that either. Christian announced to the young dude who sold our seats that he was taking his seat – shotgun to the driver with his knees up to his chest (Lao people are a bit shorter than Americans). So, Christian rode next to the bus driver and opened his water bottles for him, changed out his CDs for him, etc. It was a 2-level bus with driver and luggage below and passengers up the stairs. Christian felt justified in taking the young guy’s seat, but got a little worried when at the first stop, one bus helper got out of the bus with his AK-47. (In the past, Laos has had problems with bandits along the roadside.)

When we stopped for lunch Christian filled me in on all the gory details of that morning…and this is where I am still laughing my guts out with tears streaming down my face. Apparently the bus driver had a young friend who came along. I don’t think this kid had traveled by car or bus before and was VERY carsick! Christian heard the noises he was making and knew exactly what was happening. The bus driver and others in the front smelled something strange and looked around like: what IS that? Christian pantomimed what had happened and they all got disgusting looks on their faces and started searching for a plastic bag to give him. He continued to wretch and dry heave for the next 4 hours until the road straightened out a bit.

Later the poor kid suffered from a bout of diarrhea in his pants and that explained why suddenly the door opened up for about 5 minutes as we were cruising down the highway – they were trying to air out the front of the bus. This was followed by an overzealous spray of air freshener. A girl sitting on the stairs kept putting a menthol stick in her nose and sniffing it every few minutes. I thought maybe it was to prevent her from becoming motion sick. Later, everything made perfect sense and I’m still laughing at the hilarity of the situation.

Finally in Vang Vieng (3-4 hours from Vientiane) some passengers got out and Christian was able to grab a vacant seat. Crazy, crazy bus ride! At least we can all laugh about it now.

Luang Prabang

This is a very touristy spot in Laos complete with internet cafes, loads of good restaurants, boutique hotels, unique shops, and tour operators selling every and any type of tour package. It was an easy place to spend 7 days. Our hotel was right across from a major temple and we heard the monks early morning drums and cymbals, as well as their singing / chanting in the evening.

We saw many beautiful temples and a common motif here is the tree of life, which we loved seeing on most of the temples. Xander particularly loved hearing the monks sing and learned very quickly how to kneel down and listen excitedly and quietly. Well, I guess he was quiet until we were sneaking out the back and he leaned over and struck a huge gong, which added a little extra music to the chanting ceremony. This only hastened our exit!!!

We hiked up Mount Phousi, visited the Royal Palace Museum, and trekked all over town visiting temples and talking to monks. We did more laundry and this time it smelled much better (I think dryer sheets were involved). The cardboard sign promised “perfumed” laundry.

Jennie enjoyed taking a Lao cooking class and is now ready to bring the yummy Lao flavors home to her own kitchen : ) Our last morning in Luang Prabang we also got up early to feed the monks. Xander loved putting fresh fruit into their brass bowls.

We also took a boat out to see the Buddhist grottoes; which were completely overrated and overrun with tourists. We’ve seen some real grottoes in China and we were disappointed in these which were just caves with small Buddhist statues. Afterward we stopped in a handicraft village and saw silk runners being made on the looms. This village ended up being the highlight of our trip that day besides the fun time in the boat.

“Sa Ba Dee Pri Mai” – This means Happy New Year in Lao! The kids perfected it and announced it to everyone they met. It was cute to see the warm responses.

We celebrated New Years in Luang Prabang and it was very nice. We got Pad Thai to go and ate it on our balcony while watching traditional Lao music players and dancers at the hotel party below us. It was perfect and so charming and the kids were totally entertained. We thought to ourselves: hey, we’re so lucky! The kids got baths and we got all cleaned up and ready for bed when the lead singer (from the hotel below) cranked up the volume and got the real party started – uh oh! Even after pleading with the manager at the hotel below, the volume didn’t waiver and we put up with it till 1:00 a.m. The family slept, thankfully, but mom (even with ear plugs) lay in bed hearing the boom, boom, boom of the drums and bass guitar. Oh well, what can you do? Happy New Year!

We loved visiting the night market. We went a few nights and lasted until one of the kids melted down. It was great to see all the hand-made goods and handicrafts things that were for sale. Almost everyone announced their price and then after a brief pause said “Do you want discount?” Uh, yes I do! And off came 5,000 Kip (about .70 cents). Those 12 year olds are tough bargainers and we were glad to see them out only on weekends and at the night markets, which meant they were in school during the day.

We flew home exhausted and happy to have had so many great adventures, and happy to be home in our own beds. Mom Oxycleaned the heck out of the laundry and did a double soak and wash of everything – walking around in stocking feet in all the temples makes for really dirty socks! The backpacks and shoes still need to be cleaned, but everything else has made its way back to its proper place now.

Riding Elephants! (Luang Prabang)

Let's just say, WE LOVE ELEPHANTS! Anyone who has been to our house has seen the many elephants on display throughout our house whether they be made out of wood, stone, silver or pottery. If you don't share our love for these friendly pachyderms you might want to skip this post.

One of the true highlights of our trip to Laos was our visit to an elephant camp about an hour outside of Luang Prabang. We signed up for the 1/2-day option and fed elephants for about an hour and then rode for an hour through the jungle, a river and through a small village. It was so exciting! Emma and Christian rode on the back of one elephant and Xander and Jennie rode on another. The kids loved it as much as their parents and everyone had a great time.

After petting our elephant’s neck Emma exclaimed that it was scratchy like Daddy’s beard. If you signed up for the 2-day option, you learn how to mount them, ride them bareback and give them a bath down at the river. We became friends with some really nice Australian girls who opted for this and they loved it. It was a really special experience to be able to spend so much time next to these majestic animals.

We didn't really plan on breaking this part of the trip out into its own separate posting but had so many great photos that we felt we ought to.

Phonsavan (Plain of Jars)

We hired a car for the 8-hour journey to Phonsavan and were very glad that we did. We were able to stop along the way and take pictures of the roadside villages. The winding mountainous journey was MUCH more comfortable and the kids could move around and actually got naps. We spent our Christmas day here and it was fun to be in a rustic cabin with "princess" mosquito nets over the beds (Emma and Xander went bonkers over this). We actually had pine trees and huge poinsettia plants in the natural landscaping of the grounds. We were the only ones staying at this guesthouse with several cabins.

Christmas morning we were happy to discover that Santa had found us and had stuffed our Christmas stockings! Emma told Santa a few weeks ago to leave our presents at our home. Xander got a Hot Wheels dirt bike, and Emma got Hello Kitty clips for her hair and her own package of gum among other things. This was the first year for us that Santa has been so exciting for our family! I think we saw what the "magic of Christmas" is through Emma's eyes. It was endearing and yet mom and dad had mixed feelings as we talked about Santa. Is there a middle ground of truth and fiction?

The rest of Christmas day we spent touring the sites of the Plain(s) of Jars. They date back to 2500 years ago and were mined from a distant mountain range, carved and hauled (maybe by elephants?) to rest upon the tops of hills. Why? Good question! We saw a couple figures of humans carved on a jar and a lid and many historians think that these jars were used as burial containers. The practice came from Southern China and they have found similar jars in Indonesia and India. Some jars weigh up to 2.5 tons and are 10 plus feet tall. There are about 65 jar sites to date, but only 4 are open to the public because of all the unexploded bombs dropped in this area during the Vietnamese War. We were lucky to visit 3 of the 4 sites each with dozens to hundreds of stone jars.

Ho Chi Minh cut a path into Laos during the war to get supplies and troops down into Southern Vietnam. In doing so, he broke the Geneva Peace Accords in bringing Laos into the war. In response, the CIA got involved in Laos, also in violation of the Geneva Accords, and tried to thwart HCM's efforts. In short, Laos became a victim of the war and was littered with bombs, including cluster bombs that have 300+ "bombies" inside of them and disburse in the air before landing and create a carpet bomb effect. The main problem Laos is facing is that 30% of the bombs did not explode and today hundreds of farmers, children and innocent people are killed or seriously wounded by the small bombies. They are colorful and children toss them around and play with them. Sometimes farmers strike one with a shovel while tilling the earth. Other times, people find them and try to harvest the gunpowder or the scrap metal inside. MAG "Mines Advisory Group" has become very active in Laos since 1994 and has been actively 'de-mining' and training Lao villagers and school children how to recognize and treat "unexploded ordinances." They are also training local Lao teams to professionally remove and handle the explosives. Because such a small percentage of Laos has been cleared from explosives, many are living in poverty and rich resources from the land are going untapped. Every path we walked on in the countryside was marked with red and white “MAG” markers indicating where it was safe to walk. Many Lao people lived in caves for 10 years during the destruction. It was sobering and interesting to learn of the history of these people.

We had Lao-style noodles and a rice dishes for our Christmas dinner. Although there weren’t many restaurants to choose from, this town has seen good things happen in the last few years. There are only 2 major paved roads in Laos (North to South, East to West). The road to Phonsavan is the East-West road and it was paved in 1998. In 2003 they got electricity all day (a big improvement from the earlier norm of 2-3 hours/day). All of our treks out to the different jar sites were on “dancing roads” as our tour guide called them. Basically they were roads where you go bouncing out of your seat every few seconds. He also advised us to use the bathroom at jar site #1 so that we wouldn’t have to use a “bomb crater toilet” at jar site #2. He was a kick.

It was interesting to see how people had used bombshells as pillars to construct houses, animal shelters and fences. Most people have used the scrap metal and have put it to good use: cooking pots, plough shares, tools, bowls, etc. We also visited an old Russian Tank that had parts of it that had been carted off ask scrap. The Plain(s) of Jars are clearly off the beaten path and it was worth seeing, however it took a lot of effort to get out there and back to civilization.

Vientiane to Vang Vieng

The guidebook says that you will either love Vang Vieng or hate it. It's basically a "pit stop" on the way to the more popular Luang Prabang, which is a 7-hour bus ride North. We explored rice paddy fields en route to nearby caves, took a 2 hour boat ride in a very narrow flat-bottom boat which precariously tipped from one side to another if your eyeballs even looked to the right or left (I'm being dramatic here, but it seemed that way at the time).

We found a yummy restaurant at a guesthouse off a dirt path and discovered a delicious Lao dish: mint, lemongrass, and minced chicken with chilies, which was divine! We rolled it in lettuce leaves and savored every bite. Emma fell in love with sticky rice and perfected the art of rolling it into a ball and making various shapes before popping it into her mouth.

The famous "karst mountain formations" here aren’t quite as majestic as the ones we've seen in Yang shuo (Guilin), China; or the ones close to Hanoi at Ha Long Bay. But, we enjoyed them and loved hiking around and getting close to nature. The view from our guest house was also amazing since we were so close to them and right on the river.

We turned in a couple kilos of laundry to be washed while we were here. During our boat ride, we saw many women out by the banks of the lovely brown river washing clothes. We realized (and I couldn't help but giggle several times) that our laundry was probably undergoing the same process before being hung out in the sun to dry. Sure enough, when we retrieved our laundry, it smelled like it had done just that.

There was a school across the street from our bungalow and after school some kids would ride home on their bikes, others would go join the adults in the community garden (that's what it looked like to us), and others would take their little plastic baskets down to the river to wash. It was a nice little community. We were situated close to the outskirts of the city, which was nice.

On our way to our next destination, we were able to get some great photos of village life.

Vacation in Laos

We spent 16 days in Laos over Christmas and New Years enjoying Christian's "use or loose" vacation time accrued over the past 8+ years with the government. We will be posting our trip in segments by city so as not to overwhelm our blog (or its meager readers).

Laos is on the verge of tourism explosion. We found plenty of tourists there because it is the dry season, therefore the high tourist season. All the things to see and do in Laos are very spread out, which entails a lot of travel on roads that are narrow, heavily traveled and under repair. It was interesting that our cars and busses often had to slow down and even stop for water buffalos, cows, chickens and even people who had meandered into the road.

We flew to Vientiane on an "Indiana Jones" type plane with propellers. Xander got a kick out of seeing them start up and whirr during our flight: "go round and round, plane go." The kid is fascinated and thrilled with anything mechanical that moves.

In Vientiane we saw the golden stupa, which is somewhat of a national symbol to the Lao people: its image is on their currency. We saw the Lao version of Arc de Triomphe, rode tuk tuks (the kids LOVED getting around in tuk tuks), and let the kids run around in a park with other Lao kids and families. Let me just say that the Lao really know how to give massages! My muscles are screaming for another massage right now! Seriously, it was on par with my wonderful massages in China.

We enjoyed The Morning Market and Jennie went "ga ga" over the silk textiles and Christian deliberated much about buying a HUGE, 24 lb. wooden elephant that eventually made its way back home with us to Hanoi. Above, Jennie is imitating the "peace or stop arguing" Buddha pose, which is unique to this area.

We saw beautiful temples, one of which survived the raids of the Thai warriors and is now the oldest temple in Laos. It had such a wonderful old feel to it.

We visited a Buddhist Park. Emma asked if she could play on the swings and we sadly told her that it was a different kind of "park." There were hundreds of gigantic statues of Buddhist and Hindu religions. One of the things that made it memorable for us was a group of Lao kids climbing on the statues and laughing. One guy had a flute that he played with his nostril and sometimes mouth (interesting). He played the whole time we were there and it was very nice. We didn't see him until the very end and gave him a little money for making our visit so nice.

Our last night in Laos was spent next to the Mekong River enjoying yummy curry and seafood. Emma calls the Mekong River the “magic” river after Christian explained that the flow of the Mekong inverts at different times of the year in Vietnam and through Cambodia causing a giant lake to form near Siem Riep Cambodia (home to Ankor Wat).