One month!

Huyen and I will be in the USA in one month!!!!!

Freedom of Religion?

My friend Jessica sent me the following BBC article. After yesterday's post, it seemed a good time to put it on the blog. Besides this article, I haven't seen it in the news anywhere here:

Many Vietnamese Hmong 'in hiding'

Hundreds of Hmong people are still in hiding in north-west Vietnam a week after an outbreak of unrest, a priest has told the BBC Vietnamese service.

Hmong Pastor Thao A Tam said the security forces had arrested more than 100 people over the violence.

Officials said "extremists" had been detained - but gave no exact figures.

Thousands of Hmong people clashed with security forces in Dien Bien province last week, in the worst ethnic violence for seven years.

Pastor Tam said thousands of Hmong had travelled to a small area in Dien Bien province late last month because they had heard a rumour that the second coming of Jesus Christ was imminent.

But the Communist authorities sent in the security forces to break up the gathering, sparking days of violent confrontations.

Earlier reports said the protests by the Hmong were politically motivated, and that their demands included more religious freedom, better land rights and more autonomy.

Poverty

Pastor Tam - one of the few outsiders to have reached the area where the violence broke out - said at least 600 people had fled into hiding after the unrest.

"There are people in hiding and I still don't know what needs to be done to persuade them to go home," he said.

He said many Hmong returned to their home villages to find that their houses had been looted.

"It will take at least six months for things to get back to normal," he said.

"The Hmong people are in a difficult situation now, especially when it comes to making a living."

The Hmong communities in Vietnam's mountainous north-west are among the poorest people in the country.

They have a relationship of mutual mistrust with the government.

Many of the Hmong fought on the side of the United States during the Vietnam War, and they feel they are discriminated against because of their past.

Churches

(PICTURE: The church in Kon Tum.)

A couple years ago, my friend Nicky made a comment on a motorbike trip we were on. As we passed a few churches in the countryside, he said, "If the Catholic Church is good at one thing, it's building churches." I'm not sure if Nicky is Catholic or not, but this line has stuck with me for awhile now and never more so than on this trip.

In the north, churches are pretty few and far between. There's a couple in Hanoi, a famous one in Ninh Binh and then a bunch of old ones in smaller countryside towns. However, when you start to hit the center of the country, churches are EVERYWHERE.

At one point, Huyen and I were driving through a very back country area, through rice fields, and we saw not one, not two, but three HUGE churches less than a mile apart. I was sort of dumbfounded because seemingly one huge church could have fit all of the local people in it.

The churches are also quite beautiful and modern and almost all have steeples that rise high above anything else in the area. I asked my friend Hien about this and she said that many Vietnamese living abroad send back money to have churches built in their communities.

The only church Huyen and I visited was the oldest churches in Vietnam, located in Kon Tum. The church was built almost 100 years ago (1913) by a French priest. The church is completely made of wood and has some gorgeous stained glass on the inside.

(PICTURE: I think that's a cow but could be a water buffalo.)

When we arrived at the church there were hundreds of people pouring in. By the time we left, the whole outside lawn of the church was filled for a ceremony. I'd say there were probably 2,000 or more people there. Perhaps the coolest thing though was some of the local decoration on the inside of the church as there were lots of traditional ethnic minority handicrafts all over the walls and dangling from the ceiling.

Like in many other places in Vietnam though, this one church couldn't house everyone. Right down the street there were two gigantic, modern churches.

Drago

(PICTURE: Drago.)

Everyone we went to the lighthouse with spoke Russian and worked in the Mui Ne/Phan Thiet tourism industry which caters to 80% Russian clients. Well, in a perfect moment of timing, after we went to the lighthouse we went back to Ngan's house for lunch and Rocky IV was on. Naturally I was drawn to the tv and couldn't stop watching. Well, as soon as the Russian speakers heard some Russian they too were drawn in.

Shockingly NOBODY had ever seen any of the Rocky movies or heard of them. How this is possible, I don't know. Weirder though is something I learned a long time ago out here -- people naturally assume movies are based on real people and events. I've had to explain to multiple people that characters like Forrest Gump are not real. Anyway, these tour guides were all highly impressed with how small Rocky was compared to Drago and how he came out on top. When Rocky and Drago were punching the hell out of each other they were "oohing" and "ahhing" with each ridiculous hit.

On a side note, have you watched that movie recently? As a kid it was one of my favorites but watching it now is kind of weird. For one, Ivan Drago never does anything bad except take steroids. I mean, what professional athlete doesn't do that these days. Oh sure he kills Apollo Creed but they were boxing and he punched him hard. Furthermore, the Americans come off as arrogant a-holes throughout the beginning of the movie. Specifically, Apollo Creed is just a jerk. At the news conference he was talking so much smack and as soon as Drago's trainer says that Drago will win, Apollo goes ape shit. Seriously, if you haven't watched it in a while check it out. The other thing that bothers me as a want-to-be screenwriter is there's only like five scenes with plot in the whole movie. The rest of the movie is just montage after montage. Heck , the whole beginning of the movie is the end of Rocky III!

Okay, that was a tangent I hadn't planned on going on. The point is watching Rocky IV with Vietnamese Russian speakers was interesting.

Visiting An Old Friend

(PICTURE: Huyen and Ngan.)

Besides family, we got to meet up with some friends along the way. While in Da Lat, we met up with Huyen's high school classmate Ngan who is now a tour guide for Russian tourists. Huyen told me that Ngan was the second best Russian student in their class. The best? Well, Huyen of course!

Ngan was just in Da Lat for the day because she's based out of Phan Thiet. When we got to Mui Ne (which is next to Phan Thiet), we met up with Ngan and her boyfriend Hai a bunch of times. They took us to the best local seafood shop which was basically a make-shift restaurant next to some public picnic benches. The food though was as good as promised.

(PICTURE: Ngan and Hai eating seafood.)

A couple of days later, Ngan organized a trip to the oldest lighthouse in Vietnam. We went to the lighthouse with about ten other people. To get there we drove along a beautiful beachside road lined with all new four and five star resorts. Then we had to take a little boat to the lighthouse and then obviously climb up. It was actually quite a trip to get there (we woke up at 4AM!) but worth it. The views from the top were very cool:


(PICTURE: Huyen on top of the lighthouse.)


(PICTURE: Getting ready for the boat to the lighthouse...which you can see in the background.)

Visiting Family

(PICTURE: 2 out of 3 Nguyen sisters with Nhat Minh.)

One of the best parts of our trip was that we got to visit some family along the way. At nearly the halfway point of our travels, we stopped in Hue to visit Huyen's sister and her in-laws. We also got to spend a lot of time with Nhat Minh who is now six months old.
(PICTURE: Tan and Nhat Minh.)


(PICTURE: Add a bigger nose and this could be us in two years.)

Hue is one of my favorite cities and in my opinion has perhaps the best food in Vietnam. That is, if you can get it not totally covered in chili peppers. My absolute favorite restaurant is a goat BBQ/hot pot place on the outskirts of the city. Every time we go to Hue we eat there on our first night...and sometimes last night too.

On the tail end of our trip we visited Huyen's uncle and cousins outside of Ho Chi Minh City:

(PICTURE: The cousins, uncle and me.)

The pretty obvious reason for our trip is to say goodbye to Vietnam. However, even more important is saying goodbye to family. After our trip finishes we're going to be spending at least ten days with the in-laws before we take off on the second leg of our honeymoon.

Frontier Zones

(PICTURE: A border belt.)

As I've mentioned many many times, a couple years ago my friends Long, Nicky and I were detained overnight for accidentally motorbiking into a "Frontier Zone." A frontier zone is basically anywhere close to another country's border. In the case of our detainment we were apparently very very close to Laos.

On our motorbike trip, Huyen and I spent A LOT of time near frontier zones. One of the few places we didn't need to have a permit was to visit the cave where Ho Chi Minh's snuck back into Vietnam from China. Ho Chi Minh specifically chose this cave because of its proximity to China in case the French found out where he was he could sneak back across the border.

Well, at the cave, there's a few signs pointing to different sites. The signs were slightly confusing and apparently Huyen and I went on the wrong path. As we were walking, we bumped into this lady:


(PICTURE: We were very close to China...and birthplace of those sweet blue rain pants Huyen is wearing.)

The lady told us that we were pretty darn close to crossing into China and should turn around. She added that "there should be someone at the border to stop you" but she wasn't sure.

Anyway, the cave was mildly interesting. More interesting to me was Ho Chi Minh's desk where he wrote poetry next to "Lenin Stream." I'm pretty sure there is no cooler desk in the world:
(PICTURE: The seat is on the left, the table on the right.)