Encountering Cambodia and Vietnam - Ha Long Bay, Tuesday 2016 March 8
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Published: July 24th 2017
View from my porthole
Stuck emergency exit - fortunately, no emergencyI am stretched out on a lounge chair on the top deck of our private little cruise boat, the Ocean Pearl, in Ha Long Bay, with the other members of our group. The weather and the light have improved, although the fog and mist shadow the distance. In the foreground are raw sandstone cliffs framed by clinging green trees. Worn mountain tops form islands and islets.
We have sailed (motored) away from the press of tour boats that filled the harbour where we and everyone else embarked. Since our boat is a larger, overnight vessel, we needed a small tender, which is now being pulled behind us. The main level has the dining room, where our table was set for a much-anticipated lunch. First we explored the little foredeck and then our charming rooms. All the woodwork in my room is swollen, so once the door was opened, I could only close it by locking it from the inside. The porthole that was identified as the emergency exit should have opened wide but got stuck, and then wouldn’t close because it truly was stuck. I stopped trying and went upstairs for lunch: vegetable soup, small crabs with a salt-black pepper-
Motorcycle traffic jam
Terrible conditions for riding motorcycles! lime sauce, steamed shrimp, lemon chicken, kohlrabi in garlic sauce, rice, and apple tarts supplied by Thuy.
We had started off the morning in a muddle. Thuy got caught in a traffic jam while she was shopping for treats for us, so we didn’t get started until almost 9:00. The traffic was heavy. Near our route was a long retaining wall decorated by colourful ceramic pictures and designs. As we passed, I noticed that homeless people were just breaking camp, as it were; these seemed to be the same people that looked so picturesque yesterday with their balancing poles and bicycles in the streets. Near the outskirts, we were slowed by traffic jams caused by vehicles turning left in a hodgepodge at two traffic lights and at a third place where two policemen were futilely trying to clear the shemozzle. (
">Have fun watching a video clip of this morning's traffic. )
As we entered the country side we saw ever more paddies heavily flooded. Some were being planted, but Thuy told us that most farmers had given up growing a third rice crop this season because of the unusual cold and the rain. This year, the same fields were more likely to be successful with root vegetables
Rice paddies
Chilly wet day and greens. Thuy commented on people starving after liberation in 1975. The new government, under the influence of Russia and the Cultural Revolution in China, collectivized the farms without assigning effective responsibility. People worked without caring about the health of the crops, which caused yield to plummet. Also, small businesses were banned. No one saw any point in working hard. When policies were made more open in the 1990s, GDP began to rise rapidly. Because of the privations during and after the war, generations of people lost the knowledge of how to prepare dishes and foods with good nutrition.
We passed more industrial sites, a large supermarket, and side-by-side sites of a Korean manufacturer and Vina, a large Vietnamese milk company. In one area, the houses were larger, better designed and set further apart. On the other hand, some of the multi-storey homes in the towns were fronted by a frame that covered almost the whole of the façade to hold billboards. In return for whatever rent they received for the advertising, the inhabitants must have lived almost in the dark, because the side walls generally had no windows. The towns were clean, free of debris, which is collected
Embroiderers
Paintings transformed into embroidery fairly often by official workers with a cart.
Morning break for us came at a non-profit company employing artisans who were handicapped. I thought that one of the embroiderers might have been autistic, otherwise their issues were not apparent, possibly because they were so good at their craft. With quick movements they pierced the fabric, right hand from the top and left hand from the bottom. On one frame, a woman was still drawing the picture while another had already started embroidering the background. The pictures were copied from designs, although for a very complicated picture, an actual painting was mounted where the embroiderer could easily consult it. The coloured embroidery threads were in thick paper-wrapped bundles, cut into lengths about two feet long. (
">The video is proof of the embroiderers' skill. ) Tot: 0.058s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.024s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
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Isabel Gibson
non-member comment
Good Heavens
I'll never munch my vegetable flower quite so casually again! As for the embroidery, do you have any idea how many hours of labour each picture involves? What an amazing day.