Nam

Adding another place to the my life's list of "Places I Never Expected to Visit" . . . I'm in Vietnam (other places on that list include Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Malaysia). With all the history and negative connotations associated with Vietnam, it's a little surreal to actually be here.

To celebrate Chinese National Day, we got a "week" off school (please see previous post about "making up" the holiday). Since Mengzi is only a couple hours from the border of China and Vietnam, we--me, Katie, Dave, and the whole Rice family--decided to escape the pandomonium and the crowds that characterize all Chinese holidays and come to Vietnam.

We all went to the beautiful French-influenced mountain village of Sapa and enjoyed great scenery and cool weather. Yesterday Katie, Dave, and I ventured off on our own and took a train to Hanoi. We'll be in Hanoi until tomorrow night and then we train back to the border and repeat the not-so-pleasant bus ride back to Mengzi.

I'll have lots of pictures and more stories to post once I get back home to my computer. For now, here's a little incident that happened when I was crossing the border:

At the border, the Customs officials asked all of us if we had any books so I took out the two books I brought to read and my Bible. The one book I brought is called Red Dust and it's a travelogue from an free-spirited artist/vagabond who wondered China in the 1980s. Anyways, there's a map in the front of the book outlining the author's travels and although it's in grayscale, Taiwan was a slightly darker shade than China. The border guard took my book and went and had a discussion about it and then came back and told me that I had to tear out the page with the map and it was a very serious issue. I couldn't help laughing because I bought the book at a bookstore in Beijing and the author is Chinese (the book is translated into English). I offered to write "Taiwan is a part of China" on the map page. After a few minutes, the guard just gave a sheepish look and finally just said it was ok since the book came from Beijing. My book and its map remained intact. Sadly, the book turned out to be just an average read, so I swapped it at our Sapa Hotel book exchange for two other books to read during the rest of my trip. Maybe some other traveler will find the contraband and attempt to take it back across the border.

I'm off to have the local specialty grilled fish dish. I really am loving the food.