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Published: July 15th 2008
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Cafe Grow
The best place for ca phe sau da Day two (? -- Monday) in Vietnam:
We awoke and headed to the shower in the house that Thu's father, Bac Phuc, built for her (most of the time it is used for her uncle's wedding business -- he lives in the house next door and his business studio is also nearby). Thu said "The shower's not working, so I guess that's what the bucket's for." It was a bucket with a scoop. No problem. We had a toilet that worked and a sink that turned on (although it drained onto the floor), and growing up with a crazy I was used to military-style showers. I can shower in a bucket.
For breakfast we headed to a nearby cafe with some members of Thu's family (now that I have their names written down I am starting to remember them!), and had a round of ca phe sua da. This is really strong, excellent iced coffee -- actually, this cafe has the best ca phe sua da I've ever had. Amazing! We're told we can buy beans when we return, so we're planning on doing that.
After breakfast we went to see Thu's grandmother and her family. We rode
on the back of little scooters driven by Thu's cousins, to the grandmother's farm and property not too far away from where we were staying. The "road" to get there turned into a little lane about the width of a scooter's tire. It lead us to a beautiful house, surrounded by tropical plants, free range chickens, and semi-wild dogs -- a beautiful setting. When grandma saw Thu she started crying, which was very sweet.
We walked around the property and the house (which only cost $15k to build in 2001! And it has an indoor toilet!), and then got ready for the meal. The family made lunch for us and it was very good. Apparently grandma saved three chickens for the meal with Thu. After lunch the cousins took us back to our house, but didn't want to go all the way to the crosswalk to cross the divided highway on which the house sits because it was a little out of the way, so they dropped us off at one side of the highway and we sprinted across, dodging traffic. Fun! :-)
Instead of napping in our rooms (which have AC!), we went to the cafe again
Tropical plants
View from the balcony at Thu's grandmother's house and then walked to the market. Being in a village means that those of us who are white are quite a sight. Many people were staring, and I think Peter's size scared some of the kids, which took a bit of getting used to -- but it was an enjoyable walk. By the time we returned, however, we were exhausted and needed to cool off. We only had about 45 minutes until the cousins returned to pick us up for dinner.
Here's where the fun part of my story pauses momentarily. I've come to the conclusion that my body doesn't really like humidity, or it must at least get very sick to adjust. Even though I drank over a gallon of water plus lots of iced tea, I was terribly, terribly sick in the evening. Thu's aunts were very kind and made rice porridge for me, which I couldn't keep down, and a ginger infusion that tasted good but mostly came up, too. I napped in the one room with AC while the family ate and then when it was time to return to our house I rinsed off in the bucket and went to bed. I stayed up
Viet Chicken
This chicken apparently lays eggs all over the yard at Thu's grandmother's house. We found two eggs in this nest when she got up and four others underneath the canna. just long enough to see the monsoon, which was fun (although I must say I've definitely seen it rain that hard in Oregon, just not every day like monsoon season here).
Even with the "early to bed" we didn't get 8 hours of sleep -- we had to be up at 3:15 for our trip to Hanoi. It sounds worse than it really is -- we have no idea what time it is because our body clocks are so messed up, so one time is just about the same as another.
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