The Original Harmony

I let him know it was OK --- Dad - H    

Tim is apparently having trouble posting but is able to send e-mails --- I have taken excerpts from several e-mails over the last three days --- we were able to bounce some back and forth at 3 – 4 AM --- these are generally Tim’s responses --- but also info he wanted to share --- this is pretty long --- but the last few paragraphs may be the best ---

2/1 8:40 PM

We have been bargaining some, but only working people down to
about 80% of asking; it’s still very cheap.

Temps are nice, cooler in Hoi An (high 70s) than it was in Saigon. Bus ride was very long.


2/2 6:13 AM

We slept pretty well, I did anyway, I don’t think Kelly slept as well. Not much is new. We both decided to get another suit tailored, and I also got shoes. Not too expensive, a little less than Cambodia actually. We sent some mail home today, postcards and a box full of stuff.

It cost about $30 to send about 10lb of stuff by sea freight (Cambodia would have been 5 times that).

Tomorrow we are going on a tour of My Son near Hoi An. The day after we will explore the historic sites in the city and take a cooking course. Tomorrow we go back to the tailors too to have our stuff fitted.

I really like Vietnamese food, and the coffee. The scenery here is really amazing too. Very beautiful, we had dinner on the river with Vietnamese style boats going by. On our way up here we stopped at a beach town called Mue Ne. I guess it was the spot in 1990 that was the optimal viewing location for a total solar eclipse. Since then it has really picked up as a great location for windsurfing and kite boarding. I had no wonder why. Judging by the height of the waves and the spray blowing off them I'd say the wind was a steady 15 kts. or more.

2/2 6:19 AM

We have met several other tourists, mostly older people. Talked a little, compared trips. We are by far on the longest trip of anyone we talked to.

We have not met any other Americans out here though, but we may have seen a few (One guy wearing a Cape Cod t-shirt, and a group of younger people that sounded like they were pretty rude). The guy who runs the California 2, where we stayed in Phnom Penh on the second visit, is also an American, his mother is from Chickapee, MA.

Everything else is going well. People are trying to sell us stuff left and right. It gets a bit annoying; it always goes the same way. "Hello where are you from?" - "Oh USA is very nice, I have many friends there" - "You are so nice/beautiful" - "Would you like to see my clothes shop?".

The shops are also a bit high priced. Even bargaining we can barely get the prices down to what initial offers were in Cambodia. There are some things I would really like to get for Kendra, but they keep asking $25 for them when they were only $10 in Cambodia. I got one set down to $13 but that was how much the people started at in Cambodia when Kelly got some.


2/3 3:45 AM

We had a good day today at My Son. There were some old temples, about the age of Angkor. We also went to a crafts village where there was a festival as well as people making bamboo mats, furniture, and woodcarvings. I guess the village actually specializes in building boats though.

One of the cool things we saw was a race in large bamboo baskets. People stand in them, and then rock them forwards and back to make them move. The baskets were about 3 feet across and 2 feet deep. Made of bamboo or rattan and palm probably. They looked very waterproof. I was impressed.

We picked up our suits today. They look very good. The one I got in Cambodia was light colored so I got a dark one too (black with grey pinstripes). They both look very good.

You asked if I was losing weight, I must be because I'm on my last belt hole when there used to be 2/3 to choose from. Fortunately they are leaving plenty of room in the pants they are making.


2/3 3:46 AM

The reason I got suits is that doctoral candidates are expected to dress nice for presentation. I guess I was lucky in linguistics, Dan, Gordo, Kelly, Brian, and John all had to buy suits as requirements for co-op and classes.

I was surprised with the cape cod t-shirt as well.

We did run into some nice people from Denver today. They told us a few good places to eat. The guy in the cape cod t-shirt seemed fine. It was some other guys, only interested in talking about drugs; that really annoyed me. I over heard one of their conversations, talking to a Finnish guy, asking him what language he spoke. When he said Finnish they were all impressed and surprised he spoke a "dead language, like ancient Greek". I guess they didn't realize everyone in Finland speaks Finnish.

The people here aren’t exactly poor, but their standard of living is below ours. It’s more funny than annoying, but I do wish I could talk to some of these people and get a sincere conversation out of them.

Most everything we bought is very small, compact, and easy to pack. The stuff we sent home was stuff for ourselves.

I am not able to read any comments on the blog from here.


2/3 3:49 AM

Cambodian food is really good. I especially like loc lak (many spellings, but they all sound about like that). Vietnamese food is even better; I have liked almost everything I have tried. It’s all different than Thai, or Chinese.

Kelly is enjoying the food more too. She will eat just about anything but tomatoes and fish/squid.

2/3 8:35 AM

We really are having a good time here. The food is great, the sights
are amazing, the people are nice, and were having a lot of fun. We had
dinner at one of the places the people from Denver recommended. We had
potato skins as an appetizer, but Vietnamese food as our meal. Its
really, really good; all of it. The coffee really is amazing too. They
put sweetened condensed milk in the very dark coffee, which makes for
an amazing flavor.

Judging by your questions and comments about Viet Nam, I get the
impression that you think its really a third world country that is way
behind and still scarred by the war. I really don’t get that impression
at all. Though there is some poverty, it is nowhere near on the scale
of what we saw in Cambodia. The cities themselves are nicer than most
of what we saw in Thailand (which was nicer than Cambodia) except for
Bangkok. Though there are some bomb craters and mine warnings, the
country does not SEEM heavily scared by the war either. There are far
fewer maimed people here than Cambodia too. The streets are large, and
very good quality. Ho Chi Minh city looked almost fully modern missing
(maybe we missed it I don’t know) only a good transportation system
(something some major US cities also lack). We have both been really
surprised just how nice it is here. We both agree this is somewhere we
would like to come back to some day and spend more time (more than two
weeks).

Coincidently, the guy at MIT Kelly worked for was just here (just
before us). She is not sure why he was here, but thinks it was just
vacation.

One of the other things, I didn’t tell you about but wanted to. In Mui
Ne, we passed some sand dunes that were REALLY amazing. They had some
red ones and some normal colored ones, but they were really huge. From
parts of the road you could see them stretching on for miles too. The
landscape looked barren, just low scrub and grasses, but it was really
an amazing sight. The places we stopped were so amazingly windy.
The bus shook and everything was blowing around. No doubt this wind is
a strong contributor to the size and shape of the dunes.

I have also been impressed by the general landscape. Its so different
than home, no glaciers went through here to plough everything down, there are some
really different features, like the limestone mountains that we see
every once in a while. You also don’t get as many small hills and
kettle holes (except for the craters) as you see at home. So, the
plains, where they are, just keep on going and going for as far as you
can see. This is where people grow their rice here, and that is quite the
sight too. It’s pretty short now, since they are right at the start of
a growing season, but very green.

As you can tell I really like it here.

We're going to go upstairs now; it’s been a long day (mostly because it
followed the long bus ride).

The End for now ---