Hope for Vietnam,

Important bus ride statistics:

Average time between honks of the horn = 6.4 seconds

The distance from my waist to my knees ≥ Distance between the back of my chair and the kidneys of the person sitting in front of me.

 Time it takes a Vietnamese person to fall asleep on a bus = time it takes to close their eyes + about 10 seconds.

Added value of a bus with onboard toilet facilities = $ 0.-, because the bus stops at least every two hours anyway.

The honking of Hanoi is incessant.  It has gotten to the point where the rearview mirror has been replaced by the certainty that everyone will use their horn to inform you of their presence. It has become an epidemic and at times the future of Vietnam’s streets look very bleak indeed. Yet there is hope, i met a few young Vietnamese who believed that, “people here honk more than necessary.” This counterculture of non-honkers is living by example in the hopes that it will catch on. They are also relying on influence from the West, hoping that as the country continues to develop and westernize, maybe they will also adopt the concepts of using rearview mirrors and right of way.

Despite the earsore, I dove into the culture by renting a motorbike of my own, the trusty Honda Wave, and I braved the streets of Hanoi for three full days and emerged unscathed.  My preparation for the streets of Hanoi was five months of travel in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, in that order. Before arriving in Vietnam, I had been made apprehensive by tales of fellow tourists being treated unkindly, ripped off, badgered excessively and overcharged to the point that many had found it to be the least enjoyable to visit in Southeast Asia. I prepared by setting up some contacts through Couchsurfing.org as well as some of Duncan’s study abroad friends. Things continued to work out as I headed from north through the country and I ended up thoroughly enjoying Vietnam. My experience opposed the reports I had received, as I found myself less pestered and more welcome than in any other country I have visited in my short life. Some examples of the hospitality I received:

 In the mountain town of Dalat I was approached by a nun, who was visiting with her nephew and offered me a place to stay at my next destination, Da Nang, where I was taken care of, fed, and driven around by the 22 year old gentleman who spoke very limited English, named Thanh, for two full days. Thanh’s family, none of whom spoke a word of English, refused to let me pay for anything over those two days, even getting the nun (who spoke English) to call me and tell me not to try to pay for anything.

Another example was a bicycling ice cream salesman I approached for a scoop only to realize I was completely out of cash. As he was dismounting his bike I realized my predicament and gestured that I wouldn’t buy the ice cream after all, but the old man calmly made me a cone, drizzled on some condensed milk and handed me the cone with a pat on my shoulder (as high as he could reach), no need to pay this time.

The final example I will give happened in Hanoi in a very touristy spot. I sat down to read my book on the grounds of a small pagoda and a woman came over and gestured for me to join her for lunch. She sat of the ground and unpacked a small feast of rice, steamed veggies, fish, soup, with lots of chunks of meat swimming in it, some meat jell-o and even some rice wine. Her friends joined and five of us sat there eating and trying to communicate. By the time I left I had also been given two passion fruits to eat and a coconut to drink and had a tentative date set up with one of the man’s daughters (that didn’t end up happening). Those were just the random acts of kindness that came completely un-looked for and unexpected. The people I met through couchsurfing were just as generous with their time, just as eager to meet and get to know people from around the world.

 The most uninteresting and unpleasant experiences I had were also the most expensive, namely the two tours I booked, one to see the Mekong Delta area, and the other to visit Ha Long Bay. The tours are westernized in a way that detracts from the experience. Everything must be idiot proof and accessible for 60+ year olds (no offense), everything is planned out, leaving no room for uncertainty and spontaneity, the food is bland and the people you meet are unexcited because all they do every day is deal with tourists. Also, you are surrounded by other tourists who were as uninspired as I was when I decided to sign up for a package tour. So basically, the tours go against many of my fundamental travel principles and thus are not my cup of tea (which was not very good either).

The opportunities

While I have been travelling I have had lots of time to read and think and putter around online. I have been feeling especially inspired recently by some alternative technologies I have been reading about, seeing, and taking part in. I would like to share some of the sources that I have found inspiring.

1. the book: Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World

This book is about a village in Colombia, South America, that is a model for sustainable living. They have built a ground up community that supplies it's energy from the sun, it's income from the rainforest while growing more trees at the same time. They are true pioneers, really forward thinking people. The book is great, a pleasure and inspiration to read.

2. Natural building:

Get on board, there are so many natural techniques that have been used forever such as adobe and cob building. An earthen home is cheap to build, doesn't require too much expertise, is beautiful, healthy and comfortable to live in and doesn't use nearly as many resources, unless you count dirt, which is an unlimited resource. Look into it, start with a homemade pizza oven: http://blog.sustainablog.org/how-to-build-your-own-cheap-outdoor-pizza-oven/ 

Here are some sites to get you excited:

3. Solar Cooling:

A college student figured out how to make a fridge that uses some very simple materials. The idea is so painfully simple it shouldn't work and yet it does.

Also, there are people designs for solar air conditioners that turn into solar heaters in winter.

The same principle has been used to make low tech solar freezers that can produce large quantities of ice. Check out this article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-refrigeration

4. EM

It stands for Effective Microorganisms and is apparently the savior of our planet. A combination of a few different types of microorganisms (lactic acid bacteria, yeast, photosynthetic bacteria) can be cultivated to make this miracle substance. EM supposedly can be used diluted in water to help plants grow faster and stronger. It can keep compost piles, sewage systems, fish tanks , well basically anything from getting stinky and gross. It can be fed to animals to improve their health and yield (milk for example). It has been used to clean up after natural disasters such as Katrina. There are even EM recipes that people drink to improve their own health. EM is commerically available, it's quite expensive, but a little goes a long way, as you can dilute it quite heavily. There are also some recipes floating around online, but I can't vouch for any of them yet. 

How can you not get excited when you think about these things. I am starting to realize that despite the immense complexity of life, it is all so simple. The sun and dirt can take care of most of our needs. Let me know if you're inspired by something.
love to all,
Robo

Between the end of the banana season and the beginning of the coconut season

I love Vietnam. The people are friendly as can be and the places I’ve been are great. I will present some highlights of my time in Vietnam so far.

The ice cream buffet. Need I say more? Yes. It was a couchsurfing meeting in Saigon, so I thought it could be perfect. Meet other couchsurfers and enjoy an amazing buffet, all you can eat ice cream and whipped cream, real chocolate sauce, sorbet, fruit salad, passionfruit juice, oreos and sprinkles galore. I think I had about 10 mini Sundays and then some other stuff on the side.

Khan’s birthday party. I was couchsurfing in a 4 person apartment on floor 12A (meaning floor 13) of what must be one of the biggest apartment buildings in Ho Chi Min City. It was one of my hosts birthdays and we celebrated with a homemade feast and some drinks followed by a trip to a Karaoke lounge.

Visiting a farmer with a biogas digester. Duncan had worked to install a few biogas digesters in the Mekong Delta during his semester in Vietnam,  so I went to check out what they were all about. One of Duncan’s friends took me out to visit a farmer and translated for me the whole time as the farmer showed me around his fish ponds and pig stalls and then introduced me to his low budget biogas digester. Once he realized that I was truly interested in understanding the details, he drew it all out for me, pointing out some of the improvements he had made to the original system.

Dalat! The main destination for Vietnamese tourists to make a romantic getaway. Dalat is a small city in the mountains, surrounded by greenhouses growing strawberries and avocadoes, as well as more farmland, forests and lots of waterfalls. One waterfall had a rollercoaster that puts you in charge of the brakes winding down the hill through the jungle from the road to the waterfall. The other Dalat highlight was today. When I got here I met up with a French couchsurfer named Nans who had been hoping to raft down a river around here. We decided to buy some car innertubes and float down a river today. Getting there was the fun part. We drove my rental motorbike out of town and down into a flatter valley where we found a place to get our inner tubes inflated (a strange request for them in a town where we saw no other tourists all day) and then headed for the river. The river was beautiful, surrounded by rice patties and banana trees with basalt boulders strewn thoughout the river. The float itself wasn’t that successful as there wasn’t quite enough flow and the sun disappeared as soon as we got into the water, leaving us to slowly chill to the point where it was quite possible to forget that we were still in a tropical country.

Tip of the trip: Avocado smoothie, soooooooooo good!!! Just blend avocado and condensed milk, something like that, and you have a completely new way of experiencing avocadoes.

oh, and the title. It was something a Vietnamese said about when he would get married. Since coconuts and bananas grow all year round in southern Vietnam, it is a great way of not answering the question, i thought it was a good way of thinking about time in general.