Is That a Dying Cow?

Day Eighteen: 2/29 – RV Tonle Pandaw Day #7
Title: Is that a dying cow?

Day seven on the Pandaw started with a small boat excursion in Cai Be. This was kind of fun. Our first stop was the floating market. In this floating market, unlike the floating market we saw in Thailand, a person needed a boat to shop. Each boat or “store” advertised what it was selling by hanging a sample product from a large bamboo stick. We saw mostly fruits and vegetables but there were some clothes and other products as well. It is crazy to think that in 2008 this is Cai Be’s main shopping area.

The second stop of the day was a bonsai garden located on Binh Hoa Phuoc Evergreen Island. The garden itself wasn’t that wonderful but there were some ancillary things that I enjoyed. For example, the bonsai garden had two pet pythons.

The first time I held the python I was a little nervous. I am pretty sure that the guide said the snake weighed over 100 pounds. I suppose it may have felt kind of heavy but I was little too nervous to really notice. The snake was on my shoulder for a good minute or two and I was beginning to get comfortable with him. Then he started to investigate or sniff (can snakes sniff?) from my waste to my chest. His tongue began to protrude and that freaked me out a little bit. I asked to have him taken off of me. The handler and I put him back in the cage. I don’t know what dad was doing when I was playing with the python, but when he found out that I had held it, he decided he had to hold it as well.

After completing his fresh fruit and tea snack dad and I went to the python cages. He held it by himself first and then we held it together. I don’t know that many westerners have father and daughter python holding pictures, so I am sure he will force most of you to look at them after we get home.

The final stop of our morning excursion was a brick and pottery works factory. This was fine but probably lasted about 20 minutes too long. The clothing of one of the factory workers was probably my favorite part of this stop. A gentleman who was stoking a kiln was wearing a shiny DKNY jeans baseball cap. It looked like it had been bedazzled with a bright assortment of rhinestones. I think Bailey would have been proud. The other big question from the factory was what comes first… a brick… or a brick? Nicole and I spent considerable time thinking about this question because the kilns that they use to make the bricks are made of bricks. We wanted to see how the VERY FIRST bricks were made but no one could show us that.

Speaking of bricks, here is today’s Dr. P. fun fact. When my parents first started building their house, they knew they wanted a brick exterior. Bricks are not particularly prevalent in Oregon, so they went to Texas to pick them out. I’ve always wondered how many bricks are on our house. Counting them would take an extremely patient person and we all know that is not me. So I asked dad today if he knew the number. His answer… at least 100,000… Boy am I glad I didn’t try to count them ;~>

Post lunch, our afternoon excursion included stops at a French Gothic Cathedral and rice paper and pop rice factories. Dad’s and my boat from the morning was full by the time we made it down to the departure deck, so we hopped on a different boat. It was actually really nice because there were only six of us as opposed to 20 plus on the other boat. This made us a quick and agile group, which I really enjoyed. On the 15-minute ride over to the Cathedral I had a nice chat with another passenger named Carlos.

Carlos used to work for Ely Lily in their research and development. Clearly he is a brilliant man. Sadly he is also afflicted with Parkinson’s disease. He left his work at Lily recently to start a stem cell research company. The nature of what they do is really quite incredible. He is very hopeful about the promise stem cells hold for curing a bunch of different diseases. It would seem that his favorite type of stem cells to harvest are of the umbilical cord variety. I was happy to hear this because there should be an adequate supply of those and acquiring them clearly doesn’t destroy life. His company was started with two other men at IU. It is privately held but if it were a public company I would definitely rate it as a buy.

The Cathedral was kind of entertaining. Many of the statues inside were accented with florescent lights. The statues afforded this special treatment included both Jesus and the Virgin Mary. These lights were mixed with old school beautiful and ornate stained glass windows. This combination cracked me up but I must admit I did enjoy going into a Christian church again (as opposed to a pagoda or mosque).

The best part of the Cathedral was its collection of live monkeys. They had gibbons, orangutans and the other kind of monkey that is naturally all over Vietnam and Cambodia. I am pretty sure that we should have monkeys or other exotic animals at Faith Center. Evidently this church has the monkeys to drive membership (that’s no joke). Parents tell their kids that if they come to church with them, then they can see the monkeys. I think that is brilliant. As a matter of fact, I am going to tell Pastor Steve that we should get some monkeys when I get home.

Next, the small boat took us up a canal to a traditional rice paper making facility. The facility consisted of one very old looking lady who makes rice paper all day. Evidently her output is 700 sheets a day. I tried to make one with her help and was not very successful. It is a very delicate procedure and we all know delicate is not the first word anyone would use to describe me ;~> Dick likened the process to free throw shooting. He was positive that with practice I could become an adequate rice paper maker. I, on the other hand, am not so sure.

The final stop of the day was a pop rice factory. I enjoyed this place. I didn’t know that one could make rice kernels pop like popcorn kernels. The finished product looks a lot like rice puff cereal. We saw the process they use to make a few different flavors. I think the best tasting one was the coconut caramel.

This evening was our last full night on the boat. There was a cocktail hour on the sundeck, followed by dinner in the dining room. The Green’s asked us to eat with them and we accepted. Peter the German also joined us at our table. Dinner on the final night was quite good. The highlight, in terms of food, may have been the tiramisu. I am not sure if somehow Ivan got really lucky and tiramisu was already planned for the menu or if he somehow collected the ingredients to make it especially for Gerald. Regardless it was impressive.

Another highlight of the dinner was the introduction of the entire crew. The service on the boat was nothing short of remarkable. The previous night Sopha had told Nicole and me that there were 23 crewmembers on our ship with us. That works out to a ratio of a little less than two passengers per crewmember. Each one was a model of hard work, professionalism and courtesy. If I could get them a visa to work in America, I would hire each and everyone tomorrow. After dinner we went up to the sundeck for a live performance.

(This was blogged live) Oh my goodness… I wish just one of you could be here to hear what I am currently listening to. It has to be worse than a Japanese game show. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. I believe it is supposed to be “traditional Vietnamese performance”. It is time for new traditions. As Cathy so succinctly and accurately put it, “The musicians look stoned”. They seriously do. There are four gentlemen playing Vietnamese instruments including a flat guitar, performance guitar, violin and banjo. It is truly awful instrumental music only surpassed in horridness by the singing/acting. I WISH I had a video to show you. Cathy snuck over to sit by me and asked how we could get out of this. I said I had “puter”, so I thought I could make it. She felt it might be rude to walk out and that maybe we should do what dad was doing. She described this as fully concentrating on the music. I would call it sleeping. How he can sleep through what sounds like a dying cow, I am not really sure.

The last night on the ship once again concluded with Nicole and me closing the place down. We chatted with Sopha and Vathy well into the night. Vathy is a deck hand and doesn’t speak very good English but he is one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. At around one we called it a night because disembarkation began fairly early the next morning.

Speaking of calling it a night… I need to get some sleep. I’ll write again tomorrow.

Katy :~>