Just before the Thanksgiving break, I found myself in the interesting predicament of going from not much at all to do with my time, to having not enough time to anything but work. I was interview, "reviewed," and hired as an English teacher with the United Nations Cultural, Educational and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), something I was immediately excited to have on my resume if nothing else, volunteering 12 - 14 hours at Saigon Children's Charity, tutoring three evenings a week, providing private ESL lessons for two hours once a week and taking Vietnamese lessons two evenings a week. To fill up my spare time, I picked up a contract research and writing assignment for a career mobility website writing, ironically given my experience in the past few months, about how to find work in Viet Nam. I was thrilled to have so much to do and to feel productive, not only by contributing to our family income, but by actually doing, at least a few things, that I love to do.
For the three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Steven was a man unto himself. While I sat, almost literally, glued to to our burgundy pleather couch for hours on end researching local companies, writing lesson plans and setting up interviews, Steven went shopping, cooked dinner, cleaned the house, planned his lessons and put up with my occasional outburst of "This is INSANE! How am I possibily going to get all this done in time to leave for Bali?!" and worked at his own full time teaching job. With a deadline of Friday, December 19th, I had an incredibly detailed research project to produce, over 250 three part-tests to grade, lessons to plan and a job to get up for at 6 in the morning four days a week.
Luckily things began to fall in place for me during the last week before vacation. I was informed that the students had a week off after exams, my tutoree canceled two evenings in a row to study for her own exams, my ESL student canceled one lesson on account of having so much of her own work to do and, apologizing profusely, I begged off of volunteer work for the week. With a week cleared of outside obligations, I sat and wrote. And sat and wrote. And sat and wrote. At 5 in the morning on Friday the 19th, just as Steven's alarm was going off to wake him up to set off for the airport, I was into my 24th consecutive hour of editing. I attached the now 68 page document to an email and hit send.
Feeling relieved to have completed my project before the deadline and grateful to have what had been a hellish month of little exercise, few showers and near complete dependence on my husband, behind me, I quickly straightened up the apartment, hauled on my pack and set off for a good solid two hours of sleep on the plane ride to Singapore.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Christmas in Viet Nam
While Viet Nam may be politically non-religious, many Vietnamese in Saigon celebrate Christmas, if not in the religious sense, at least in the commercial sense. Unfortunately our camera isn't great with night shots, but I've uploaded a few pictures from our evening out to see the Christmas lights.
Thanksgiving in Da Lat
Steven and I see every long weekend as an excuse to travel and our four day Thanksgiving weekend was no different. We may not have Turkey, but we would have a memorable Thanksgiving.
We decided to spend the weekend in Da Lat, an old French getaway in the mountains in south Viet Nam. I had spend some time there in 2005 and remembered enjoying the cool weather, beautiful countryside and old colonial construction. Friends of ours from Steven's school had recommended a hotel where you could get a great room for $10 and had the option of taking some local tours with the owner's son, who spoke perfect English.
Not wanting to spend the seven hours we were told it takes to get from HCMC to Da Lat in a bus during the day, we opted for an overnight bus leaving at 11:15 p.m., scheduled to arrive in Da Lat at 6:15 a.m. the following morning. When it was time for us to board, Steven and I handed our bag over to the man putting luggage in the luggage compartment and settled into our seats in the very front of the bus to the right of the driver. While our seats gave us a great view, they also put us in the position of being the first through the windshield if the bus happened to careen over a cliff at 70 miles an hour on a windy mountain pass (a fact that occurred to me only after waking up briefly a few hours later to see the world passing by in a green and black blur).
We settled in for the ride and I drifted in and out of sleep, while Steven did whatever it is that he does when I am drifting in and out of sleep. While we slept, our driver, apparently an old hand at the Daytona 500 in a previous life, got us to Da Lat in record time, pulling into the bus station at 4:00 a.m., two hours ahead of schedule.
Not wanting to stay at the bus station and assuming, perhaps, that our hotel would have a bell that they wouldn't mind us ringing at 4 in the morning, Steven and I informed the bus company cab that we wanted to go to the Pink House.
The cab followed a small lane back to the main street, turned left and headed up a steep embankment, making a left into a smaller street at the top of the hill. After driving about 100 meters down the darkened street, our cab stopped in front of a big Pink house surrounded by a metal gate. Steve and I unloaded our bags and watched as the tail lights of the cab disappeared around the corner. Looking at each other, we wondered aloud what to do now. We were outside of a locked gate in the middle of the night, in weather much cooler than we were used to, with less than four hours of sleep apiece and only a vague idea of how to get back to the bus station. While Steven sat down to put on a pair of warm socks, I jumped around to keep myself warm and realized that even without much sleep, I was full of energy, like a kid on Chrismas, excited to be on vacation and back in Da Lat. We debated for a few moments on whether we should return to the bus station or stay at the hotel until it opened, not really coming to any conclusion, content, for the moment to enjoy the chill in the air and the peace of our surroundings.
A few moments later, just about 4:15 a.m. we heard a noise from inside the house and saw a figure approaching us. We waited while an older Vietnamese man walked up to the gate and, seeming somewhat startled to see us, opened the lock and ushered us in. We followed him into the house into a large, open room with a large reception area, a door opening up in to what appeared to be the family kitchen and a large polished wooden staircase leading up to the guest rooms, where we waited as he roused a figure under a blanket on the couch. The figure, a young man in his early twenties, rubbed his eyes and looked around groggily before settling his gaze on us. Still seemingly half asleep, he asked us if we wanted a room and then in response to our affirmative reply, walked behind the desk and obtained a key. We followed him up the stairs to the second floor and gladly accepted the key to the nicely furnished, double room for $10 a night. Without even taking the time to unpack, Steven and I crawled under the covers and went to sleep.
The following day, we arose in the late morning and made our way downstairs where we met Rot, the owner's son, who had so enchanted our friends a few weeks earlier. Both Steven and I liked him immediately. He spoke perfect English with the Vietnamese accent we have come to know so well and explained to us how his tours were not like those that were offered through the tour companies. He knew that most backpackers want to see the "real" Viet Nam and are often disappointed by large tours that take them to touristy sites where people act out the local customs and lead you out by way of the gift shop. He offered a one day tour to see some local sights, have lunch with is family in the countryside, meet an indigenous family that were neighbors of his and learn more about the local culture as well as mainstream Vietnamese culture. We told him that we were interested, but just needed some time to decide which day we wanted to go. He said that we could just let him know the evening before and sent us on our way with a recommendation for a cheap local restaurant and a hand drawn map of the city.
Leaving Rot and the Pink House behind, we followed his map to the restaurant he had recommended and were happy to find that it was packed with Vietnamese. We were led up through the crowded lower dining room, up the stairs and to a table in a second floor dining area, already at half capacity. We decided to order the only thing we know how to order in Vietnamese, "Pho Ga," or Vietnamese chicken soup.
After a delicious lunch, we spent the afternoon wandering around Da Lat through a haze of intermittent drizzle and a cloud of gray skies. We toured the botanical gardens, checked out the old train station where Steven marveled at the old coal burning trains, wandered through the fancy Sofitel Da Lat Place turned hotel and took in the expanse of the hilly mountain town from our vantage point at the top of Da Lat's famed "Crazy House," a hotel built by a female architect known for her imaginative designs.
Upon returning to the hotel that evening, we informed Rot that we would be interested in his tour the following morning and had also decided to join him in his cooking class that evening. Exhausted, but happy to have hit the majority of Da Lat's central sights, we turned in for the evening.
We awoke early the next morning and joined Rot and another guest, Tim, an artist from upstate New York, in front of the Inn where we were provided with our bike for the day. Rot's tour included our own transport and Steven happily mounted the bike while I looked forward to a day of amazing scenery.
Leaving Da Lat, we followed a curving mountain road through dense pine forest with a biting chill in the air. As we lost altitude, the forest began to thin and the countryside fanned out on either side of us, painting picturesque with square patches of farmland in various shades of green surrounding little wooden farmhouses. Figures in traditional Vietnamese conical hats bent low to the ground tending their crops while upright torsos stuffed with straw protected them from predators.
Our first stop was Thien An Cricket Farm, a nondescript house on a rocky country road. After I'd jumped off the back, Steven parked the bike, while I took a picture of a tarp filled with coffee beans drying in front of the house next door.
Rot let us through the side gate, alongside of the house to an open air structure in the back of the house. He knocked loudly on the back door as we passed and we were soon joined by a young Vietnamese man whom Rot introduced as the proprietor of the cricket farm.
The farm consisted of two separate tent-like structures, both with rows of boxes and large plastic bowls filled with crickets in various stages of development. To our right in the first tent was a row of multi-colored plastic bowls containing an overturned woven basket and a makeshift cricket water bottle fashioned out of old plastic soda bottles. The center isle was made up of two rows of open boxes covered in white plastic sheeting housing the same contents as the plastic bowls. Each successive bowl or box housed an inordinate amount of little crickets. I wondered aloud why they all didn't just jump out and run away. Our host answered my question by explaining that the crickets were more active at night, so their containers are covered, but during the day the are content to stay in their respective homes.
On a counter next to us, a plate lay covered by a the lid of a pot. On the plate lay what looked like deep fried balls of dough with suspiciously crickety looking legs poking through some of the batter. I was content just to marvel at them, but all of a sudden Steven, Rot and the cricket guy were egging me on to get me to try one. Not one to shy from a challenge, I popped one in my mouth and chewed, noting that probably just about anything deep fried in dough tastes like deep fried dough.
Our next stop was a silk factory, in which the process of creating silk fabrics ranged from the boiling of the silk worm, bought from local silkworm "growers," to processing the silk thread, to the final creation and sale of silk products. The factory was another open air structure, with no walls and only a partial tin roof to keep out the rain. Even from just outside, the noise from the machines was almost deafening. When we walked into the factory, our first image was of a stack of circular trays woven from palm fronds containing hundreds of silk worm cocoons.
Before we went further into the factory, Rot showed us a smaller tray in which a silk moth was laying eggs. We then followed Rot over towards the back of the room where a machine winding silk into large blue spools ran the length of the room. While we watched, he explained that the cocoons were placed into the water to loosen them up. The women working the machine, would run their fingers through the water to pick up the end of a loose thread and hold it up to be caught by the end of a spinning metal rod attached to one of the machine's many spools. The thread would then be pulled up the length of the rod and join the silk thread winding onto the spool. As the thread wound around the spool, the cocoon spun rapidly in the water as the hard work of each little worm was quickly undone. It was neat to look in the water and see all of the cocoons spinning in the water.
We then turned to another machine behind us, somewhat similar the the first except that for the drying process, the spools of wound silk thread laid in rows on the floor and the silk was unwound from those spools, only to be immediately wound onto much larger spools to allow it sufficient air to dry.
As we marveled at what seemed to us as such an archaic, yet fascinating process, we walked over to the other side of the room where an enormous loom wove the silk into reams of intricately patterned fabric. The patterns were determined by pattern boards that could be interchanged in the loom. Rot explained to us that one man's sole job was to keep the looms running. With what seemed like thousands of threads, thread into thousands of needles, raising and falling by the second, I could imagine what a mess it would be if the machine malfunctioned.
Walking back towards the front, Rot introduced us to the owner of the factory and explained that once the fabric was completed, he would personally dye each fabric, a process which, as a family secret, was not shared with others in the factory. Fighting back the temptation to buy an attractive silk dress, I followed Tim, Steven and Rot back out to the bikes.
Our next stop was one of Da Lat's largest waterfalls. We parked our bikes at the top and followed Rot down a path, across a narrow wooden bridge to a path, intermittently made of stairs carved out of stones, and the stones themselves, to a group of boulders that lead us closer to the waterfall. We jumped from boulder to boulder, navigating our way over rocky outcroppings, finally coming to a narrow opening in a rock. When we squeezed through the opening, we found that it led to large cavern behind the waterfall. The air was cool with mist and the roar of the water filled the space, leaving me to wish that Steven and I had found the spot on our own and that we could hide out for a couple of hours hidden from view, enjoying our own private world in this unique space. But it was not to be and we headed back out the way we came.
Our last stop was a mushroom farm, where Van took us into a large "mushroom hut" to show us how the mushrooms grow.
After the mushroom farm, we rode back up out of the valley back into Da Lat. As the farmland gave way to the pine trees, the air grew colder and the sky opened up and rained down icy pellets of rain that hit us like frozen needles. The faster Steven drove to escape the rain, the harder the raindrops seemed to fall. We were happy to get back to the hotel with plenty of time to dry off and take a nap before dinner.
When it was time for us to go to dinner, we met up with Rot and another couple from Switzerland in the lobby. We followed Rot down the road to his sister's house where we spent the evening learning how to make Vietnamese Spring Rolls and Vietnamese Curry, over a bottle of Vietnamese wine. The food was delicious and the conversation was fascinating, alternating from the logistics of living in a country with three official languages to what it was like growing up after one war, in the midst of another war with a neighboring country. It was a great way to end the day.
DA LAT DAY ONE - SIGHTSEEING AROUND TOWN
Da Lat's Urban Farms
Da Lat's Botanical Gardens
Outside of Da Lat Train Station
My first real "billiard room!"
Stairs in Da Lat's Crazy House
A walkway up the the rooms
A room in the Crazy House
The Tiger Room in the Crazy House
View from a window in the yet unfinished portion of the Crazy House
DA LAT DAY TWO - OUR COUNTRYSIDE TOUR
Coffee beans drying in the yard
Thien An Cricket Farm
Inside the Cricket Farm
Cricket Nuggets. Yum!
Silk Worm Cocoons
More Silk Worm Cocoons
Lots More Silk Worm Cocoons
Silk Retrieval Machine
Silk Thread Drying Machine
Inside the Silk Factory
Weaving Pattern Boards to "Program" Loom
Loom Weaving Patterned Silk
Steven and I at the top of a Waterfall
Hiking Down to the Bottom of the Waterfall
Behind the Waterfall
Mushroom Hut
Drying Mushrooms
Growing Mushrooms inside the Hut
Da Lat City
Goldfish for Sale
View from our room
Path around the Lake
We decided to spend the weekend in Da Lat, an old French getaway in the mountains in south Viet Nam. I had spend some time there in 2005 and remembered enjoying the cool weather, beautiful countryside and old colonial construction. Friends of ours from Steven's school had recommended a hotel where you could get a great room for $10 and had the option of taking some local tours with the owner's son, who spoke perfect English.
Not wanting to spend the seven hours we were told it takes to get from HCMC to Da Lat in a bus during the day, we opted for an overnight bus leaving at 11:15 p.m., scheduled to arrive in Da Lat at 6:15 a.m. the following morning. When it was time for us to board, Steven and I handed our bag over to the man putting luggage in the luggage compartment and settled into our seats in the very front of the bus to the right of the driver. While our seats gave us a great view, they also put us in the position of being the first through the windshield if the bus happened to careen over a cliff at 70 miles an hour on a windy mountain pass (a fact that occurred to me only after waking up briefly a few hours later to see the world passing by in a green and black blur).
We settled in for the ride and I drifted in and out of sleep, while Steven did whatever it is that he does when I am drifting in and out of sleep. While we slept, our driver, apparently an old hand at the Daytona 500 in a previous life, got us to Da Lat in record time, pulling into the bus station at 4:00 a.m., two hours ahead of schedule.
Not wanting to stay at the bus station and assuming, perhaps, that our hotel would have a bell that they wouldn't mind us ringing at 4 in the morning, Steven and I informed the bus company cab that we wanted to go to the Pink House.
The cab followed a small lane back to the main street, turned left and headed up a steep embankment, making a left into a smaller street at the top of the hill. After driving about 100 meters down the darkened street, our cab stopped in front of a big Pink house surrounded by a metal gate. Steve and I unloaded our bags and watched as the tail lights of the cab disappeared around the corner. Looking at each other, we wondered aloud what to do now. We were outside of a locked gate in the middle of the night, in weather much cooler than we were used to, with less than four hours of sleep apiece and only a vague idea of how to get back to the bus station. While Steven sat down to put on a pair of warm socks, I jumped around to keep myself warm and realized that even without much sleep, I was full of energy, like a kid on Chrismas, excited to be on vacation and back in Da Lat. We debated for a few moments on whether we should return to the bus station or stay at the hotel until it opened, not really coming to any conclusion, content, for the moment to enjoy the chill in the air and the peace of our surroundings.
A few moments later, just about 4:15 a.m. we heard a noise from inside the house and saw a figure approaching us. We waited while an older Vietnamese man walked up to the gate and, seeming somewhat startled to see us, opened the lock and ushered us in. We followed him into the house into a large, open room with a large reception area, a door opening up in to what appeared to be the family kitchen and a large polished wooden staircase leading up to the guest rooms, where we waited as he roused a figure under a blanket on the couch. The figure, a young man in his early twenties, rubbed his eyes and looked around groggily before settling his gaze on us. Still seemingly half asleep, he asked us if we wanted a room and then in response to our affirmative reply, walked behind the desk and obtained a key. We followed him up the stairs to the second floor and gladly accepted the key to the nicely furnished, double room for $10 a night. Without even taking the time to unpack, Steven and I crawled under the covers and went to sleep.
The following day, we arose in the late morning and made our way downstairs where we met Rot, the owner's son, who had so enchanted our friends a few weeks earlier. Both Steven and I liked him immediately. He spoke perfect English with the Vietnamese accent we have come to know so well and explained to us how his tours were not like those that were offered through the tour companies. He knew that most backpackers want to see the "real" Viet Nam and are often disappointed by large tours that take them to touristy sites where people act out the local customs and lead you out by way of the gift shop. He offered a one day tour to see some local sights, have lunch with is family in the countryside, meet an indigenous family that were neighbors of his and learn more about the local culture as well as mainstream Vietnamese culture. We told him that we were interested, but just needed some time to decide which day we wanted to go. He said that we could just let him know the evening before and sent us on our way with a recommendation for a cheap local restaurant and a hand drawn map of the city.
Leaving Rot and the Pink House behind, we followed his map to the restaurant he had recommended and were happy to find that it was packed with Vietnamese. We were led up through the crowded lower dining room, up the stairs and to a table in a second floor dining area, already at half capacity. We decided to order the only thing we know how to order in Vietnamese, "Pho Ga," or Vietnamese chicken soup.
After a delicious lunch, we spent the afternoon wandering around Da Lat through a haze of intermittent drizzle and a cloud of gray skies. We toured the botanical gardens, checked out the old train station where Steven marveled at the old coal burning trains, wandered through the fancy Sofitel Da Lat Place turned hotel and took in the expanse of the hilly mountain town from our vantage point at the top of Da Lat's famed "Crazy House," a hotel built by a female architect known for her imaginative designs.
Upon returning to the hotel that evening, we informed Rot that we would be interested in his tour the following morning and had also decided to join him in his cooking class that evening. Exhausted, but happy to have hit the majority of Da Lat's central sights, we turned in for the evening.
We awoke early the next morning and joined Rot and another guest, Tim, an artist from upstate New York, in front of the Inn where we were provided with our bike for the day. Rot's tour included our own transport and Steven happily mounted the bike while I looked forward to a day of amazing scenery.
Leaving Da Lat, we followed a curving mountain road through dense pine forest with a biting chill in the air. As we lost altitude, the forest began to thin and the countryside fanned out on either side of us, painting picturesque with square patches of farmland in various shades of green surrounding little wooden farmhouses. Figures in traditional Vietnamese conical hats bent low to the ground tending their crops while upright torsos stuffed with straw protected them from predators.
Our first stop was Thien An Cricket Farm, a nondescript house on a rocky country road. After I'd jumped off the back, Steven parked the bike, while I took a picture of a tarp filled with coffee beans drying in front of the house next door.
Rot let us through the side gate, alongside of the house to an open air structure in the back of the house. He knocked loudly on the back door as we passed and we were soon joined by a young Vietnamese man whom Rot introduced as the proprietor of the cricket farm.
The farm consisted of two separate tent-like structures, both with rows of boxes and large plastic bowls filled with crickets in various stages of development. To our right in the first tent was a row of multi-colored plastic bowls containing an overturned woven basket and a makeshift cricket water bottle fashioned out of old plastic soda bottles. The center isle was made up of two rows of open boxes covered in white plastic sheeting housing the same contents as the plastic bowls. Each successive bowl or box housed an inordinate amount of little crickets. I wondered aloud why they all didn't just jump out and run away. Our host answered my question by explaining that the crickets were more active at night, so their containers are covered, but during the day the are content to stay in their respective homes.
On a counter next to us, a plate lay covered by a the lid of a pot. On the plate lay what looked like deep fried balls of dough with suspiciously crickety looking legs poking through some of the batter. I was content just to marvel at them, but all of a sudden Steven, Rot and the cricket guy were egging me on to get me to try one. Not one to shy from a challenge, I popped one in my mouth and chewed, noting that probably just about anything deep fried in dough tastes like deep fried dough.
Our next stop was a silk factory, in which the process of creating silk fabrics ranged from the boiling of the silk worm, bought from local silkworm "growers," to processing the silk thread, to the final creation and sale of silk products. The factory was another open air structure, with no walls and only a partial tin roof to keep out the rain. Even from just outside, the noise from the machines was almost deafening. When we walked into the factory, our first image was of a stack of circular trays woven from palm fronds containing hundreds of silk worm cocoons.
Before we went further into the factory, Rot showed us a smaller tray in which a silk moth was laying eggs. We then followed Rot over towards the back of the room where a machine winding silk into large blue spools ran the length of the room. While we watched, he explained that the cocoons were placed into the water to loosen them up. The women working the machine, would run their fingers through the water to pick up the end of a loose thread and hold it up to be caught by the end of a spinning metal rod attached to one of the machine's many spools. The thread would then be pulled up the length of the rod and join the silk thread winding onto the spool. As the thread wound around the spool, the cocoon spun rapidly in the water as the hard work of each little worm was quickly undone. It was neat to look in the water and see all of the cocoons spinning in the water.
We then turned to another machine behind us, somewhat similar the the first except that for the drying process, the spools of wound silk thread laid in rows on the floor and the silk was unwound from those spools, only to be immediately wound onto much larger spools to allow it sufficient air to dry.
As we marveled at what seemed to us as such an archaic, yet fascinating process, we walked over to the other side of the room where an enormous loom wove the silk into reams of intricately patterned fabric. The patterns were determined by pattern boards that could be interchanged in the loom. Rot explained to us that one man's sole job was to keep the looms running. With what seemed like thousands of threads, thread into thousands of needles, raising and falling by the second, I could imagine what a mess it would be if the machine malfunctioned.
Walking back towards the front, Rot introduced us to the owner of the factory and explained that once the fabric was completed, he would personally dye each fabric, a process which, as a family secret, was not shared with others in the factory. Fighting back the temptation to buy an attractive silk dress, I followed Tim, Steven and Rot back out to the bikes.
Our next stop was one of Da Lat's largest waterfalls. We parked our bikes at the top and followed Rot down a path, across a narrow wooden bridge to a path, intermittently made of stairs carved out of stones, and the stones themselves, to a group of boulders that lead us closer to the waterfall. We jumped from boulder to boulder, navigating our way over rocky outcroppings, finally coming to a narrow opening in a rock. When we squeezed through the opening, we found that it led to large cavern behind the waterfall. The air was cool with mist and the roar of the water filled the space, leaving me to wish that Steven and I had found the spot on our own and that we could hide out for a couple of hours hidden from view, enjoying our own private world in this unique space. But it was not to be and we headed back out the way we came.
Our last stop was a mushroom farm, where Van took us into a large "mushroom hut" to show us how the mushrooms grow.
After the mushroom farm, we rode back up out of the valley back into Da Lat. As the farmland gave way to the pine trees, the air grew colder and the sky opened up and rained down icy pellets of rain that hit us like frozen needles. The faster Steven drove to escape the rain, the harder the raindrops seemed to fall. We were happy to get back to the hotel with plenty of time to dry off and take a nap before dinner.
When it was time for us to go to dinner, we met up with Rot and another couple from Switzerland in the lobby. We followed Rot down the road to his sister's house where we spent the evening learning how to make Vietnamese Spring Rolls and Vietnamese Curry, over a bottle of Vietnamese wine. The food was delicious and the conversation was fascinating, alternating from the logistics of living in a country with three official languages to what it was like growing up after one war, in the midst of another war with a neighboring country. It was a great way to end the day.
DA LAT DAY ONE - SIGHTSEEING AROUND TOWN
Da Lat's Urban Farms
Da Lat's Botanical Gardens
Outside of Da Lat Train Station
My first real "billiard room!"
Stairs in Da Lat's Crazy House
A walkway up the the rooms
A room in the Crazy House
The Tiger Room in the Crazy House
View from a window in the yet unfinished portion of the Crazy House
DA LAT DAY TWO - OUR COUNTRYSIDE TOUR
Coffee beans drying in the yard
Thien An Cricket Farm
Inside the Cricket Farm
Cricket Nuggets. Yum!
Silk Worm Cocoons
More Silk Worm Cocoons
Lots More Silk Worm Cocoons
Silk Retrieval Machine
Silk Thread Drying Machine
Inside the Silk Factory
Weaving Pattern Boards to "Program" Loom
Loom Weaving Patterned Silk
Steven and I at the top of a Waterfall
Hiking Down to the Bottom of the Waterfall
Behind the Waterfall
Mushroom Hut
Drying Mushrooms
Growing Mushrooms inside the Hut
Da Lat City
Goldfish for Sale
View from our room
Path around the Lake
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