The McKays

We arrived here Saturday full of excitement and anticipation about our visit to Angkor Wat. This is the first trip to Cambodia for either one of us, and the temples of Angkor Wat have ranked fairly high on our “bucket lists”. We were aware of the history of war and terror in Cambodia; however, our two-day stay in Phnom Penh was an eye-opener. Our guide was a gentleman named Rith who shared his personal account of the 70’s and Pol Pot’s reign of terror over the people of Cambodia. At the time, Rith was 7 years old and living in Phnom Penh with his parents, older sister, and three brothers. When Pol Pot seized power in 1975, Rith and his family were separated. Each of his parents and siblings were taken to different camps and villages. Rith was  taken to an area near the Ho Chi Minh Trail where he and other young boys worked the fields and hauled supplies and ammunition to the Khmere Rouge soldiers on the front. He lived in the camp for three years, was given a new name, and saw his friends die one-by-one from disease and starvation. He told us that as a child, he believed everything he was told by the Khmere Rouge…..that “Uncle” (Pol Pot) would care for him and train him to be a great soldier…..one of the “Strong Boys.” Rith was ten years old  by the time the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmere Rouge in 1978. He had survived separation from his family, inhumane treatment at the hands of the Khmere Rouge, and the US bombings near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Somehow through all that, he managed to cling to his own identity, and unlike many of the boys his age, he remembered his given name; although he says he had forgotten much about his parents and siblings….including their appearance. Now a ten year-old boy wandering the countryside alone, he was approached by a young woman who obviously recognized him. She asked his name, and when he replied, he learned that she was his older sister. She was 15 at the time. Together they set off on foot for Phnom Penh. Their journey took 6 months, and when they finally arrived, they found the city in shambles. Rith’s sister was able to remember the location of the family home; however, when they arrived, the home was heavily damaged… the roof gone, and many of the walls collapsed. Then they saw a note–written in charcoal–on one of the remaining walls. Rith’s sister had long since forgotten how to read; however,  with some effort she finally realized that it was a note from their father that said, “I am alive. Stay here and wait for me.” They waited, and their father returned several days later. Rith’s mother, in the meantime, had located his younger brother and middle brother. They were living nearby, but had no idea if other family members had survived. A local radio station aired daily broadcasts and allowed survivors to tell their story and their location. Rith’s father went to the radio station and was able to broadcast that he and two children had survived……Rith’s mother heard and returned to the family home where the family was reunited except for Rith’s older brother who was never located.  Rith’s story is just one of millions here in Cambodia. It is estimated that over two million Cambodians died at the hand of Pol Pot and the Khmere Rouge. Thousands of others died of disease and starvation, and a precious few were able to escape to safety in other countries. All in all, the population of Cambodia declined by three million within a three-year period. It has taken over 30 years, and the scars of the war are everywhere. That said, Cambodians are enormously proud of their country and the progress they have made thus far, and they have every right to feel that way. This is a country with a rich culture, breathtaking views, and a varied history. Charlie and I have been awestruck by the majesty and beauty of Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, but we will never forget Rith’s story, or that of Savy, our guide in Siem Reap, who lost two brothers during the war. Everyone here greets you with a smile, but you know that each and every person has their own story to share.  Sad, but true.

Charlie snapped some amazing, though horrifying, photos in the “killing fields” outside Phnom Penh as well as S21, just one of the many prisons where political prisoners were detained before their executions in the killing fields.  No, this isn’t one of our more uplifting posts, but we thought it important to remember that behind every story on the evening news, there are thousands of personal stories that we will never hear.

Rith, our guide in Phnom Penh….a survivor of Pol Pot’s reign of terror.

Mass grave at the killing fields near Phnom Penh.

Skulls of victims found in the mass graves in the killing fields.

Photographs of just a few of the thousands of victims incarcerated at S-21 in Phnom Penh.

The south gate leading into Angkor Tohm…note the bullet holes in the statue next to Charlie.

Many of the surviving monuments and buildings are riddled with bullet holes.

The new generation. He and other children pick up plastic bottles to resell for money.

So, Charlie has gone to bed, and I thought about enjoying a little quiet time on our pool-side patio. Then I saw this inconspicuous little note posted on the door…..and I decided to stay inside.  Just one of the little things we don’t see every day…..

Seriously???? Monkeys?????

Charlie and I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel a great deal over the past 4 years, and we’ve been equally blessed to have made many new friends along the way. This past week in Vietnam, we met a very special lady, Mai,  who made our journey from Da Nang to Saigon an experience beyond anything we expected.  We’ve met some fabulous tour guides, but we just felt a very special connection with Mai.  She is a native of the Mekong Delta and became a refugee from the war following the fall of Saigon in the ’70s.  After 12 years suffering the cold Canadian winters, she has returned to Saigon where she works as a guide.  She has the heart of an angel and the spine of a tiger. Standing about 5 feet, she is a force to be reckoned with, but she will make sure that your Vietnam experience is everything you wanted….and more.  It didn’t take 10 minutes for her to realize that Charlie and I are game for just about anything, so our itinerary quickly ramped up from a leisurely pace to a an action-packed 6 days from Da Nang to Saigon.  After a tearful goodbye yesterday, I realized that Mai has raised the bar for tour guides everywhere.  Here now, are our new criteria for the ultimate tour guide:

The Ultimate Tour Guide will …….

Get you there…..and if the taxi services are closed for a holiday, she’ll find you a spare bicycle.

Mai leads us on a bike ride to the vegetable gardens outside Hoi An.

Educate you

Explaining the tunnel complex at Cu Chi.

Make sure you sample the local cuisines….here Salted Egg, quail eggs, and Bitter Melon.  She got Charlie to taste all three!

Salted egg (see photo below–the black one), quail egg, and a bowl of Bitter Melon

Salted duck eggs (black) are rolled in ashes and left for a month…then boiled.

Get you out of the city and into the country where they grow the fruits and veggies

Mai introduced us to a Vietnamese farmer and his wife outside Hoi An.

Negotiate the price for a bunch of chrysanthemum greens for tomorrow’s lunch……

Bargaining for chrysanthemum greens.

Rejoice in the discovery of ripe Vietnamese zucchini…..again for our New Year’s lunch.

Yeah!!! Vietnamese zucchini for the New Year!

Help you find temporary employment….I got fired pretty quickly.

Watering the garden is not for sissies. The cans and water weigh about 80 pounds when full. Note the size of the lady who “hired” me!

Cook lunch for you when the restaurant is still closed for New Years. The restaurant owner allowed Mai to “borrow” her kitchen! Note the chrysanthemum greens from our New Year’s Eve visit to the garden!  Not all that different from turnip greens.

Chrysanthemum greens fresh from the gardens outside Hoi An. Yum!

Talk your spouse into joining you for a Vietnamese cooking class.

Nope….not nearly as happy as he looks……..

Explain the rules for Vietnamese BINGO—there are 99 numbers!

BINGO!!! Gambling is only allowed for 3 days during the Tet festival.

Crawl into a tunnel at Cu Chi

Mai crawls into a hidden entrance to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

……knowing full well she can’t get out without assistance.

One of the military guides at Cu Chi lifts Mai from one of the hidden entrances to the tunnels.

Then talks you into doing the same crazy thing.

Charlie actually crawled into one of the hidden entrances to Cu Chi….I was afraid we’d have to send home for WD-40 to get him out!

Hot, damp, and spiders! I’d have made a lousy “tunnel rat.”

Pose for photo ops

Five foot two….six foot three, and it would still be a contest!!!

Do anything to help you get that perfect shot

Determination! I blurred two of these shots because I was laughing so hard.

Drive half-way across Vietnam so you can get a closeup of a water buffalo……seriously.

At long last…..a close up of a water buffalo!

Introduce you to exotic new beverages…..here white basil & ginger tea.

White basil and ginger tea. Cool, refreshing, and it settles a yucky tummy, too!

Discourage your spouse from exploring the wrong exotic beverages….in this case, “Mekong Whiskey” …… a Vietnamese rice wine bottled along with a cobra and a scorpion. It is rumored to have …..uh…..Viagra-like qualities.

Mekong Whiskey……Not likely to make it past US Customs, so Charlie left without it!

Show up the morning you leave with a bag of your favorite fruits fresh from the market.

Clock-wise from the top: Local bananas, milk fruit, and sabodilla.

We miss you, Mai, but we’re coming back!

That’s how they say Happy New Year in Vietnam! Monday, January 23, marked the first day of the Lunar New Year (Tet), and Charlie and I somehow managed to arrive in Vietnam just in time to enjoy the preparations for the Tet festival.  We also had the opportunity  to join in the New Year’s Eve celebrations Sunday night in Hoi An.  We thought you might enjoy a brief recap of what we’ve learned and experienced thus far.  This is your “Vietnamese New Year 101.”

Happy New Year! Celebrating with a cruise around Halong Bay.

New Years here in Vietnam is a time for family and renewal. Upon arrival in Hanoi one week ago, we noted crowds of people waving yellow flowers to greet their relatives arriving for the New Years festivities.  Flowers and fruit play an integral role in the New Year traditions of the Vietnamese people. The kumquat tree with its bright orange fruit symbolizes prosperity, while the peach blossom symbolizes joy and  happiness. This holds true for both the north and the south; however, as you move southward toward central Vietnam, you will find an abundance of yellow chrysanthemum as well as the Mai Tree which flourishes in the south. It is cost-prohibitive in the north. The golden blossoms of both are symbolic of luck and prosperity for the coming new year.

Kumquat trees line the streets from Hanoi to Saigon.

The Mai (my) tree.

You can feel the excitement in the air as people are rushing about the markets, buying new clothes, and repainting their houses to welcome the new year.In many cases, families, businesses, or government agencies may lack the time or money to decorate for the New Year; however, the desire to have “something new” for the New Year prevails. Among the more common “discount decor” is to paint the base of trees white. Charlie and I thought they were trying to ward off pests, but no…..they were decorating for the New Year.  No matter their circumstances, the Vietnamese have a charming New Year custom of giving “lucky money.” A nominal sum of money…usually 20.000 dong (approximately $1 US)…is enclosed in a small, bright red envelope. Thousands of these envelopes are exchanged amount friends, family, associates, and often total strangers over the course of the New Year festivities. We visited a remote village outside Hue on New Years Day and met up with two little girls making their way into town to collect “Lucky Money.

The Vietnamese New Years card (an envelope actually) for giving Lucky Money.

On their way to collect “Lucky Money” on New Years Day.

Something “new” for the New Year.

As you wander the markets, you find that almost every vendor has an abundant inventory of  yellow water melon and baskets of the red seeds hiding inside. The golden melon represents prosperity….the seeds represent happiness. On New Years Eve here, every home and business will hide the brooms. For the next 12 hours, the watermelon seeds, chrysanthemum blossoms, and everything else remains on the floor, and even bathing will be delayed until after midnight. Our guide, Mai (pronounced MY) tells us that the Vietnamese want to hang on to the luck and happiness from the prior year….”not sweep it out,” as she explains.

The yellow watermelon on the right symbolizes luck and prosperity.

Red watermelon seeds for happiness.

As the New Year approaches, the alters of temples and pagodas are laden with baskets of fruit offerings.  Sunday night (New Years Eve), as we made our way through the crowds, we noticed that nearly every home and business had an altar with a basket of fruit, rice, and incense in front. We also noticed that a small paper horse was suspended from many of the alters. Mai explained that the paper horses are burned at midnight as an invitation for the ancestors to return for the three-day New Years festival. Ancestral worship is central to family life here.  Earlier that morning, we rode bicycles from our hotel outside Da Nang to a local farming village. All along the way we noticed the streets were “littered” with rice and colorful wrapped candies.  Mai explained that these are offerings to pave the way for the ancestors so that their journey isn’t blocked by the devil.

The streets of Hoi An were littered with candy….but you can’t pick it up!

Rice is thrown on the street in front of the house to pave the way for the ancestors’ return.

Offering the paper horse for the ancestors to “ride back” for the New Year.

New Years Eve in Hoi An was quite an experience. The streets were packed with families, young couples, and a respectable number of tourists.  After a late dinner, Charlie, Mai, and I joined the crowds gathered along the river bank. Custom dictates that the people pray over small paper lanterns which are then set afloat in the river. Over the next couple of hours the river gradually became filled with the lanterns. As midnight grew closer, we were treated to traditional Vietnamese dancing, and just before midnight, the countdown began–no crystal ball like the one in Times Square; however, there was a large neon sign that flashed the countdown from ten seconds. At the stroke of midnight, the crowd cheered, and the local authorities set off one of the most impressive  fireworks displays we’ve ever seen.  The celebration  continued for a full half hour. When the fireworks were over, the streets were once again packed with minibikes and bicycles as the locals made their way back home.

Just two of the thousands of lanterns placed in the river on New Year’s Eve.

Charlie and Mai enjoy the fireworks display in Hoi An, New Years Eve…Tet.

Lucky to find a place to sit and wait for the fireworks to begin!

Happy New Year!

Unlike our New Year celebrations in the US, the festivities here last a full three days, and the festival will conclude tonight. Charlie and I arrived in Saigon yesterday to find the city bathed in flowers and lights, and streets here packed.  The home altars now include “new clothes” for the deceased ancestors to make their return journey. We saw hats, shoes, jewelry, and money that will be burned as an offering tonight, thus, marking the end of the third and final day of the New Year.  Tomorrow, the decorations will come down, and people will return to their homes, schools, and offices.  Charlie and I will be moving on to Cambodia late tomorrow afternoon. We have enjoyed our stay here in Vietnam, and we’re already making plans for a return visit…..hopefully in time for another New Year celebration.

Saigon — January 24, 2012

Jan. 25….Day 3 of New Years here in Saigon

Farewell offerings to the ancestors…hats, shoes, bracelets, fruit, and money.

Charlie and I enjoyed an exhausting, but magical day (Thursday) touring Ha Long Bay .  The day began per usual at 3:30 am. We seem to be back on our daily routine of getting up with the chickens. We departed the hotel at 8am for the three-hour journey to Ha Long which is located in Northeast Vietnam, near the China border. Our journey there took us through some beautiful rural areas, and we had the opportunity to make several stops to observe the local farmers at work. A brief history lesson here…..Although Vietnam remains under Communist rule, the country adopted an open door policy in the late 1980s which paved the way for today’s thriving Capitalist economy. Families received small tract of land to cultivate, and the family farm is alive and well here. As many as three generations comprise a single household , and children are very much apart of the family business attending school for half the day and working alongside their parents and grandparents after the school day is over. The summer rice crop was harvested a few weeks ago, and the spring crop will be planted just after the New Years festivities conclude next week. Farmers are already hard at work plowing the fields, and the rice seed beds are full of small plants ready for transplanting. In the meantime, families have utilized any available land for growing flowers, herbs, and vegetables for sale in the local markets. We are impressed by an incredible work ethic here. Farmers were hauling their daily harvests to market well after midnight as we arrived from the airport They hard at work in the fields as we drove to Ha Long yesterday morning, and they were still in the fields when we returned late yesterday evening. Small children were working in the fields, and women were watering the crops with two large watering cans balanced on either end of a long pole. We were told that the average weight of the water– 40 to 50 kilos (80-100 pounds) –equals the weight of the average Vietnamese woman.  Whether or not you have an appreciation for farming or gardening, we think the pictures speak volumes about this beautiful country and the people who live here. Enjoy, and be on the lookout for some breathtaking views of Ha Long Bay to follow.

Preparing a rice patty for planting — on the way to Halong Bay, Vietnam.

One of the many vegetable gardens we passed along the way.

A woman watering the crops. She’s supporting her own body weight across her shoulders.

Sharing the road with the water buffalo — the primary work animal for farmers here.

Ha Long Bay, located near the China border in Northeast Vietnam was recently named one of the seven new wonders of the world…..and we know why. We spent Thursday afternoon cruising the bay on a 30-foot sampan.  From up top, we were treated to a 360 degree slideshow….every single view worthy of a postcard.  Over 3,000 monolithic formations of  chalk and limestone rise up from the water  and dwarf everything from the small fishing boat to luxury ocean liners. The resulting view has been compared to a dragon’s tail that rises and falls back into the water. The bay is also home to small fishing villages and numerous caves. We were lucky enough to visit Thien Cung Cave which remained unnoticed until  1993 when it was discovered by local fisherman. The cave is immense, and photos don’t do it justice…..but we tried.

The formation known as “The Fighting Cocks” has become the icon for Ha Long Bay.

The formations dwarf the small fishing village at the base of the cliffs.

Charlie in front of one of the 3,000 formations rising up out of the bay.

The haze gave the bay a mysterious appearance.

Charlie and our guide, Chung, making the long climb to the mouth of the cave.

Inside Thien Cung Cave.

Charlie inside Thien Cung Cave .

A small opening in the cave is visible only from the inside. Outside, it is obscured by vegetation.