Think Las Vegas meets the beach, and you have Nha Trang, a glitzy city in a gorgeous setting. One big difference. Most of the foreign tourists are Russians. Nha Trang and Da Lat, our next stop, are also Viet Nam's top honeymoon destinations. Interesting, and two nights are plenty for me.
Today we visited Xom Gio Village for what OAT calls the "Day in the Life" experience. Since 2009, Grand Circle Foundation has been helping support this small community. They have built homes for four of the poorest families, built community toilets accessible to the whole community, and recently helped electrify the dark lanes. OAT brings groups here to experience daily life in rural Viet Nam.
Daily life started with shopping at a bustling local market between Nha Trang and Xom Gio. Hank divided us into four teams and gave each team 30,000 dong (about $1.50) and two items to purchase. The trick was we didn't know what the items were. We just knew how to pronounce them. The food was to be used to prepare our home-hosted lunch in Xom Gio. This exercise was surprisingly fun.
After considerable interaction with customers and vendors, we discovered our two items were tomatoes and lotus seeds. You would be amazed how many tomatoes your can buy for $1. Four or five pounds at least! The teams got seven out of eight items right. Turns out radish can sound similar to cauliflower.
We moved on to the village, where we were greeted by the local chief. Think small town mayor. The main "industry" of this village is bamboo basket making. We watched one family group making cradles, another baskets and the mats used to dry the rice paper, a third making bamboo chopsticks.
It's all hard work, and on the positive side, it can all this be stopped and re-started at will, like when a kid needs attention, and since everyone knows how to do it, family members with jobs away from the village can pitch in when they're home.
We ended up at the village chief's house, and the ingredients we had purchased were turned into a multi-course meal served alfresco, accompanied by the creaking of the bamboo trees surrounding us.
After lunch, the chief, his wife and a cousin sat with us to tell us their stories, answer our questions and ask theirs.
The chief was a university student in the 60's. After graduation, he was drafted by the South Vietnamese army. As we travel south, we have come to realize what should have been obvious. Just as in the U.S., no matter what their side, the draft was the reason men of our generation served as soldiers. After 1975, the losers didn't have an easy time of it. Our host was sent to reeducation camp, which he explained, was more like school than prison. School to forget old ways and learn new ways of thinking. After six months, he was allowed to return to his village.
Despite his background, the local Communist Party eventually invited him to stand for election as chief. He has now served four three-year terms. When asked what the biggest issue the village faced, he and his wife both said, "Trash!" As in littering. The village has a trash service, but people need to bring their trash to a central location. Many don't bother.
Their questions for us: In the U.S., who takes care of the elderly? Is it the husband or wife who manages the money? What happens if you have a big farm and want to sell it? Here agricultural land, redistributed by the Communists after 1975, cannot be sold. It must remain in agricultural use.
We purchased a couple of small baskets for $2 each, and 10 sets of chopsticks for $1.
After we got back, Mary and I walked along the beach to the local brewery, and later joined half our group for barbecue at a local hangout. You choose your meats- we had squid, prawns, tuna and beef- then grill them yourself over a small hibachi.
This was such a great day, made better because I'm finally feeling myself again.
Tomorrow we're off to the mile-high city of Da Lat.
Love, Toni
P.S. No photos tonight. Despite many attempts from various locations, something in this hotel's WiFi does not want my camera to communicate with my phone. Hoping for better luck in Da Lat.
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