Cao Bang

We made it to Cao Bang Province today around 3pm and yay there is internet at our hotel :o) It has been a very looooooong day! We were up at 4am in Ha Noi getting ready and waiting for Anh to show up and take us to the bus station. She arrived after 5am with a car full of people, including Tony. He was running late but wanted to see us off so they had to wait for him. We said our goodbyes and Tony left by taxi while we all piled into the car and left for Cao Bang. I told you the arrangements always change- the group decided to drive us up into the mountains instead of sending us by bus. That was nice of them. So it was Anh, Chuyen- one of the gals who runs a ceramic place and employees deaf kids, Dung and his wife, Scott and I and the driver ...and away we went.

Five minutes into our drive a two foot stick of french bread comes poking through from behind us between Scott n I- whoa! Surprise! have a snack! I don't understand how people here can eat all day and not gain weight- I mean we are talking breads, rice, shrimp, squid, the stuff that makes me puff up like a whale! I just don't get it. I'm an american cow right now with all of the eating I've been doing here- Vietnamese cows aren't that big. Yes even the cows are skinny, what the heck! I want to be a Vietnamese cow ;o)

Twenty minutes into our drive after shoveling bread into our mouths, another stick of bread came through, then another- aaaack! Then we pulled onto the side of the road into a lot to have pho for breakfast. Now the bread in my stomach could have some help expanding in my belly with some broth- yippy! The pho was delicious but it's no fun to eat boiling soup in humid weather, sweat sweat sweat. The slurped up our pho and it was back on the road. The leftover bread we had was stuffed into the back seat pocket- that's just how they roll here :o/

We drove about two hours before stopping for gas. A full service gas station. When I say full service I mean sitting down to have some green tea for a bit and chatting a while. Fun times!

We were back on the road for what seemed like forever. I fell asleep for a while here n there and woke up when we were getting into the hills. The view was beautiful! Yosemite aint got shit on Viet Nam, I'll tell you that much! I have to admit I was being a bit selfish on the ride and didn't take too many pictures because I was busy taking it all in with my own eyes. Besides, my camera skills aren't that great on the road even though this driver was a bit better, slowing down here n there. I took a few pictures but for the most part I just stared out the window and felt so tiny. We stopped a few more times along the way to stretch and buy more things to eat. The first stop was at the mountain side where water was just running down the side and women were selling rice inside a hollow stick. Pretty cool! Scott was given a rice stick to wrestle with it on his own while I was given one that was opened up all nice and pretty. Everyone laughed at him and then said he should eat all of it including the wood. He took a bite and then said "BULLSHIT!" and everyone burst out laughing. Oh our group does love to play with us much, tee hee.

Women selling rice sticks here. Fresh water just rains over the side of the mountain and there are bamboo pipes catching some of it for use.

This is Scott's tangle of an attempt to open and eat his rice stick correctly.

This is how everyone else opened it- like a flower :o) it had peanuts too.

The drive took way over 7hrs but we stopped along the way which made it ok. This time they weren't kidding about being out in the middle of nowhere. There really isn't much on the way up here except for the beautiful nature. There were a few towns along the way but nothing major. I think this is the major city- Cao Bang City in Cao Bang Province which doesn't look very big either. It does have this hotel and internet though :o) So we were allowed to rest a few hours before we were picked up and taken to Dung's home for dinner. There we met Hannah, our interpreter for the evening. Hannah is a Phd student from Frankfort Germany doing her 1 year research in Cao Bang on Urban Sociology and small town relationships. She studied Vietnamese for over 3yrs and sounds fluent to me. She was very sweet. She will be our interpreter tomorrow while we meet with the students and get started here in Cao Bang. We also invited her to hang out with us in the evenings once Carly and Karyna arrive since there isn't much to do here.

Now the plan for Cao Bang is to work with deaf students in the mornings and work with teachers and disabled people in the afternoon. We are planning to stay here about 2 weeks. After that I think for myself, I should be making my way back to the Ha Noi area. Kim, another gal from our program at sjsu, will join us on the 24th but I'm not sure where we will be at that time. Tomorrow we will also decide if we would like to have a driver like we did in Thanh Hoa or if we would like to rent a motorbike and drive ourselves. I'm all up for the motorbike but Scott is too afraid. I think the traffic is less complicated here. I don't see too many cars, mostly bikes and motos and our worksite will be about 1km away. I think we can handle the moto. I'll have to let you know how it goes ;o)

Ok I should get some sleep because we have to be up early and I really am exhausted. OH, I spent this past week writing out postcards by the way so if you gave me your address then I got you down. I wrote to about 40 or 50 of you, whew! The problem is that I couldn't get them mailed out in Ha Noi but Hannah said she would help me tomorrow so those should be going out soon. Of course they take forever because it's going by snail mail but you should get something by August I should hope.

Hannah getting ready to leave for the evening.

I noticed this region grows a lot of corn and tea. I didn't see corn anywhere else I've been but it's all over here....I also noticed our hotel room and Dung's home have nets for the beds...should I be worried and should I be using it tonight? OH and I saw 3 GIANT spiders today on a few of our stops....TDO! I've already wiped everything down in repellent- I hope it keeps me safe for the night. I'm skeeeerd!