From the Mekong

 

From the Mekong, days later.

We are now at our next to last stop, at a small hotel in a small village on a tributary of the Mekong river. Rivers are everywhere here, in this long narrow country that we have traversed, from north to south, in the past nearly three weeks.

This morning, in  a couple of hours, our guide here, Kim, will pick us up and bring is to our last stop, Ho Chi Mihn City.

The city is more commonly known as Saigon, formerly the capital of South Vietnam. According to our guide and things I’ve read, older people, at least in the southern part of the country, still refer to it as Saigon. There is apparently no consequence for referring to it that way. If nothing else, Ho Chi Mihn City is cumbersome on the tongue.

I am sitting in the gardens of Bamboo Eco Village, a place I chose after browsing the internet, after several suggestions by Luke at the travel agency. It is more rustic than the places he suggested, and further from the city,   the base for exploring the Mekong area. There are various tourcompanies that have day trips to this area from Saigon, but since it is a three hour drive, I imagine it would be a rather grueling day trip.

This place is beautifully landscaped, with lily pads and various fruit trees, and Monet- like bridges, constructed largely of bamboo. And a number of tables set under thatched roofs, under one of which I am sitting now. Our bungalow is constructed of bamboo, wood and brick, and has a outdoor shower and bathroom, totally private. There’s a mosquito net over the bed, which I  find both atmospheric and worrying. But the room is air conditioned, and after an initial bite there were no mosquitos to be found. I did sleep under the netting the first night, but for last night decided it wasn’t necessary. Loring finds the netting claustrophobic, I find it comforting and charming.  And romantic, although with one of us sleeping under it and the other outside, not sure how romantic that is.

Yesterday we visited a few places with locals showing us their cooking or other skills. We began the day early, at 630, with a drive up to Can Tho, where we embarked on a boat for trip up the river, (actually close to our Eco Village) to the floating markets. The neatest part of the trip was that they served us breakfast on the boat. I don’t know how this idea originated,  or how common it is, but it was delightful. There were pastries, fruits, hardboiled eggs, coffee and tea, and fresh juice. It was a treat to eat while cruising up the river. The boat had a couple of tables that could have accommodated four each, but we were the only passengers. We passed and were passed by many other boats, some bigger, some smaller than ours, mostly carrying tourists but some others with locals. Perhaps going fishing, or to the market themselves.

I had imagined the market to be much like the one I’d seen in Bangkok some years ago, where the boats were all crammed together, a real market  but very touristic, and who knows what it might be like now. But although this was also touristed, the merchants boats were spread out across the river, with smaller boats rowing up to them. It seemed as though the small boats were both buying from and selling to the larger ones. And maybe that was true. I’ll try to remember  to ask Kim today.

The bigger boats weren’t huge, as I’d imagined from Kim’s description. They were mostly houseboats with a family living on them.

Later we went to a fish farm,  on an island that we took a short ferry to. We were joined by a young woman, a local guide. She told us that the area had begun to be developed for tourism about seven years ago. The fish farm was fascinating. They took us to a number of pens with a variety and different sizes of fish. When she fed them for us tourists, they jumped clear out of the water. And then there was a pen with smaller fish that you could put your feet in and have them nibble, supposedly to clean your feet of dead skin. I’m not sure it actually did that, but it was amusing to put your feet in and feel them, and virtually everyone who tried it giggled because it tickled!

We were led on a short path through the village to a spot with a couple of tables, surrounded by logan trees. We were brought three different varieties – the very sweet ones, the medium sweet, and the least sweet but meatiest . I liked them all, and gobbled down a number of them. To me they are somewhat similar to rambutan, which I also like. I suppose a Vietnamese would not think they are alike. The texture is similar to a grape, whitish in color. You don’t eat the outer part, you peel them, and then there’s an inner seed which you also don’t eat.

Next we were taken to another house to learn to make a couple of local dishes. One was a kind of crepe, but made   from rice flour, and cooked crispier, which was filled with a shrimp and vegetable mixture. The other was also rice flour, cooked over a fire in a pan similar to one for poaching eggs. The batter went in each individual spot, and once it was cooked, over a fire with a lid over it, it was filled with a custard -like filling.

Unfortunately I have been plagued with some kind of stomach bug since the snake potion episode on Halong Bay almost two weeks ago. I have not had any vomiting or other extreme symptoms, since the first night, but have had pretty much no appetite and have had to force myself to eat anything. What a shame in a place known for its cuisine, much of which I love. It is amazing how many different ways they can use rice and rice batter to produce different dishes, most of them delicious.

The buffet breakfasts everywhere we’ve stayed have been sumptuous. They   all include a variety of dishes that we’d normally eat for lunch or supper, stews and stir fries, soups including pho and congee. There’s also always a selection of cold cuts and cheeses, and a variety of breads and small cakes. Something for everyone.  And usually an omelette/egg station. One had a waffle station. And always a variety of local fruits. My favorites have been dragon fruit, both beautiful and delicious. And rambutans are another favorite, although not often served at the breakfast buffets. One hotel, though, had a welcome basket including small oranges, rambutan,  grapes, and more.

Our last four days before the Eco Village were at the  Avani resort outside of Quy Nhon. It was a beautiful place, right on the ocean. There were ocean views from bed, from the balcony, and also from the shower, with a sheer glass walls and total privacy. 

It is a beautiful place, but unfortunately, the four days we were there were all stormy, with intermittent rain. The sea was rough. So what was supposed to be our four day beach sojourn was not much of a beach stay. Loring did walk down the beach to the nearby village one day, and he also swam a couple of times in the infinity pool.

It was still a stunning place, and since I’d still not been feeling well, a good place to lay low and relax. As in other places, signs of future development were everywhere. There were several other hotel/ resorts along the coast from the city. But there were at least twice  that many planned or already under construction.  It is difficult to tell how many are still being built, and how many were started and halted by covid, perhaps not to be built at all. There didn’t seem to be that many signs of ongoing construction.

To get to Quy Nohn we returned to DaNang and then took a six hour train ride. Luke, our travel agent, had said he would book an entire four passenger cabin for us, which didn’t seem necessary. In retrospect, though, it was a good idea. There were two upper berths and two lower. It was daytime, so we didn’t really need the beds. But I stretched out on one, and wound up sleeping about half of the six hour trip. The rest of the time I lay stretched out as well, enjoying the panorama of the endless rice fields streaming by outside  the window.

We arrived and were picked up by our local guide and brought to the hotel. The connections along the way have been well organized, with someone meeting us at each juncture to bring us to the next.

The only time a connection didn’t work well was at the airport in Saigon a couple of days ago. We waited a half hour until our guide, our current guide Kim, finally arrived. We had just decided to call the travel agency, and Loring was on the phone with someone there, when Kim finally showed up. There had apparently been some misunderstanding, but i never understood what it was. In any case, we were just glad to see him, and it was hard to be frustrated because he was so good natured.

 

A few days later, writing  from the check-in line at Saigon airport.

 

We are on our way home in line at the Emirate Airlines counter.  Our flight is at midnight.  We'd been told to arrive at 7pm, which seemed earlier than necessary. So we got here at 8pm, and the counter doesn’t open until 8:55 pm. That’s only 10 minutes from now.

 And... at precisely 8:55 four uniformed ticket agents stand facing us, bow, assume their stations, and the line begins to move. Efficient and charming.

And that illustrates how all the service personnel in hotels, restaurants and other locales along the way has been. Everyone has been polite and friendly. Sometimes it feels to the point of subservient and is a little uncomfortable. I do like the slight bowing, though, which is mutual.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Half Hue and Half Hoi An

Several days and two locations later:

We are now in the city of Hoi An, having left the boat for the flight to Hue and two nights there. I will backtrack and hopefully catch up.

Hue is a pleasant enough city, also bustling but not nearly as much as is Hanoi. We stayed at the Hotel Saigon Morin. I never figured out why Saigon is part of its name. It is an historical hotel, dating from 1901, and still has a charming ambiance.

The building fronts on the Perfume River, which our room looked out to, with a small balcony. There is a lovely interior courtyard with a pool, which we didn’t use and never saw anyone use. We did sit  in the courtyard a couple of times, once for dinner, once for drinks, accompanied by raucous frogs, whom Loring later located sitting in the fronds in planters.

The weather is warm but has not been uncomfortably hot, a good thing in general, but not conducive to lazing in a pool. There is a pool here in Hoi An too, with lots of lounge chairs and a bar. We are staying here for four days, so hopefully will get to use the pool at some point. But right now it is raining.

There is a beach a few k’s down the road, and in fact  there is a huge stretch of beach all the way from Da Nang, where we reached the coast yesterday in our drive here from Hue.

Our guide from Hue to here is Tuan, which was also Smoky in Hanoi’s real name. Each of them has been very friendly and knowledgeable and a pleasure to be with. Smoky/Tuan stayed in a hotel in Ha Long for the two days we were on the boat, although our driver there (the one who took the wrong road) was replaced by another. Smoky said it was because he had an uncle’s funeral in Hanoi to attend. But I wonder if it had something to do with the screw up. I will continue to feel terrible for him, as he no doubt will continue to feel about himself.

Here, our driver will stay with our guide, Tuan Two, for one  night, take us on a tour of the area this afternoon , and then return to Hue, while we continue to stay here.

In a couple of hours they will pick us up for a tour of the countryside, which hopefully will be interesting. There are tourists wherever we go, and most are on group tours, a way of travel we have rarely done. They are largely Asian, (Tuan says mostly Korean) and some European, and a few but not many Americans.

The only time I can remember being on a group tour was in Cuba (where it’s required) and where it was a pretty positive experience. We did sneak off for a week on our own there to stay at a b and b type place, which wasn’t hard to arrange.

This time, we opted for an arrangement that is basically a private tour. We started with a suggested itinerary, which you can tweak and change as much as you like. And as you might guess, I did a lot of tweaking and changing. Luke at the London based agency was very helpful and patient with all my queries. I somehow have a feeling I made a lot more changes than most.

The template was an 18 day itinerary, which we lengthened to 21 days. He made suggestions of hotels, to which I mostly said, too fancy, too resorty. And there were activities planned for every day, which we whittled down to about half, with a number of free days.  Thinking about it, most of the cuts involved rides of some kind, ie the back of the Vespa, no thanks, also on a WWII era Jeep (although an Australian woman we met said it was a lot of fun,) and one company, not the one we chose, had included a buffalo ride.

This arrangement has worked out very well so far, and I assume will continue to do so. All our connections, car, plane, boat, and train ( a six hour ride, yet to come, to our next destination) are arranged for us. And we have both a driver and a guide in each place. The guides speak fairly good English, the drivers nearly none.

In Hue, Tuan took us to several temples, pagodas, and mausoleums. They were all impressive, and we never would have been able to see as much on our own. The architecture is beautiful, with many surfaces painted, enameled, mosaicked,  etc. Some of the mosaics are what is called pic assiette, (by me, probably not here) which is broken pieces of pottery, plates and bowls. I thought it was a modern technique, will have to research more. Then again, none of the buildings are ancient;  old I guess by U.S. standards, 19^th century, but not ancient by Asian, as I would have guessed. They are either temples to Buddha and other gods, or to emperors, built by themselves. The mausoleums were planned by the monarchs themselves, including the tombs. Aside from not being as old as I would have guessed, they have largely been recreated. Some were damaged or destroyed by typhoons, according to Tuan. But I am thinking that much of the damage has been from bombings by the US during the Viet Nam war, (called the American War here.)

Tuan told us that the locations of the King’s tombs within the compounds was kept secret, to prevent looting, so while the general location was known, the exact spot was not.  In one case, 100 soldiers were beheaded to keep the secret, in another, apparently 200. Or so the story goes.

In Hue, the beginning of our tour was a short boat ride on the Perfume River, which ran in front of our hotel, to the Imperial City, and within it, to the Forbidden City. These compounds had gardens, ponds, places for only the king to relax, and libraries, royal theaters, sections for the concubines, etc. The kings had multiple wives and many children, but only the children of the first wife were potential heirs. I read some reference of a conflict between sons of one king for the throne, but don’t know how common that was.

The boat ride, I assume, is an element of many tourist itineraries. What impressed me was that the small boat (it could have held perhaps 10 or a dozen, but we and Tuan were the only passengers) was also the family’s home. There were a couple and a small child who peeked out briefly as we came onboard. And there were crafts of many kinds that she kindly encouraged us to buy. I did buy some silk pajamas, the jacket of which I’ve already worn several times. ( and gotten comments from locals about. They seemed happy that I’d bought them, even though not from them.) I wasn’t sure how couth or uncouth it was to wear the whole outfit in the street, especially for a foreigner. I may still.

Later in the day, back from our excursion with Tuan

We had cancelled our cooking class this morning, because neither of our stomachs felt settled. No appetite, and no appeal to the idea of cooking. We have rescheduled for tomorrow, when we hopefully both will feel better.

I had been sick for several days, violently so the first day. But Loring had been feeling fine until now.

I don’t think we have the same thing. I am pretty sure what caused mine, and have myself to blame. I did something really stupid. It's the only thing I tried, aside from perhaps sampling a couple of different things at the lavish breakfast buffet  that Loring didn’t,  so seemed obvious that was the cause. But now that mine is lingering and L has similar symptoms, who knows.

Okay, you want to know how stupid? This is how stupid:  at the small village we stopped at on the Lan Ha Bay, there was a stand where there were several varieties of local liquor : one was artichoke, two were some type of herbs, and the last, was a jar full of snakes. Yep, snakes. I tried the artichoke brew first. Strong. And then someone from another group sampled the snake potion. I could not resist trying. Strong too, of course.

That was it. Until about 3 o’clock the next morning. I’ll spare you the details but it wasn’t pretty. And I haven’t felt quite right since. Pretty much no appetite. A real shame given the wide variety of food everywhere, and especially the elaborate breakfast buffets included in all of our stays. There are all kinds of Vietnamese dishes, of course, although not what I’d expect at a breakfast. Fried rice, noodles, chicken, pork and fish dishes, along with bacon, eggs, sausage, potatoes, cheeses, meats,  wide variety of tropical fruits and juices. And yogurt, cereal, little cakes, croissants, various breads, etc. On the cruise there were soups too, at breakfast, as well as at the other meals, a different kind each day. Luckily on the boat, where all of our meals were included, I didn't imbibe the snake stuff until later in the cruise.

But since then, our few days in Hue and now Hoi An, I've stuck to Pho, fried rice, a few plain cakes and breads, and finally this am, an omelet.  And fruit, the only thing I’ve craved, but not the best thing for a queasy stomach.

On our drive here from Hue yesterday, we made a couple of stops. One was a rest stop at what was also a pearl making village. Stores full of jewelry. I was definitely tempted by some of the irregular pearls I love to use in making jewelry, but resisted. (so far. ) But there’s always Saigon.

I have purchased a few things, the silk pajamas, a couple of small bowls in the pottery village today.

We made a stop at the Marble village, replete with large shop/showrooms, each with enormous as well as smaller statues and items made of marble. They were certainly impressive, but the places were a bit of a hustle, not surprising of course. They followed us around emphasizing how they could ship anything home for us. Right, even a small marble statue could easily cost more to ship than the item itself.  But I don’t know, a life size replica of Michaelangelo’s David might look nice in the yard.

We also stopped at a place called the Marble Mountain, one of five caves in the area. There is a pagoda, and you can take an elevator up the mountain partway, which is what most people do. And then you can climb up further, which Loring and Tuan did. The cave is much more extensive then we’d imagined, even at the lower level, and more so at the top, as I gleaned from Loring’s pictures. There are all kinds of little crevices with statues of Buddha inside.

 Tuan, who is probably in his forties, was very impressed with Loring’s fortitude. And maybe even more so when we told him about Loring’s yearly wilderness backpacking trips, where they aim for the most remote places they can find, and hope to see nobody for two weeks, a goal they sometimes achieve.

Da Nang, where the Americans had a base  during the war, is a sprawling and mostly unappealing city. The beach stretches for miles, and Tuan said is very beautiful. We could see the waves but not the beach itself.

The most impressive,  although not in a good way, aspect driving thru is the number of large hotels, and more under construction, along the road opposite the beach. Worse than that are the large number of unfinished hotels. Framed in concrete structures, one after another of them, left unfinished. According to Tuan, many started construction  before the pandemic and then ran out of money. I don’t know what was more depressing, the view of building after building unfinished, or the idea of them completed.

We had seen some of the same completed and unfinished development in Halong Bay, distressing in itself, but this was more extensive and therefore worse. I can’t fault the Vietnamese for wanting to develop tourism. But development to the extent that it harms the the beauty of the country and the environment is upsetting.

I wondered if there were even parts of the country that maintained the old ways. There are, of course, and we saw a bit of that in our trip outside Hoi An today. But there is also extreme poverty.

We went to three craft villages today, not far out of the city. They are touristy, of course, but luckily we seem to have beat the tourist busses who came as we were heading out, on their day tours of several areas out of Danang or Hoi An. The first was just one family’s house where they weave multicolored grass mats which are what they sleep on, attached to a bamboo bedframe. I had a brief go at sending the shuttle through. The woman seemed very impressed that I sat on the cement, mat covered floor. There was no sign or any indication of tourist activity. I think they just sold them to the locals. No placemats or anything, only the bedsized mats and smaller ones that they used on bamboo benches as a pad as well. They sold the bed sized ones for about four dollars, and I think could make several in a day.

Next it was on to the woodworking village, which was more tourist oriented. We first visited a shop whose family were thirteenth generation woodworkers. The father was in his 80s and still working. We met the son. They made incredibly intricate carvings of gods, goddesses, a lot of other creatures and scenes, of various sizes. The talent and detail was amazing. Some must have sold for thousands of dollars. They were museum quality. The father’s work had been acknowledged by Unesco and shown in many places.  

Next was the rice paper and noodle making place. In the front a man made a variety of rice paper items, including fake money, candy, clothing, shoes, all of which was meant to be sent off with a deceased person at a funeral, and then burned.

In the back a man and a woman made rice noodles, a process they demonstrated and then invited us to try. The process involved spreading a ground rice batter in a pan,  then lifting it to a drying rack, and finally stacking a slew of them and sending them thru a kind of pasta maker.

There was also a dried variety of the same stuff, looking rather like papadan. The woman took two, made a sandwich with a wet one of the not yet noodled ones, and pounded it all to pieces like you would with Turkish taffy. I thought it was quite good, and a good snack for my unsettled stomach. Loring didn’t seem as interested.

There was one more stop, at the Ceramics village. This was the most touristed one. There was actually an admission fee. Tuan paid for us, as our guides have at all of our stops, so I don’t know what it cost. I doubt it was much, and you got a little clay whistle along with your admission.  Here there was an open air ceramics museum, which might be interesting but to which we probably won’t return. And tons of little shops and pottery studios. Again I got to try making something, this time a small pot, with some help.  There were lots of large and small bowls, teacups, etc. I bought two tiny blue and white bowls, of which I have a small collection at home. I use them mostly for sauces, especially with Asian cooking. Just as they do here. I doubt they were made at that shop, but I do think they were made in Vietnam. At least they say Made in Vietnam on the bottom. But I am also very gullible.

Well, I think I’ve caught us up. It’s now dinnertime, and we are trying to decide where and what to eat. We could easily go back to the restaurant here at the hotel. But Loring seems sure that’s what gave him the stomach bug last night.

We’ve pretty much decided that pho is the thing for both of us. Vietnamese chicken (or beef ) noodle soup for the body and soul.

Now the question is where and when. It has only rained intermittently since we’ve been here, but was pouring a few minutes ago. Now it seems to have slowed down or even stopped. Time to mobilize.

More to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Woman in Hanoi

 

We are on the Peony dayboat in Halong  and Lan Ha Bays in Vietnam. This is a part of our two night cruise on the Peony, a 20 cabin boat. Halong is one of the most famous and most scenic places in the country.  The bay comprises myriad rock formations called karsts that jut out of the water. Even in the mist that is currently covering the area, it is incredibly scenic and moody. 

Today we will spend most of the day cruising the bays, with stops at a beach and near a village, which we’ll approach by bicycle and electric golf cart (bike for Loring,  electric cart for me.)

We drove several hours from Hanoi yesterday, with Smoky, our guide in Hanoi, and our driver. Unfortunately the driver took the wrong road, adding quite a bit to our drive, because we needed to double back toward Hanoi quite a way. The driver was embarrassed and extremely apologetic, and Smoky was clearly frustrated and annoyed with him.  He didn’t speak much English but sure said “sorry” a number of times. After Smoky reassured us that we wouldn’t miss the boat, we were fine with the situation. Smoky had planned for us to take the slower route to the bay, stopping along the way at a village where they make ceramic pottery. And the plan is to take the faster highway back tomorrow, to take us back to the Hanoi airport for our flight to Hue, the next lap of our trip.

I felt terrible for the driver, especially knowing how important “face” is in the culture. It must have been excrutiating for him to be strongly berated by the guide, in front of us. He seemed appreciative that we were reassuring, though, and gave us each a big hug when he dropped us off at the dock..

We did stop, along with a slew of tourist busses, at a rest stop where there were bathrooms and a café, and also about five large rooms filled with crafts of many kinds, pottery, jewelry, paintings, embroidery, and more. A couple of dozen women and a few men worked at large intricate embroidered panels. If I understood the man there correctly, they were folks with polio and perhaps other disabilities  who were trained to do the work and thus support themselves.

Vinh, or Vinny, is the manager on the dayboat (the English speaking guides and staff all seem to have English nicknames). The manager on our bigger, overnight boat, is nicknamed Elvis, because, we are guessing, of his Elvis like hairstyle. It was a bit incongrous to do tai chi early this morning on the deck, led by Elvis in his white silk pajamas. 

We had tried to find people doing tai chi in Hanoi, which they supposedly do by the lake in the middle of the city, not far from where we are staying. They do it early in the am, from 5 to 6. But we never found them. It was perhaps because the weather was on the cool side. But we did discover lots of people jogging, walking, and doing calisthenics along the lake in the early morning. The difference between the bustle of the daytime city and the quiet of the early morning before dawn was startling.

Hanoi’s daytime traffic is impressive and overwhelming. The vehicles are primarly motor scooters, along with some cars, some bicycles, and trishaws. The trishaws are bicycles with a seat in the front for one or two passengers.

As part of our tour with Smoky, we took trishaws around the old part of the city. We also walked and travelled by car for parts of the tour.  The sidewalks are completely covered between parked scooters, cafes with tiny plastic seats out front, and street vendors of foods of various types. For most of our walking it was impossible to walk on the sidewalks, necessary to walk in the street, with the various modes of traffic with which we were competing.

 It was challenging, especially when necessary to cross the street. But it wasn’t chaotic. Even with all the weaving in and out, there seems to be a level of curtesy.  I would call the drivers assertive, but not aggressive. At a certain point they will yield to you, if you are brave enough to venture out.  But there is no way I would consider driving any vehicle or even on the back of someone’s scooter ( one of the tourist experiences that seems to be popular here, which we opted out of.)

The trishaws easily hold two aduts, but Smoky insisted that we each have our own, for comfort. And we passed a number of groups of tourists, about a dozen or twenty people, each in  their own vehicle. My guess is that it’s to make a little more income for the drivers, which I don’t begrudge them. But we would have preferred to ride together.

 The shops are arranged by types of merchandise, so there are streets where all the shops have knock off clothing, ones with just sheet metal goods and fabrication, ones with all notions like buttons, ribbons, zippers, etc. And interspersed with them are vendors selling produce, dumplings, pho noodles, pieces of fried chicken that they are chopping and frying right on the street. The street level is all shops, and the families sleep upstairs. Many people sleep in a single room. And many of the places have no kitchens, so it is common for the local people to eat on the street.

Smoky took us to places where they made and sold dumplings, ones where they sold only bowls of beef pho, and more.  We discovered at least part of the reason that the chairs are so small and light plastic is that the police patrol regularly. When they are arriving everyone quickly hauls all the furniture inside. And as soon as the cops leave, the furniture goes right out again.

It’s not noticable when you are walking. But in the evening, sitting on the second floor balcony of a small restaurant in a square, we observed the action twice around. It’s also apparently common for the shop owners to pay off the cops to not be disturbed.

Smoky also took us to a famous temple, and the House of Literature, which is a thousand year old temple that was also the first university in Hanoi, and maybe in the country. There are tablets inscribed with the names all the scholars who passed a very rigorous exam in a given year.

At the temples, the shrines with statues of the Buddha and other dieties are also packed with offerings of common place items, like bottles of soda, bananas, cookies, etc. piled in very neat pyramidal stacks. The offerings to the gods are eventually distributed to local poor.

I remember a similar phenomenon in Thailand some years ago. I was with a group of volunteers in a small village where we were teaching English at a school. The teachers brought us on various excursions. One was to a  small temple, to which we brought supplies as offerings, including numerous rolls of toilet paper. It seemed somewhat incongruous to my western mind.

More startling, still, was to see the prior head monk, who had died, in a clear casket embalmed in liquid.

Travel, as they say, is enlightening.

Smoky also brought us to a family home where the matariarch, ninety years old, lived along with younger family members. Her son and his wife were also there and served us tea and snacks, dried fruit and little sesame candies, from a small laquered box.

In front was a shop where they sold silver jewelry made by the family. Through a corrider behind were the family quarters. There was a large bed, where I believe the great grandmother slept. I think there were fourteen people who lived, there rolling out mats to sleep at night. This was, or at least had been, a wealthy family, and there were pieces of furniture that were hundreds of years old. This had been the family home for generations. They served us tea  and we talked a bit about their lives. I wonder how they had lived through the communist times, (and the country still has a communist government,  although it is not readily apparent.)  I have to  remember to ask Smoky. He will pick us back up at the boat tomorrow and bring us to the airport. We will then have another guide at our next destination, Hue.

Our first full night in Hanoi we went to a water puppet show. It is certainly touristic, but I nevertheless enjoyed it very much. The puppeteers are behind a scrim, and hold long horizontal poles to move the puppets, which are in a shallow pool of water. There are also six musicians playing traditional instruments, two of whom sing. There are fish puppets, dragons, a parade, children frolicking , etc.

 Our second day in Hanoi we had to ourselves, and walked for hours around the city, stopping at several destinations. One place we didn’t make it to was Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, which I would have liked to have seen. But after our other stops I was exhausted and ready for a nap before  dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Lap:

 Now onto the next to last lap of our trip. We are on Campobello Island, on the border of New Brunswick and Maine. Arrived here this morning from Deer Island. Deer Island is an about 20 minute ferry trip from the mainland, and Campobello is another ferry ride from Deer Island. Last night we stayed at a b&b on Deer Island called the Lilac Inn. They have several rooms but I believe that we were the only ones staying there. Very friendly couple runs it.  The description mentioned a wonderful breakfast, but it seems they don’t do that at present. I was a little disappointed but they did serve us delicious pastries, blueberry and pineapple and cheese, which I believe were homemade. 

Before Deer Island, where we spent one night at the Lilac Inn, we stopped at the Alexander Graham Bell Historic Site in Baddock, New Brunswick. It was interesting and well worth the stop. We learned a lot about Bell, who invented a lot more than the phone. He and his wife lived there for many years. 

Last night we ate at one of the only food places on the island, called the 45^th Parallel. It was also a motel. Very local and low key. All the seafood was fried which would not usually be our choice, but it was in a light crispy batter. Good coleslaw too. The woman was very friendly, but had been swamped with customers when we got there, so our timing was just right. They were all leaving around when we came. At least a couple of the people there were staying at the motel.  Others seemed local, or at least summer local. We heard the owner talking to one customer with a family, saying he’d come there every summer as a kid. I heard the woman saying something about throwing a ball threw the window, but didn’t catch the whole story.

The ferry from NB to Deer Island was free! But the one from Deer to here was $25 for car and driver, and then an additional $5 per passenger. They are run by the same company so not clear on why one costs and they other doesn’t. The times and sizes of the boats are pretty similar.

Tomorrow we will visit Campobello, the Roosevelt’s “cottage” on the island.  I had known about it for ever, and long had a vague desire to visit. That was cemented by Sherry saying that she really loved visiting the place. 

 

We have driven around the east side of the island, and are now parked at the end of a spit where you can walk to the lighthouse. Loring has gone on a short hike out to there, and I have sat here writing.  He has just returned. There is a message from Carolina, she is waiting to get info from the doctor about her test results, and whether or when they will induce her to give birth.   

So, right now, our plans are a little up in the air. We could theoretically drive all the way home and arrive late tonite. Should know more in an hour or two when we get back to the Inn and can have a phone conversation.

We did leave Campobello Friday morning, without ever checking in to the wonderful looking Owens Inn with its many rooms full of antiques, art, and interesting things.  The manager was of course understanding and congratulatory,  but said she would have to let the owner decide about a refund or credit. She and we had the same thought that maybe we could get a credit to come back at a later date. I was sad to miss Campabello, but it was for a good reason!

We drove the whole way back, about six hours, with just a brief stop. Carolina gave birth to Julian early yesterday, Sunday morning at 5am. 

To catch up on the rest of our trip:

We stayed two nights at the Lighthouse Inn at the tip of the Cape D’or.  Our reservation with them had been very casual. The first two times we tried to reach them, before we left on our trip, by email and phone, and never received a response. Finally Loring reached  him by phone  and made a reservation. We called him a couple of days before, to reconfirm, and asked what he needed to hold it, and he said to just come. So we did.

It's several miles down a well maintained dirt road, and then a pretty rough road for 500 yards or so. Most people walk up, as did we. Loring was pretty sure we would have made it with out problem in the Prius. Pretty much everyone walks inn, at the Innkeepers advice.  In addition to the guests in the four rooms, quite a few people hike in just to see the site,  which is pretty impressive. We feel lucky to have found it, and had the opportunity to experience it in both fog and sun for two days. I especially liked having the light flash on our bedroom wall all night long, every six or so seconds.

The innkeeper, Darcy, is a man probably in his 50s. He has been there for 23 years. We later met his parents who helped out with meals and with changing the rooms between guests.  They must have been in their 80s, and looked awfully cute in their matching tartan aprons.

They serve breakfast for guests, and dinner for guests and others.  For our first night, Darcy recommended we eat at the restaurant in town, the Wild Caraway, in Advocate Harbor.  It’s not a very big town, but bigger than most of the others we have driven through, like Economy.  Seems like an odd place for a pretty gourmet restaurant, but it was popular and wonderful. It’s in an old house, with lots of art on the walls, ranging from paintings to hooked rugs. They have a set menu, for $60, that is Canadian dollars, so closer to $50. I accidentally burned the menu by putting it too close to the candle, so got to keep it.

 We think Darcy may have recommended Wild Caraway because he had a full house at the lighthouse that night, which was fine; we are glad we had the opportunity to eat there, and wouldn’t have known about it otherwise. They aren’t open Monday thru Wednesday.

 

There were two choices for each course, so we had one of everything!  Here are some of the items:

Local calamari with dulse and lovage seasoning

Local flounder with beluga lentils and marsh greens

Lilac bomb Alaska – coconut almond cake, lilac ice cream, toasted meringue, strawberry and haskap coulis

 I had to look up haskap. It's a berry with a number of names, including blue honeyberry and blue berried honeysuckle.  Haskap is the Japanaese name. Now I know what those things are that looked like elongated blueberries on the plate. But they are not related.

 

Our second dinner was at the lighthouse, cooked by Darcy. It was also a set price with just one choice, and also quite good, though not as sophisticated.

I saw Darcy as a bit grizzled native, who probably spent all of his time, and all of his years, at the Cape D’or.  But we when we said we’d see him at breakfast, he told us that he was off for California later that evening.   He was probably the most laidback inn keeper I’ve ever met.

The tides were impressive at the Cape, as they’d been at the Tidal Bore the day before in Truro, when we stayed at the cabins in Economy. The tidal bore is on a river when the tide comes rushing in, suddenly and strongly, where there has previously been no water at all. We sat at the edge of the river, along with a number of others, and the young man in the information office came out just before and shouted Here it Comes.  I think I may already have written about this. But it’s worth describing twice.

I just came across a story online about the Pope's meeting with indigenous Canadians to apologize for the Church's despicable treatment of native children, taken away from their families to boarding schools. One of the native women who met with the Pope today is a survivor of the Shubanecadie Indian School, the only one in the Maritime provinces. We passed close to the site last week, in Truro, where we watched the Tidal Bore on the Shubanicadie River.  But I didn't know that until today. 

Well I think I may have caught up. If I think of anything else I will edit it in and you will never know.

It was a great trip, first road trip in many years, and having to return home a bit early just gives us a reason to return, at least to Campobello, and maybe some of the other Nova Scotia sites we missed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Few Days Later:

 

Two days later:

 

We are now at a cabin in Economy. Yep,  that’s the name. If I get around to it I will try to check into the origin of the name.* There’s no real town here, just a few houses, and the group of cabins where we are staying. It’s called the Four Seasons Resort, but not the one that might come to your mind.  It’s a dozen cabins on the water.

 Our origin plan had been to go to Burntcoat, which is directly across the bay from us. That is where, supposedly, the world’s highest tides are, in the Bay of Fundy.  But there were no available accommodations there, in the few places there are near the park.   It was Saturday, so that wasn’t surprising, but a little bit disappointing. We were worried we might not be able to find anything appealing aside from a motel in the nearby town of Truro. We only saw the commercial strip at the edge of town, so don’t know if the town itself might have been attractive.  And we really wanted to stay someplace where we could see the tides.  The Four Seasons showed several cabins available, but they were three or four bedroom ones. We called anyway, hoping we could talk them into a lower price, as we are only two.  And we didn’t have to even suggest it, they gave us one of the larger cabins without our asking, shutting down the two spare bedrooms and giving us the price for a one bedroom cabin. 

·    *   I did look up the derivation of the name Economy. It comes from the MicMac  kenomee, meaning place of land jutting into the sea.

 It's fairly nice, has a full kitchen and living room, even a tv  and though we hadn’t expected it, it’s nice to check in with the greater world once in a while. For some reason, they receive the Boston channels here. Guess it’s because it’s the largest closest metropolitan area.  Guess Halifax doesn’t count.  It’s pretty weird to be out here and be able to see our local channel.

We’d stopped on the way in, at a Truro supermarket, and bought provisions for dinner – salmon, broccoli, and some pretty good chocolate chocolate chip muffins.  We also got eggs for breakfast, and still have some bread from home, as well as granola and pb and j.

This afternoon we headed out back toward Truro, about 45 minutes away. We stopped on the way at the Dutch Man’s cheese shop, which carries, in addition to all the varieties of Gouda that they make there, a wide range of foods, crafts, etc, even an upstairs antique store attic.  And a petting farm for kids, which we didn’t visit. 

Our destination was one of the areas to see what’s called the tidal bore, which is a phenomenon where the ocean comes rushing in, and later out, twice a day. It’s unusual and very impressive.  We watched it start and then for about a half hour.  The young man in the visitor’s office came out a little earlier, and then announced “here it comes.”  It was about 5 pm.  It happens twice a day.

 As everywhere we’ve gone, the visitors seem to be mostly from Nova Scotia, judging from the license plates. I have seen a few from the US, and a few from other Canadian provinces, Quebec and Ontario.  And we met a family from Germany at our previous stop, the Markland, at the upper tip of Cape Breton. But I have been surprised by how the majority are somewhat local.

We have bought food to cook at our cabin tonite, and have plenty of breakfast food left, eggs and granola.  Tonite we are having an interesting looking pasta, with all kinds of herbs, like dandelio              blended in. We bought mushrooms and the tiniest brussels I have ever seen, to cook with the pasta.    

Tomorrow we head out, to the western tip of the province, a place called Cap D’or, which is also on the Bay of Fundy. There is a lighthouse there where the former keeper’s house has been turned into a b & b with four rooms.  They cook what sounds like a gourmet dinner. But when we tried to make a dinner reservation, they suggested another place about 15 minutes away, which is open Wednesday thru Sunday, and that we eat with them on Monday night. So that’s the plan. We don’t know what to expect from the place or the area, but that’s part of the fun.  Hopefully we will see some impressive tides there, too. They were extremely casual when we tried to make a reservation before we left home, didn’t even answer the phone or emails for a few days. And when we did reach them, they basically said, fine, and didn’t ask for a deposit or anything.  Should be an interesting place, in any case.

This morning, before heading out to see the tidal bore, we walked down to the beach here, and out almost as far as we could along the sand. It was almost low tide, but it kept receding all the time we were there, and at a fast pace. In the tide pools were hundreds of tiny hermit crabs, the largest perhaps the size of a thumbnail, and many much smaller, some the size of a little fingernail, some smaller still. And there were many miniscule fish swimming around too. I saw some of the crabs chase one another, and once a few that congregated together, first two, then a third and a fourth and a fifth. Guess I have to do some looking into hermit crab behavior.

And then, I saw something bizarre.  something seeming to writhe around in the sand. Coming closer, I realized it was a razor clam, the first live one I have ever seen. It slid its white body a little bit out of the shell, and squirted out some water. And then, it upended itself totally so it was upright in the sand, squirted some more water, and then sunk slowly into the sand until it was completely underneath. We looked some more, saw other things squirting and think they were razor clams already underground. And eventually we saw some others on the surface like the first one I’d seen.  I got a  short video, and Loring got a better one, which I will eventually post.

As we walked back along the sand toward the cabin, we noticed that we were walking on tiny white barnacles, and probably crunching a lot of them. They were all over the rocks and shells and sand, like tiny white sprinkles on a chocolate confection.

So even though we might not see the most spectacular tides of the Bay of Fundy, there is also value in observing the tiny life beneath your feet.

 

 On the way to Campobello, still in Nova Scotia, we stopped at the Noggins Hill Fossil site.  It’s a UNESCO cultural site.  The beach is covered in fossils at low tide. At least that’s what the guide told us. You can go out on the beach on your own, being careful of the tides that come in quickly. But to visit the museum you need to pay, and then you can go on a half hour guided tour, which we did. He was kind of funny, saying things like he hoped there were no geologists in the group. And he asked us if we knew what UNESCO stood for, which no one did. He then said he didn’t know either, when they asked him in his job interview. But they hired him anyway.  FYI it stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).  I did know the UN part.

I asked the guide, after he’d showed us several fossil samples he’d picked up, as well as others he had with him, how likely it was that there were fossils at our feet, if we knew how to spot them. He basically said 100%.  We couldn’t tell at all if a particular rock had fossils or not. But I believe him.

We had also visited the Geology Museum in Parrsboro a day earlier.  It was somewhat interesting. But I prefer the more local, less sophisticated ones like the minor’s museum and the UFO one!  At that museum they mentioned a rock shop that had been there for many years,  but closed around 2015. I asked if there were any still around, and she sent us across the river and up the hill to a small building with beautiful flower garden surrounding it. Both indoors and outside there were numerous specimens, on tables, in cabinets, and in drawers,  ranging from $3 to thousands.  Some were local to Novia Scotia, some from other provinces, and others from around the world. They even had larimar, which we had discovered in the Dominican Republic, the only place it is known to exist.  I bought several small Canadian samples, apatite and biotite from Ontario, and gamelite and stilbite/ from Novia Scotia, all in the  $3 -$5 range. All to be used, in theory, in future mixed media mosaics, along with the numerous other rocks I collected on the beaches along the way, none of which I can identify. I definitely got my money’s worth, $14,  just for the time I spent browsing through all the beautiful and more expensive minerals.

Parrsboro itself was a larger and somewhat more interesting town than most of the others along the coast. As we came into town I spotted a large statue, quite bizarre looking, in the middle of a small park. I went closer to look. I have to say it may have been the ugliest sculpture I have ever seen.  It was about 10 or 12 feet tall, with spindly limbs and an overdeveloped torso, all painted a dark red.  Strangest of all, its hair, which might have been horsehair, completely obliterated the creature’s face, if it even had one. I could not tell if that was intentional or not. It represents Gooslap, which is a mythical trickster creature of the MicMac and other native peoples. I don’t think Gooslap was supposed to look like that, think it’s just a bad sculpture. I found another representation elsewhere that is much more appealing.

There are a few shops, including an antique store, some brightly painted buildings, the geology museum, and a theatre with an actual ship built into the stage. It’s the former ferry Kipawo, the last ferry across the Minas basin of the Bay of Fundy, retired in the late 1900s.  There also a few b&bs in interesting old buildings, which we didn’t check out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nova Scotia Sojourn, a road trip. July 2022

 

We are one week into our Nova Scotia sojourn. We left early last Saturday morning and drove to Bar Harbor, Maine, where we took a three hour car ferry over to Yarmouth NS.  It was a beautiful boat and ride.

In Yarmouth we stayed at the Golden Bamboo Inn, one of two houses owned by Alex and his partner, who we never met and whose name we didn’t get.  Together they are called the Chinoiserie Hotels, although I am not sure where the chinoise comes in. Actually Loring just pointed out that Alex’s heritage is half Chinese, so that makes sense. But it doesn’t quite convey the flavor of the place, either the houses or of Yarmouth.

   The houses are pretty grand former sea captains’ homes. They are in the process of changing the décor more to their taste.  The houses had been a b and b before. The woman from whom they bought the houses had moved into a tiny house behind the house next door. An amusing transition.

  Each had a widow’s walk with a view to the sea.  We have them in New England too, the sailor’s wives supposedly looked from there anxiously awaiting their husbands’ return. We had a whole suite, bedroom and living room, very nice. And Alex cooked us a mean breakfast each day.

Yarmouth is pretty quiet, not bustling as we expected considering it is at the end of the ferry. There is a self guided walking tour of the mansions, which it took us a couple of hours to complete, and was well worth it.  Most of the houses are single family residences now, a few are b and b’s, and a few were made into apartments.  

There are only a couple of restaurants in town, and a few more on the outskirts. But there was a lot of excitement in town, both a ribfest and a fireworks display. 

The ribfest is apparently a travelling event, quite large, and three days long.  There were five huge trucks set up, with billboards advertising their ribs, and lines waiting in front of most of them. We chose two, mostly on the basis of not having the longest lines, realizing that also might have meant they didn’t have the best ribs!  The two ribs were noticeably different but neither of us could say we preferred one over the other.  There is supposedly a taster’s choice as well as other awards, but we didn’t see any place to vote, not that we would have. We wondered how anyone could try all five, unless they were part of a large group.  I guess it would only take five, or less if they were really hungry!

There were some bouncy house type activities for kids, and from the posters I’d seen in town, I think there had been music on a previous day.

Someone had mentioned to us that there would be fireworks at 10, so after a rest at home, we went to a nearby park to watch. The grassy hill was filled with folks and families, and we had a perfect view.

So all in all, a nice flavor of the town and townfolk.

Earlier in the day, we had driven out to a scenic lighthouse on the end of a peninsula, about 10 miles out of town.  In addition to the lighthouse itself, there was a man demonstrating lobstering techniques.  Lobstering is big here, bigger I think than at home.  Wherever you drive there are houses with tons of lobster traps, many more than I have ever noticed in Massachusetts or Maine.

Next stop was Halifax, for two nights. It’s a fairly large city. We stayed at the Hotel Barrington right in the middle of town and walkable to everything. The harbor is the hub for activity, certainly for tourists, and perhaps for residents too. It’s filled with boats large and small, and stalls with food and souvenirs.  It seems that many, even most of the visitors are from Nova Scotia. 

My main desire in the city was to visit the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, really a museum rather than a gallery. I had heard of and read about a folk artist named Maud Lewis, who was originally from Halifax, but had spent most of her life in a tiny house in Digby built by her husband. She painted many local scenes and painted pretty much everything in the house as well. The house was neglected for years after her death,  but had been restored and brought to the museum, where it is now, along with many of her paintings. So, you can imagine how disappointed I was when we got to the museum and they told us the Maud Lewis rooms were under reconstruction and not open. There were several other interesting exhibits, and we did get a peek at the house thru an adjoining room. There are several books about Lewis, and also a fairly recent film called Maudie, which seems highly rated.  I will have to check it out.  I know Ethan Hawke plays her husband, but I don’t know the actor who plays Maude.

On the way from Yarmouth to Halifax, we stumbled upon a UFO site and small museum. We almost didn’t stop, but I am glad we did. The man running it, in his 70s, had been the been the first one to sight the object back in 1967.  He was 17 and had been out with a friend. Of course they were asked if they had been drinking, which he says they hadn’t.   There had been numerous sightings that night, and people assumed that an airplane had crashed into the water. Officials searched the water for three days but never found any trace of anything.  There was documentation from a pilot and copilot flying a large commercial plane who had both seen the object.  When I asked the man at the museum what he thought had happened, he said he truly didn’t know. There have been a couple of books written about the incident, but he says he hasn’t read them because he doesn’t want to color his recollections with others’ narratives.  There was a small boy with him who was his grandson. I wondered what the boy, and his other grandchildren and great grandchildren, think of the whole story.

Next we drove up to Cape Breton Island, which is the northern part of the province. We stayed in Port Hood, which is on the western side of the island. It’s a small village. We stayed in a cabin which was part of a bed and breakfast, several rooms in the main house, and three cabins.  It was run by a couple who we guess was German, very nice.  We hadn’t been sure if we would stay there one or two nights, but decided that one was enough. There was a private beach that was part of the property, and which we walked down to. There were also five beaches in town, about which they bragged. We drove down to a couple of them, on which there were quite a few people.  Nothing nearly as nice as the beaches at home.  There was also a huge trailer camp, which looked as though people stayed for a long time, perhaps the entire summer.  Some trailers had permanent looking decks.

Yesterday we drove up the coast through towns like Cheticamp, which is renowned for its hooked rugs. In the several gift shops there are rugs ranging from large wall hangings to tiny pieces meant to be coasters. I bought one that depicts the small traditional local houses and though it’s described as a coaster I will hang it on the wall.

We also stopped at Inverness,   where there had been several coal mines and where most of the male population had been miners. There was a small coal mine museum in what had once been the train station. Some of these little local museums are the kind of places I love, where the things on display are very local, and the people leading you through the museum have lived those lives themselves. The woman who was very eager to guide us had grown up and I believe always lived there. I asked her if anyone in her family had worked in the mines. She said one cousin, who had died  at age 18. She showed us his name on the plaque commemorating all those who had died there. She said that her grandmother had been adamant that none of her children work in the mines. I believe her father had been a carpenter.  

We had made a reservation for the Markland Resort and Beach Cottages  in Dingwall, where we are now.  It’s at the upper edge of Cape Breton.  It is a lodge with a number of cabins spread out throughout a large rolling lawn down to the beach.  We walked down to the beach earlier today and spotted a bald eagle in a tree. Even though we have them at home, right on our lake, it’s still exciting to see one.

The Inn has a main lodge where they serve breakfast and dinner. I had a mixed seafood chowder last night, very different from both New England and Manhattan chowder. It’s not thick like our chowder, more of a soup, quite delicious. It had mussels, shrimp, lobster, and fish. I believe all of the fish and shellfish were local.

There was a musician singing folk songs in the lounge. The mining museum had put me in mind of a song I learned decades ago when I was at summer camp. It is one of the most beautiful and haunting songs I have ever heard, and has stayed with me all these years, sixty to be exact!  It’s about the Springhill mining disaster of 1958. Springhill is not far from here.  We will drive close to it tomorrow. I asked the singer if he knew the song. He said he knows of it, but doesn’t know it, and should probably add it to his repertoire. There is a different musician tonite. Maybe he or she will know it.

The lounge is filled with wooden chairs. I read that it is all the work of one man, and is actually an exhibit, the work is not always here. It is all built from old wooden lobster traps. Every chair is different. In the dining room there are also a number of mirrors on the wall, all different, from recycled wood. They range from $75 to $100 dollars. That’s Canadian, so about 20% less in US dollars. The prices on the chairs range from $500 to $700.

Today we drove out to nearly the furthest edge of the island.  Our gps mistakenly guided us to someone’s house, where we told the woman we were just driving around. She said that people’s gps’s often misguided people. And that there was once a tour bus that got stuck and had a lot of damage.  She was very friendly, as everyone here has been.

On our way back to the inn this am we went past another small museum and lighthouse. The lighthouse had been moved from a nearby island some years ago. Around the island there have been numerous shipwrecks, some of which the museum documented, along with other local artifacts.

It’s about 630 and our dinner reservation is for 730. Loring has already gone up to listen to music and socialize.  I will head up shortly.

Our plans from here on in are a bit up in the air. We had planned to go on to the Bay of Fundy, and also to Campobello, FDR ‘s home on the the US/Canadian border, and also to stay at a lighthouse keeper’s inn for a couple of nights. They are up in the air because Carolina is due to give birth shortly. Her original due date was August 11^th, but they have moved it up to August 4^th and possibly sooner because of some health issues.  It could even be in the next few days but she may not know until the last minute. So we are trying to head back sooner so we are closer to home. Today is July 15^th.    

Well, time to head up for music and supper. To be continued.

 

Last Days in the Dominican Republic

 

We are back home. It’s been a couple of days. No major incidents on the trip back, aside from our delay returning to Logan from Santo Domingo. Our plane was supposed to leave at 230 am, and was delayed two hours. On our return we heard about massive delays in the US, and many of those on Jet Blue. Whether that had also affected our direct flight from DR, who knows. But in any case it was minor compared to the delays and cancellations many have had to deal with and still dealing with today, two days later.

We spent our last two nights in Santo Domingo, at the Casa Dona Elvira in the middle of the colonial zone. It was in walking distance of almost everything we wanted to see and do. The only exception was the Museum of Art, which was two miles away.  We actually did walk there, but in two stages, first to the covid clinic to get our tests within a day of returning home, and then the second mile an hour or so later to the museum. We did take a taxi for the return trip, although Loring would have been okay walking back too.

We were impressed with the efficiency of the clinic,  and got our negative results a few hours later.

We knew nothing about the art museum, and not too much about the other museum we visited that last day, the Museum of the Resistance. We knew it dealt largely with the political events around the 30 years of Trujillo’s repressive reign. It was worth going to, even thought the texts were all in Spanish only. There was much more text than we would have wanted to read even in English, and we knew something about the events due to our reading while we were there. More about that a little later.

Although we were there two nights, it was virtually three whole days. We arrived at 1pm after a two and a half hour ride from Las Terrenas. Since our flight was so late at night, we didn’t leave for the airport until 1130 pm.

The little 16 room hotel was nice enough, although with some reservations. ( no the pun was not intended.)It was in an old colonial house with an interior tiled courtyard. There was a small pool in the center, but we didn’t use it or see anyone else use it. It seemed more of an ornamental idea and probably a lure to potential guests. As it turned out, there was also what they called a jacuzzi, but had cold water, up on the roof, along with a nice sitting area. We may well have used it but didn’t find out about it until our last day. Our concerns: although they served a lovely full breakfast, the service was extremely slow. We waited about 45 minutes after we had ordered, even though we were the first ones there for breakfast. The second day we were also the first, but the server/cook went to the table that arrived after us, and remembering the previous day, we were concerned that it would be a long wait again. This second day there was a server in addition to the cook, so we hoped it would be quicker service. But when we expressed our concerns, he said, well would it be okay if our breakfast was served in a half hour?  Uh oh. But they actually brought it within about 15 minutes.  And okay, the eggs were scrambled rather than the fried we had ordered. But were delicious. And served with fresh fruit including mangoes, bananas, and melon.

Did I mention that the upper branches of the mango tree in the courtyard reached almost to the door to our room? They weren’t ripe yet, but if they were we might have been able reach out and pick them.

 Aside from the museums, we mostly just walked around the city, visiting several historical sites. There is a lot of beautiful colonial architecture, some in good shape and either residences or restaurants or hotels or other businesses. Others were in decrepit shape and often abandoned. They were right along side each other, with luxurious dwellings next to abandoned ones. We didn’t see any really poor or really wealthy neighborhoods, although granted, we only saw a small portion of the city. But the combination of modern and old styles, and maintained and abandoned places, was striking.

Did you know that Santo Domingo is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Americas? Columbus, or Cristofal Colon, as he is known in Spanish, landed here after first making landfall in the Bahamas, and established the city on his second voyage. 

I find it amusing that when we refer to America today we mean the United States. What about all the other parts of the Americas ? Yet when today we say that Columbus “discovered” America, we aren’t even meaning what is the US today.

 

Let me conclude by telling you what we read during our visit. We always like to read books with a connection to where we are visiting. Here, we read Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies, a  fictionalized story of the Mirabel sisters, Dominican heroes who sacrificed their lives in the cause of  resistance to the Trujillo regime. Although fiction, it seems quite true to the actual circumstances. It’s a beautifully written book. It was also helpful when we saw other references to the sisters, in both the Art and Resistance Museums, as well as in another fictionalized book, The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa about the same period. Have to say we were both a little disappointed with that book, which seemed more like reporting than literature, about Trujillo’s assassination.   Sad to say, as we have liked the other books of his that we’ve read.   Nevertheless, it gave a lot of interesting information, although got tedious toward the end. Loring got tired of it and gave up before finishing it.

We both read  Dominicana, by Angie Cruz.  And both also read a series of connected short stories by Juno Diaz called Drowning.  Alvarez, Diaz, and Cruz are all Dominican born, came to the U.S. as children, and though  their books take place  largely in the US. there are many references to or sections that take place in the D.R.  I also read Diaz’ well known This is How You Lose Her. And Loring read a Graham Greene book that takes place in Haiti.

It was a wonderful trip, and I am so glad we finally decided to discover the country, which is so much more than the resort ridden vacationland that I had previously pictured it to be. Several people had cautioned us to “be careful” on our trip, ie about crime.  We encountered none of that, even in the city, although I don’t doubt it does exist in areas of the country that are replete with “Americans,” that is the U.S. kind.  We encountered almost no people from the U.S. at all.

 I guess I will stop here, unless anything else occurs to me before I post it!