Thanks to Family in Saigon - Hẹn Gạp Lại!

On our overnight in Saigon before catching the flight home, we visited with Em Thảo, her boyfriend Christiaan, and our friend Thơ from Cần Thơ. In the pic on the left, we were watching the many cool features of my new camera, plugged into the tv set and able to remotely shoot pics with a little infrared controller. THANKS as always to dear sis Thảo for her care and consideration of us as we passed through SG yet again. Thanks for visiting us in Hue and for taking time from the startup company to đi chơi.

Musical Boat Dinner

Sunday night we went out on one of the dragon boats, double-hulled house boats that are effectively floating restaurants and stages where musicians perform traditional Hue tunes. It was also Tam's birthday, and she was surprised to receive a birthday card from some of the students who made it themselves (!) in the arts and crafts section of the main bookstore in town. Trang, another local student, took a stab at interpreting for the mc who only spoke Vietnamese.

Firpo's Visit

Each weekend we have been in Hue, we've had visitors this summer; I guess we're getting popular. Christina Firpo stopped over for a night and we visited the palace and all the amazing mosaic work being done in various restored gates and buildings. The neo-classical world was nothing if not colorful. Besides visiting thepalace, we had a most excellent motorbike trip on the "great circuit" here from Khai Dinh's Tomb to Minh Mang's Tomb to the new highway to Linh Mu Pagoda and then back into the city. Pictured below are scenes from Quoc Hoc Academy where Ba To went to school, a stone mandarin wearing shades, and Khai Dinh's opulent, crazy mosaic palace.

Boat Trip to the Tombs

We finally got ourselves to visit some of the kings' tombs this summer. The group picture didn't quite work out as planned as Albert took the chance to visit family in Singapore, but nevertheless we had a great boat trip up the Perfume River and visited the island temple to the Heavenly Lady (an old Cham goddess) and Minh Mang's Tomb. The boat provided a good breeze so Xuan Anh finally got to fly her mermaid kite from the bow. The Tien Ca (mermaid) kite finally got a chance to fly. She's also sporting a very dep conical hat with Hue tourist sites embroidered on the outside.

Vicky gets her fortune told at the Heavenly Mother Temple

People Living Underground

After the DMZ we headed north and then directly east along the river to a village located along the coast called Vinh Moc. This place was one of many coastal villages that were heavily shelled by US airplanes and ships throughout the war. So, to cope, people developed a network of trenches above-ground and tunnels underground where they lived most of the time for several years during the worst of the shelling. An estimated 7000 lbs of bombs were dropped per person.

This is by far one of the most impressive war sites because in walking through the maze of underground tunnels, you get a very real sense of the extreme conditions under which people attempted to survive this war.

This year we've developed a jumping theme to group shots. It is what it is ...








































































Pi

Crossing the Ben Hai River

Hien Luong Bridge across the Ben Hai River was the official dividing line between North and South VN during the war. During prisoner exchanges in the early 1970's, NLF or People's Army prisoners were exchanged for South VN and US prisoners (usually officers) along this bridge. Looking north to the North VN gate, Tony (Hai) and Chau re-enact a friendly crossing over. To the left is the newer highway bridge crossing here. And farther in the distance is construction going on for a new interstate-style highway bridge - the beat goes on...

Yey! We're free!!! More re-enactments.

Traveling to the DMZ - Dong Ha

We are nearing the end of the summer course and the lecture class has reached the 15-odd years that American advisors then troops worked in Vietnam, building up an unbelievable infrastructure of bases, air hangers, jet landing strips in the jungle, and basically a whole lot of pavement. At a major highway junction just south of the former demilitarized zone (DMZ), there was once a relatively large marine air base at Dong Ha. Now all that remains of it are a few of these very heavy duty airplane hangers built out of corrugated aluminum filled with concrete on the outside. This particular hangar survived whereas most have since been scrapped because after 1975 it was used as a theater for performances.

When it came time to dismantle this one, the town Department of Cultural Affairs had already claimed it as city property and since then they have abandoned using it for performances (they have a brand spanking new theater) but maintain it as a historical ruin of the American occupation. Makes for a very striking ruin especially on such a sunny day.

On our way through Dong Ha we stopped at a cafe favored by one of many NGO's that operate in the DMZ doing rehabilitation work: clearing landmines, giving people with legs and arms blown off prosthetics, digging out unexploded bombs etc. Fortunately, the majority of unexploded ordnance has been dug up now in the area--this snapshot shows a picture of work going on about eight or nine years ago. However, there is still a lot of material left in the hills and even more across the border in Laos on what used to be the "HCM Trail."

The Hanoi Trip July 12-15

From Thursday to Sunday we traveled and played Ha Noi style. The first stop on any city tour, Ngoc Son Pagoda on a little island in the Lake of the Restored Sword, Hoan Kiem, in downtown Hanoi. This lake has these giant tortoises that live several hundred years and only occassionally show up on the surface. Its the site for a King Arthur type story where a VN leader against the Chinese in 1427 received a magical sword from the lake and then returned it after winning the country's independence. The students were so happy upon learning this they jumped up and down and got a little crazy.


Most people think that study abroad is something that 20-yr-olds with a little disposable summer income do, but this year's experience with two older students, Albert and Tony, has proven to me that its really ideal to have more mature students on the program as well. Both of these guys have been great assets for their ability to organize outings, to hold up in foreign settings, and to engage with their Vietnamese partners in the internships. Also, I think the older one is, the more one appreciates that chance to be able to spend five weeks off of work learning and traveling.


No trip to Hanoi is complete without a visit to Ba Dinh Square and the Vietnamese version of the Washington Mall and Washington Monument, the oh-so-retro Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and associated sites around it. Here Chau Mai demonstrates his athletic prowess hurdling over the "do not enter" sign. On our morning visit, the mausoleum was closed, so we didn't get to go inside the frigid aircon and view "Uncle" Ho lying in eternal repose. However, we did visit the also air-conned HCM Museum nearby; just seeing what Hanoi is first-hand, and seeing a little more tangible evidence about "the north" and this enigmatic historical figure was a great experience.






How happy is our group? Just look at them!













Scuppy and Hong Anh joined us for this excursion to the national mall, here posing in front of a bamboo grove.










Here is Xuan Anh crawling onto the turtles that carry on their backs the names of those people who passed the national exams and received their PhD's. The steles date back to the 1400's and are one of the oldest archaeological remains in good standing in Hanoi. The site here is part of a larger courtyard and campus for Vietnam's first national university which dates to the 11th century in the same spot.











For the grandparents, another cute kid pic. Here seated in front of the entrance to a Temple for Confucius.

Student Trip to Bach Ma

Last weekend (July 6-8) was a free weekend and six of the students went with the Vietnamese students to nearby Bach Ma National Park. This mountainous rain forest is home to some recently discovered species of deer and other mammals - some of the only new species discovered in the past sixty years. The trails in the park follow along several small rivers and pictured below are pictures from one day hike.