Vietnam: Saigon

Saigon (Ho Chi Min City) has to be one of the world leaders in moto-transportation.  The city has about 8 million inhabitants, many living illegally, and everyone rolls a scooter.  No one really bothers with traffic laws, but the motorists amazing flow together very well, like a river.  

We spent a few days here checking out the War Museum and cruising around town.  The Vietnamese perspective of the war is very sobering and different than that painted in the states.  The people amazingly have no ill will against us being americans, but have seen some horrifying attrocities by our military.  The military order "burn all, destroy all, kill all" and "if they're dead they're VC (Viet Cong)" left some disturbing aftermath.

Vietnam: Tribal Villages In Kontum

Hey all,

Conor here. So on day 7 of the trip we set out with our fearless driver, Hoang, and two guides, Rut and Bein, and went out to visit the villages of the central highlands in Kontum. Our guides both spoke the language of the tribes so they showed us around and helped us communicate with the villagers. We had some great moments trying to catch pigs, sitting down with a blind old war veterans for a chat, and playing games with the local children. After a few hours of touring the villages we set down for lunch in one of the villagers homes, where we enjoyed some rice, cucumbers and a fish head and frog casserole. It turns out that just after lunch the wedding ceremony of some local villagers was taking place. The whole village showed up to enjoy a band and copious amounts of local alcohol. Each family brews their own rice wine in a large clay jug. They call it Jesus wine because drink it out of the straw, then you poor water on the top, and drink some more wine out from the bottom. Thus turning your water into wine. Anyway, each jungle brew was different as some were sweet and others very very strong. Being the only foreigners in the village, everybody wanted us to try their homebrew, so it goes without saying that one or two of us got a little tipsy off the jungle brew. This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that halfway through our time at the wedding, Trent was playing the guitar from the band, and Miaken was singing. So in front of the whole village the two Christiansens (backed by the vietnamese band) were singing Poison's 'Every Rose Has It's Thorns' and congratulating the couple on their wedding. It was hilarious.

Once our time at the wedding was over we headed up to another village for the night. We enjoyed a trek through the jungle, a swim in the river and a ride on a canoe before heading in for dinner at our longhouse. We had a more standard Vietnamese meal inside our hut: rice, various meat and vegetable dishes, and fruit. Hoang, however, brought his own little treat to dinner. He pulled out an old 2 liter water bottle full of cloudy liquid with some stone looking things in the bottom of it. Now, Hoang being a man who likes himself some whiskey, told us he spent 2 million Dong (about 160 bucks) for this strange beverage. That much money will go a long way in Vietnam so we were very intrigued. The guides told us that the brew is fermented for 100 days and the stone-like things in the bottle were deer antlers. So this beverage is made with deer antlers. If it was good enough for Hoang to spend that much money on, it was good enough for us. It was very strong and very strange. That is all there really is to it.

Anyway, after the meal the chief of the tribe came in with a bunch of gong players and dancers. We sat down with the chief and drank rice wine with him out of a clay jug to get the evening started. Once that small ritual was over, the gong performance started. We all enjoyed some tribal music and Jungle brews until we decided to set up our I-pod and put on an American performance for the chief and his tribe. We obviously decided on doing the Robot to The Safety Dance. To my great surprise, the chief was not offended. So we continued to dance and drink with the chief and the tribe until very late in the night. We eventually set up our mosquito nets and went to sleep in the longhouse. Thus ending the most epic day of the trip so far. Stay tuned for more adventures.

Cheers,

Conor

Vietnam: Halong Bay

One of the best parts about the boat we rented was the Karaoke bar. At night we docked up against another ship in this huge gorgeous bay. A group came over from the other ship. They were from Áustralia and England. Here you see Trent and the crew singing 'Wild Wild horses' late into the night.

Miaken getting her groove while filming the scenery.

Vietnam: Halong Bay Scenery

Along the coast near the Capital city of Hanoi is this gorgeous region called Ha Long. We rented this personal vessel to cruise us around these epic towering limestone formations. It is absolutely unlike anything any of us had ever seen.

Vietnam: RENEW Foundation

This week we met with members of the RENEW (Restoring the Environment and Neutralizing the Effects of the War) foundation. Here is some interesting info from the foundation. •15,350,000 tons of ammunitions were used by the U.S Military during the war. •BOMICEN/VBMAC estimates 800,000 tons of war-era ordnance remain scattered all over Vietnam.
•Vietnam has an estimated contamination area of over 6.6 million hectares (21% of its area). • 92% of Quang Tri’s area is contaminted with ERW, primarily unexploded ordnance including cluster munitions.
•The province sustains a total of 7,024 UXO casualties since 1975: –2,618 deaths –65% of accidents were triggered by cluster munitions and 40mm grenades. –31% have been children.
You can check them out at: http://www.landmines.org.vn/

This group does some amazing work with micro credit loans and education to alleviate the pain caused to victims and victim families of these munitions.

The woman in the right hand corner of this photo has seven children. Some years ago, her husband stumbled across a cluster bomb one day and was killed along with two others. To provide an income for the family, the children all had to come out of school and labor in the peanut fields. Their income was literally peanuts. They would work three days in the peanut fields for one day use of a neighbor's water buffalo. She would then work her own fields with the buffalo for the family's crops. The family was suffering terribly. The foundation was able to loan her funds for her own buffalo and the family is now thriving.

Vietnam: Lady Borton

Lady Borton has been in Vietnam since 1975. She was the first woman allowed to document other womens' stories after the war. She is associated with the Quaker community which has no political affiliation with government. Lady is a well respected author and journalist with several published works documenting the life in Vietnam post war and affects up to present. She is also an advocate for education and fights extortion existing in the Vietnamese government. She was kind enough to meet with us for the film.

Hanoi, Northern Vietnam

Hanoi is rapidly advancing in liberal thought, while maintaining strong roots in communism.  The city streets and back alley ways ring strong of symbolism of communist reigns.  The people are very welcoming to foreigners and gracefully accept the commerce.  

Today we met Chuck Searcy, an Athens Georgian southerner and Vietnam vet, who has been living in Hanoi for the past 15 years ago.  His foundation is working towards helping victims who have accidentally stumbled on Explosive Remnants of War (ERW).  The victims are innocent civilians who stumble upon land mines or missle buried under the ground and denonate.  He is working with Explosive Ordinance Destruction (EOD) teams who seek these ERWs out and destroy them using advanced technology metal detectors.  Chuck and his colleagues pursue funds and means to obtain prosthetics for these individuals.  He and his foundation have created a micro credit system for victims and their families to maintain an income.  The foundation helps them get mushroom seeds and rubber plant sawdust (used as soil).  This allows the families/victims to grow mushrooms from their homes and sell them in local markets.  This also allows their children to return to school; who may have been working to support the family.  Chuck is an inspiring man with great energy to do good for the people of Vietnam.  We look forward to meeting some of these families first hand in the central part of the country within the coming week.

Introduction of the Group

As official sponsor of the trip, Trent is the most seasoned world traveler of us all and is a native to America's best state (Kansas), Trent has spent the last 10 years working on nearly every continent around the world with the US government. Throughout the trip he hopes to document the southeastern culture, cuisine, the daily highs and lows of traveling, and highlight the peaceful peoples of southeast asia.  He will undoubtedly score a gig with Discovery Channel and have his own travel show in the short future.

Miaken, born to goodly Kansas soil, is a grad student in film at the University of Utah.  The scope of one of the films is Child Labor and its role in Education.  Children in these developing countries face huge challenges in gaining education while playing a crucial role in the economic survival of their family.  They are torn between their formal studies and agricultural work, factory labor, tourism, and a variety of other labors which bring an income to their family.  This documentary hopes to shed new light on the struggles children see in these developing countries.  This film will double as Miaken's thesis.

Jentry, an aerospace engineer by trade, has graciously received a leave of absence from work, and looks forward to learning about the art of documentary film and craft of still photography.  He is a Salt Lake native and has been working with several therapists along the Wasatch Front dealing with Pornography Addiction and its affect on interpersonal relations.  A group of therapists in Indonesia are battling this same issue with young people.  We will film their project and progress, and couple that with similar work in the United States. 

Conor has spent a significant time in Asia studying Chinese culture and language.  He is a Senior at the University of Utah in Film and Asian Studies.  He boasts full feature film experience and global traveling with extended stays on multiple continents.   Conor is originally from Park City and thrives on trying exotic foods.

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