Mekong Delta, Saigon - January 30, 2018

Motorbikes are everywhere in Vietnam, and here is why.

The median wage in Vietnam is $150/month. Of course, the wage depends on location, type of work, position and more. An entry-level person or laborer for example earns far less than a CEO, of course. And remember the city is filled with mostly undocumented farm people who came to the city for a better life and who set up shop on the side of the street selling charcoaled meat-on-a-stick. Still the overall the average income for a Vietnamese person is $150 US dollars a month. Just soak that in for a moment. A motorbike costs generally $1500 - $2000. Some dealers offer payment plans.

Getting a motorbike means one can get around. It means a family member can get a job and go to work each day. It means kids can go to school. It means a family of four can squeeze on and go together to market, or to visit. It means a resourceful young man can haul goods or even hire out as a taxi to move others around the city. As my friend Hoi, (my Vespa driver from the other night), said to me, "If you see a car, that means the owner is rich."

I was looking forward to this excursion to Cai Lay. Really, I was. The town is about two hours out of Ho Chi Minh City.

We left the hotel early and headed southwest. I could not wait to see the promised countryside rice paddies and fruit farms. We drove a long, long way before we saw anything that even remotely appeared to be rural. All the roads for a long, long way out of the city are lined with houses and buildings whose fronts are hidden by roadside shacks and stalls with people making things, repairing things, or selling things like fruit and vegetables, hot soup, souvenirs, clothing - new and used, motorbike parts, drinks and snacks, virtually anything to earn enough for the evening meal. Behind these simple roadside markets are houses. Behind the houses are the fields I so longed to see.

We did see rice paddies, finally, and saw people working in them. Yes, coolie hats are still the important item for protecting people from the sun. We have seen them throughout Vietnam. We saw fields of dragon fruit cactus, and orchards of mango and banana fields.

When we arrived at point near Cai Lay, we boarded a rustic wooden boat and motored slowly up the canal toward the Mekong River. Again, I was looking forward to the farmland along the canal and a glimpse into local river life. The water was muddy, polluted and littered with water hyacinths. The banks of the canal were muddy too and houses along the river were little more than shacks. There were wooden boats with roofed, rough wooden huts in which people live. They work, sleep, cook, wash clothes and raise children. We have observed though whether living in a small house or on boat, there is no escaping the weather and the dirt for many Vietnamese. Yes, there are signs of wealth here, and people tell us there is new opportunity that has arrived through the introduction of capitalism. The vast majority of the Vietnamese population, however, is unbelievably poor. Most people living in America are rich, rich in comparison. In spite of the poverty, there are relatively few beggars. Even the very poor, uneducated people seek their living working in fields, doing manual labor, doing laundry for others, cooking on the streets for others or selling something.

We left the boat and rode bikes for about an hour on narrow lanes through the village of Cai Lay. We passed more affluent-looking two-story but virtually open-air houses with tile floors and simple furnishings. Sometimes we saw colorful chickens free-ranged in the yards looking for bits. When children saw us they waved and yelled "hello!" Kids in crisp school uniforms grinned and yelled, "helloooo" too! What beautiful faces!

We rode our bikes on through town and out to Mr. Tam's fruit farm. Mr. Tam is a tiny war veteran who appeared to weigh maybe 110 pounds and who wore a LA ball cap. He had the brightest and merriest eyes I have ever seen—full of mischief! He has been a farmer all his life and has raised three boys and two girls, and now has 17 grandchildren. On his farm he has mango, durian and jackfruit orchards. He grows pineapple and other exotic fruits like the spiny red and yellow rambutan and rose apples. He served us a sampling of each. The mango was the smoothest, best tasting I have ever had. And the rambuten is peeled like an orange a sweet, round, opaque white fruit is revealed. It has a single seed inside but its flesh is really delicious.

Mr. Tam loved Stan. He and Stan are about the same age served in the military at the same time in this area but on opposing sides. He loved shaking Stan's hand and hugging him. He also got a big kick out of watching us jump as he put a handful of tiny seed pods in a bowl of hot water. They exploded sending tiny seeds and drops of water all over us. He cackled laughing and called them VC bombs.

We road our bikes on to Mrs. Muai's house. Like nearly all our excursions, the purpose in our visits is to get a big dose of native culture, real-people living settings and to taste foods they regularly eat. Mrs. Muai is an 8th generation daughter-in-law to the man who built the big, grand house where she still lives. She is 81 but still slim, erect and beautiful. She too raised children, nine of them, some who live in America now. The house is 135 years old and has original floors and polished wooden walls decorated with family portraits and art. The large open air receiving room has a large center table and seating area where men sit when there are visitors; the women are entertained in an area on the side of the room. The house is in fact grand, but as we went to wash hands we got a view of the kitchen and sleeping quarters. Even in this wonderful house, the living conditions are quite crude. Again, there is no escape from the elements and from dirt.

Mrs. Muir cooked and served us a lunch of traditional foods . . . finely shredded banana flower salad, soup with fish, vegetables and pineapple, whole deep fried red snapper. The fish was beautiful. The locals cook the whole gutted and cleaned fish. They eat the skin with scales on smaller fish. We tried it; it was really not too bad if we managed to keep our minds off the fact that we were in fact eating scales. They are loaded with calcium.

Next, yes, next, she served rice and steaming slices of pork cooked in a small pot served with a small plate of tasty fresh green long beans.

The setting was idyllic. Chickens with baby chicks were in the yard. A pretty child played in the back and watched as a man, perhaps her father, worked on the other side of a creek that ran along the yard.