Xin Chao companeros.

I know it has been a while since I updated the blog last. I truly wanted to start making more frequent and by that also smaller posts. But... well, seems my urge to frequently spam you about my Vietnamese daily life could be bigger. Anyways, this is me urging now!

I wrote my last post just before going on a weekend trip to the mountains surrounding Hoi An. More exactly we were going to pay a visit to a Co Tu-village where we were going to spent the night in an indigenous community house. Co To is an ethnic minority group in Viet Nam and frankly one of many. In general ethnic minorities in Viet Nam live in rural areas, mostly making a living by small-scale agricultural production. The degree of absolute poverty is higher among ethnic minorities and in general minorities are pretty marginalized in public discourse where many people (especially in urban areas) in purely social darwinist ways consider their ways of living as 'backward'. Obviously this has called for a movement that emphazises the significance of the specific ethnic identities and tourism is part of this emphasis with an increasing amount of eco-tourism projects that take visitors to visit the villages. Now this was our turn to do just that.

As the proud anthropologist in spe that I am, obviously I have done my best to represent my discipline in the best way while being in Viet Nam and with our seminar leaders telling us to bring our pens and notebooks, I automatically stepped into fieldworker-mode. When I came out to the bus that morning it seemed evident to everyone that the only thing I lacked to look like the pure blood anthropologist was the topee. Being hungover and having only slept for 4 hours were insignificant factors; I was ready!

Now, I could go on to all the interesting findings we made in the village but I probably should restrain myself so that I don't start an ethnography volume altogether. Therefore I will move on with some pictures that will explain a bit:

People in Vietnam are truly friendly; they are so inclined of entertaining us foreigners waiving and saying 'hello' that they sometimes forget to follow traffic.

The Co Tu-community house where we were spenting the night, meeting the village chief, getting stories told and watching (and of course participating in) the indigenous dance of the Co Tu-people.

Me and the village chief in the traditional Co Tu-clothes.

The Co Tu-dance with both men, women and kids participating. I had the chance to personally take part too which you can see from tags on my facebook. Trying half-hatched duck egg. I think the expression in my face tells which kind of experience that was!

In order to maintain some kind of structure I will comment on something my cousin wrote to my last blog. He said that it was incredible how much new food I was trying considering my food-pickiness when I was a kid where my daily diet I usually consisted of something in the manner of leverpostej (pork paté) and white bread. In fact, I think my parents had some worries about what was going to become of me. Well, this is what you have gotten: here in Viet Nam I'm pretty much the first one to try the strange new things whenever we get the chance. The half-hatched egg was proof of that since I tried it without the slightest bit of hesitation in my mind. And to be frank, it wasn't that bad :) On top of the things I have already mentioned I have also gotten gobi fish, sushi chips and big brain since last time. Another 'delicacy' in the Co Tu-community is rat which I sadly didn't get to try since they were out but I think a visit to the north of Viet Nam in the future will probably bring me even more of these experiences. On top of that we have had lectures in sustainable development where one of the issues have been the insustainable global food industry which has really made me reconsider my eating habits. That is why I have taking the radical choice of trying to be a vegetarian for a week. I'm on my second day now, still holding up! People who know me well also know that I throughout my life have been very carnivorous of nature. I'm not excaggerating when I say that I didn't eat fruit and vegetables for the first 15 years of my life. That's why I consider it a very serious challenge to me but I'm confident I will prevail! Especially when you have the veggy spring rolls and tofu that actually tastes of something.

It has come to my mind that I usually write about all the weird things, I am trying, which really doesn't do all the amazing (and rather normal) dishes I have had justice. Therefore I will happily make some advertising for the sweet star food reporter-to-be, Maria, and her food blog: http://mariaeats.blogspot.com/. It is in Norwegian but this doesn't make it less well written. I must warn you though: it will make your mouth water in cascades!

Alright, maybe I should start cutting to the chase. You might wonder about the title of this blog and the term MM. That's how I characterize the traffic here: a motorized mayhem. I have explained this before so I'm going to save you the details. The case is, though, that lately I have taken very much part in MM. I have become one of the motorbiking maniacs of the streets of Viet Nam.

See what I'm talking about? It's hardcore, crazy people driving in the street!

It started with the great idea that we should use our long four-day weekend by doing a guy trip on motorbikes in the Central Vietnamese Highlands. Because while it might be mayhem, motorbiking in Viet Nam is really the best way to see the country. W.I.T.H.O.U.T.A.N.Y.D.O.U.B.T! But it is something you have to do with care which was why we decided to make a pilot test-trip to nearby big city Da Nang last week to visit the nearby Monkey and Marble Mountains. And what a great day trip! We were a bunch of adventerous young people driving our scooters in steep mountain roads. And aside from a couple of breakdowns due to flat back tires we got to see the great view from Monkey Mountain over Da Nang just in time for the sunset and we got to see and drive over the awesome, but also a bit ugly, dragon bridge in Da Nang which supposedly can breath fire!

Topped with a short night swim accompanied by the police and some local officials chasing a guy on the beach, this made a great day and it promised for a great four-day weekend.

We did meet some obstacles, though. About a few days before we were going to start our trip the Vietnamese students started giving their warnings and encouraging us to plan ahead in an extent I had not considering myself. While it was first going to be a trip where we would spontaneously ride into the country, they encouraged us to plan all the cities we wanted to see, getting some knowledge on how to fix a flat tire, we should find ourselves motorbikes with gears for the steep mountain roads, we should get a detailed map and obviously we should be aware of the tigers and elephants that were definitely going to eat us. While this last comment might have had a tiny bit of irony in it, they were probably right about some of the repercussions. So did we follow their advice? While yes, to a certain extent!

We made a plan of which way we wanted to drive and some of the towns where we would probably spent the night. We got a map that was so detailed, it could fit into the handpocket of my shirt. We rented gear for fixing flat tires but didn't really learn how to do it ourselves - we should get in contact with locals one way or another, right? And last we did get a semi-automatic motorbike - but only one out of the four bikes we got. So had we planned ahead? Yes. Had we done it thoroughly? Maybe not altogether. Our traveling philosophy was basically to go by the flow.

So if the alarm clocks are ringing now, it's probably for a good reason. But as you can tell, I survived. In fact, we all did. What is even more surprising is that our motorbikes didn't break down even once! What is more surprising than that is that we didn't get lost at any time. Admitted, we did have one minor crash which happened when we were driving on winding mountain roads in the dark. Obviously, it was not exactly wise to be driving at that hour and it doesn't really help that we probably missed out on some of the greatest scenery we could have seen. But the fact is that even if driving a motorbike in Viet Nam is not the safest decision in the world, you are not going particularly fast. I don't think we even crossed 70 km/h once and we went about 40 most of the time. One has to understand that when I'm talking about motorbikes, I'm mostly talking about what you would characterize as big engine/tuned scooters back in Denmark. And while I was always a nice and dutiful 16 year old kid who obviously never had the slightest intention of tuning my scooter, driving a scooter in Viet Nam has never really been a problem. Not even if I was driving with gears.

And let me just say this: It was one of the best decisions we could have made. That trip took us out in some of the most amazing scenery, I have ever experienced. Going through rice fields to jungle to changing jungle and pine tree forest terrain our eyes were spoiled everyday. Both in areas where I had expected beauty from the traveling descriptions I had read but also in places where we had no idea, it was going to get beautiful. And man, did we get off the beaten track! We went to places where the Easy Riders don't even go and for what reason beats me. Also, as is always expected when doing the unorthodox things, we got into some pretty strange situations that we never could have anticipated. Gaining a crowd while playing cards and playing with local kids at an arcade in Kon Tum are examples of this. Worse examples were probably the food where we had meat that was basically just fat with hair served more than just one time. All of a sudden the common and not altogether exciting Pho Bo's (nuddle soup with beef) were a very appreciated dish.

But I'm blabbering. Have a look for yourselves:

The woman who took this pic probably had some syndrome which I only realized when I gave her my camera. It was certainly the first time in her life she was handling a piece of equipment like that which she expressed in unintelligible grunts. While the picture is not anything particular in itself, we probably gave her an experience of a lifetime!

Nice waterfall; one of the random treats we didn't expect to find. Sun was a random treat as well! In fact, we almost didn't experience rain while driving before we arrived at sea level. This is probably a good thing since we did encounter occasional obstacles in the road made from landslides - while we were driving in the dark (UPS!). There are many pics I didn't take since I forgot my charger for my camera. But all in all I do have the memory of driving through some mindblowing scenery and on winding mountain roads. Driving in areas like these really made you feel alive!

Now I'm back in Hoi An again, back to school again. Our project weeks are approaching and at this point we are about to decide about what and with whom we want to write our group papers. So our daily schedules are changing. It's kind of crazy, by now we have been here for six of the ten weeks. Having a month left seems like so little time and it seems like there are still many things that need to be done. But I'm confident I'll enjoy the last four weeks and I'm definitely going to get the most out of the remaining time. Or at least try!

On that note, I'll finish this post and prepare for bed and another day in this wet wonderland. Until next time...! Thanks for reading :-)